Page 32 of Razor’s Redemption

I take the spoon and stir in circles. Luna nods approvingly.

"You're learning. That's good. Mommy says learning is the most important thing."

"Your mommy's very smart."

"I know. She's the smartest person ever. Except maybe about dinosaurs. I'm smarter about dinosaurs."

"I believe it."

We spend the next hour making cookies, or rather, Luna makes cookies while I follow her increasingly elaborate instructions and Daisy tries not to laugh at how seriously I'm taking this. Luna talks the entire time about dinosaurs, school and her best friend Emma who has a dog named Captain.

When the cookies are finally in the oven, Luna announces she needs to show me her dinosaur books. All of them. Right now.

"Luna, maybe Razor needs a break." Daisy starts.

"No, it's fine," I say quickly. "I want to see them."

Luna's face lights up, and she grabs my hand again. Pulls me toward the living room where she has an entire bookshelf dedicated to dinosaurs. She starts pulling them out one by one, telling me about each period and which dinosaurs lived when.

I sit on the floor because she's too small to reach the top shelf otherwise, and she climbs onto my lap without asking, just settles there like it's the most natural thing in the world and starts reading to me about the Cretaceous period.

Daisy appears in the doorway with two mugs of coffee. Sets one down next to me and just watches us, her expression full of something I'm afraid to name because it looks too much like love.

Luna falls asleep in my lap twenty minutes later, mid-sentence about Velociraptors. Just drops off like someone flipped a switch.

"She does that," Daisy whispers, sitting down next to me. "Gets so excited she exhausts herself."

"She's amazing."

"Yeah. She is." Daisy leans her head on my shoulder. "You're really good with her."

"I was terrified I'd fuck it up."

"I know. But you didn't. You just…You listened to her. Let her be herself. That's all she needed."

We sit there in silence, Luna asleep in my lap, Daisy warm against my side, and I realize this is it. This is what I've been looking for without knowing I was looking for it.

A family.

Not the one I was born into, but the one I chose. The one that chose me back.

"I love you," I say.

Daisy lifts her head to look at me. "What?"

"I love you. I should've said it before, but I was scared. I'm still scared. But I love you, and I love what we're building here, and I want—" I stop, take a breath. "I want this. All of it. You and Luna and coming home to cookie-making and dinosaur books. If you'll have me."

She's crying now, tears streaming down her face. "Are you sure? Because if you're not, if you're going to change your mind…"

"I'm not changing my mind. I've never been surer of anything."

"I love you too," she whispers. "I've been so scared to say it because I thought it was too fast, too much, but I do. I love you."

I kiss her slowly because Luna is sleeping and I don't want to wake her. When I pull back, Daisy is smiling through her tears.

"Stay for dinner?" she asks.

"Yeah. I'll stay."