For a heartbeat, Kai couldn’t move.

The world seemed to tilt — not in the dizzying, stage-light way he was used to, but in that slow, quiet way that happens when everything finally lands exactly where it’s supposed to.

Her words kept echoing, soft but sharp — the dad who keeps the fire going… the safest place in the room… He didn’t know how to hold that kind of love. Not the loud, chasing kind. The kind that came with stillness.

He felt her thumb still tracing his wrist, small, deliberate, grounding.

He breathed out, the sound shaky around the edges. “You know,” he murmured, voice low, a little rough, “for a long time, I thought love only worked if you earned it — if you kept proving yourself worthy of it.”
His hand found her cheek, his thumb brushing just below her eye where the firelight caught a trace of tears. “But then you came in and didn’t ask me to perform. You just… saw me. Stayed anyway.”

He smiled then, small but real — the kind that crept in slowly and stayed.
“I love you too, Lennon Rae,” he said quietly, the words landing steady and certain. “For every reason you listed… and for all the ones I’ll never find the right words for.”

He leaned in, pressing his forehead to hers, the space between them filled with the crackle of the dying fire and Wren’s soft breaths from the tent.

“This,” he whispered, almost to himself. “This is the kind of forever I want to believe in. Not the one that burns too bright and disappears — the one that stays warm. The one that keeps showing up.”

He kissed her again — slower this time, the kind of kiss that carried more gratitude than urgency, more truth than performance.
When they broke apart, he didn’t move far, his thumb still tracing idle lines along her jaw.

“Wren’s gonna wake up tomorrow,” he said with a faint smile, “and see the ashes and think we fought a dragon.”
His laugh was quiet, breathy. “And maybe she’ll be right. Maybe we just did — all the things that try to scare you out of letting someone in.”

He let the words fade, pulled her a little closer, until the only thing left between them was warmth — firelight fading, the hum of the trees, her heartbeat pressed steady against his.

He exhaled, eyes on the stars she and Wren had claimed earlier.
“Guess it’s our turn to keep shining,” he murmured.

And for the first time in a long time, Kai didn’t doubt that they would.

Lennon felt her whole body still — not from shock, but from the kind of quiet that comes when the moment you’ve been afraid to hope for finally becomes real.

She didn’t even try to blink away the tears this time. They weren’t the heavy kind. They were soft — warm, grateful, human.

When he said I love you too, Lennon Rae, she felt it everywhere. Like the words seeped into her skin, filled every space she’d kept hidden. No music, no audience, no build-up — just truth, whispered into the air between them.

Her fingers curled gently around the fabric of his shirt near his chest, grounding herself in the steady rhythm beneath it. The sound of the fire faded into background noise, like the whole world had dimmed just to let this exist.

“You don’t have to earn it,” she said quietly, her voice a whisper against his collarbone. “You already did — just by being you.”

She lifted her head a little, their foreheads still almost touching. “That’s what I’ve always seen, Kai. Not the headlines or the version of you people think they know. Just… this. The man who shows up. The one who doesn’t realize he’s already everything he was trying so hard to become.”

Her voice softened further, trembling a little with what she’d held in for years.
“You probably already know this,” she said, a small, nervous smile ghosting across her lips, “but if you don’t… I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen.”

She laughed quietly, shaking her head at herself. “It wasn’t a crush. It wasn’t some teenage phase I was supposed to outgrow. It was you — it’s always been you.”

Her eyes found his, bright in the flickering firelight. “Back then, I used to wish I could’ve loved you properly. The way I wanted to. Not as part of some PR fairytale or Disney Channel contract or whatever story they were selling about us. But even knowing what it was… even knowing what it wasn’t, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not one single moment.”

She brushed her thumb over his jaw, slow and certain. “Every version of us — the messy, the public, the almosts — it all got us here. Right here.”

Kai’s smile flickered through the firelight, small and awed, and it pulled one from her too.

When he mentioned Wren waking up and thinking they’d fought a dragon, Lennon let out a soft laugh that caught halfway between amusement and tenderness. “She’ll be the first to draw it,” she said, brushing her thumb over his jaw again. “And she’ll make sure it’s got glitter and wings, just so everyone knows we survived something magical.”

Kai’s quiet laugh against her hair made her heart tighten in the best way. She leaned into it, into him, until her head found that spot on his shoulder that already felt like home.

The stars above them shimmered faintly — the same ones Wren had claimed earlier — and Lennon smiled through the quiet, her words half a murmur.

“Then I guess we better keep shining,” she said, echoing him softly. “Even when it gets dark. Especially then.”

She tilted her face up just enough to meet his eyes again, her voice steady now, threaded with the kind of certainty that only came once in a lifetime.

“I’m not going anywhere, Kai. Not from you. Not from her. Whatever comes next — the chaos, the quiet, the dragons — I’m in. All of it.”

Her hand found his again under the blanket, fingers fitting easily back into place. “You keep the fire going,” she whispered, smiling. “I’ll make sure we don’t run out of stars.”

And when she leaned in to kiss him this time, it wasn’t hesitant or careful. It was sure — the kind of kiss that didn’t need promises because it already was one.

When they finally pulled apart, the fire had burned down to embers, the night wrapped close around them. Lennon glanced toward the tent, then back up at the sky, her head still resting against his shoulder.

“Yeah,” she breathed, quiet but certain. “We’re gonna be just fine.”

Kai didn’t answer right away.
He couldn’t.

There were some words that didn’t want an answer — they just wanted to live in the air for a while, to settle in between heartbeats until they became part of you.
And this… this was one of them.

He looked at her — really looked — the way a person does when they’re afraid to blink and lose the moment. The tears in her eyes caught the firelight, soft and glinting, and for a second, it didn’t feel like they were out here in the backyard anymore. It felt bigger than that — like the universe had tilted just a little, just enough to make room for what was finally happening.

Sixteen.
The word hung in his head like a ghost and a prayer all at once.

He let out a shaky laugh, running his thumb along her jaw, tracing the path of her words. “Sixteen, huh?” His voice was barely above a whisper, threaded with disbelief and wonder. “Guess I’m a little late to the party.”

He shook his head, smiling softly. “But if it took all of that — every version, every mess — to get us here, then I wouldn’t change a thing either.”

His thumb lingered against her skin, memorizing the warmth of her there. “You should know something, though. Back then… I always saw you too. Not just the kid with the voice that could stop a room — but the way you laughed when the cameras weren’t on, the way you made everything around you feel lighter without even trying.”

He swallowed, voice softening. “I just didn’t think I was allowed to reach for it. For you.”

Her eyes met his, and the look in them — steady, unflinching — made something in him unclench that he didn’t even realize had been tight for years.

“So yeah,” he murmured, leaning in until his forehead rested against hers again. “Maybe it was always gonna be us. We just needed a few detours to figure out how to show up right.”

The fire was nearly gone now, reduced to glowing coals and the faint scent of smoke. Wren stirred inside the tent, a soft little sigh before the world went quiet again.

Kai smiled into the dark. “You hear that?” he whispered. “That’s the sound of peace. Might be the rarest thing I’ve ever had.”

Lennon’s hand found his again under the blanket, her fingers threading through his like they’d always belonged there.

He turned his head just enough to kiss her temple — slow, reverent — before letting his voice fall low beside her ear. “We’ll keep the fire going,” he said. “And if it ever goes out, we’ll start another. That’s what we do.”

Her promise — I’ll make sure we don’t run out of stars — echoed in him like music.

He smiled, the kind that lived somewhere deep, where love turns into certainty. “You and me, then,” he whispered. “Dragons, chaos, quiet… all of it.”

She nodded against his shoulder, and he pressed another kiss into her hair, breathing her in — smoke, and sweetness, and something that finally felt like home.

Above them, the sky stretched wide and endless, the faint shimmer of their claimed constellation still burning soft and stubborn.

Kai looked up at it one last time before closing his eyes, his hand still wrapped around hers.
“Yeah,” he murmured, barely more than a breath. “We’re gonna be just fine.”

And for once, he didn’t just hope it.
He knew.

Lennon didn’t speak right away.

She couldn’t.

Because everything he’d just said — the way he said it, quiet but steady, like he’d been carrying the words for years and finally found the courage to let them out — hit her straight in the chest.
She felt it in the softest, most fragile parts of her. The parts that had been waiting for this without ever daring to name it.

Her eyes stayed on him for a long moment — on the way the fading firelight painted his jaw in gold and shadow, on the little crease between his brows when he was trying to keep his heart from showing too much. It was useless. She could see every piece of it.

“Sixteen,” she repeated, her voice barely a whisper, a small, trembled laugh escaping. “Yeah… you were kind of late to the party.”

She smiled then, a real one — tired and bright all at once. “But I think I liked the detours. Even the hard ones. They made this feel earned.”

She shifted, just enough to turn toward him fully, their knees brushing beneath the blanket. “I saw you back then too, you know. Not the press version or the kid they told you to be. I saw you. The one who was quieter than people realized. The one who wanted to make everything mean something.”

Her fingers lifted to his collar, tracing the edge of it, like she was learning him all over again. “You didn’t have to reach for me,” she whispered. “I was already there. I just didn’t know how to say it without breaking the illusion they built around us.”

Her voice softened, raw but certain. “And even if it was for the cameras — the songs, the PR, the picture-perfect smiles — it still meant something to me. Every bit of it. Because even in the middle of all that noise, I knew it was real somewhere underneath.”

She paused, eyes flicking briefly toward the tent, where Wren’s soft little sigh drifted through the quiet. The sound made her chest ache in the gentlest way. “And now look at us,” she murmured. “Somehow, we made it back here — older, a little bruised maybe, but… right where we’re supposed to be.”

She reached for his hand again beneath the blanket, threading her fingers through his, her thumb brushing slow circles against his skin. “I don’t know what tomorrow looks like,” she admitted, voice faint but sure. “But I do know that I want to keep showing up. For her. For you. For this.”

When he leaned his forehead against hers, she let her eyes fall closed, her words coming out softer — a confession stitched into the space between them.

“I used to think love had to be fireworks or heartbreak to mean something,” she said. “But this… this is the kind that lasts. The kind you build a life around.”

She tilted her head up just enough to kiss him, slow and steady, like punctuation at the end of a truth she’d been writing for years. When she pulled back, her voice was barely more than breath.

“So, yeah,” she whispered, echoing him with a faint smile. “You and me. Dragons, chaos, quiet — all of it.”

Her thumb brushed the corner of his mouth. “And when the fire burns low, I’ll be right here helping you start another.”

Then she leaned into him again, her head finding that familiar place beneath his chin, her hand still tangled in his. The night wrapped around them like it was listening.

The stars above them shimmered, small and steady — theirs now, undeniably.

And for the first time in her life, she didn’t just hope she was right.
She knew it.

Kai didn’t even try to answer at first.
There wasn’t a word big enough for what she’d just said — or small enough to fit in the space between her breaths.

So he just looked at her.

At the way the firelight curled around her features, soft and gold, catching on the damp shimmer of her lashes. At the way her voice still trembled a little when she said things that mattered — and the way she said them anyway.

She’d always been brave like that.
Even when she didn’t think she was.

His throat tightened as he watched her. Sixteen. Detours. Fireworks and quiet. Every word she’d said stitched something back together inside him that he hadn’t even realized was torn.

When she settled against him again — small, certain, home — he let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in his chest for years.

“Yeah,” he murmured, his voice low, rough-edged from everything it carried. “We made it back.”

He turned his head slightly, letting his lips brush her hairline as he spoke — not for her to hear every word, but to feel it.

“You know what’s funny?” he whispered. “All those years, I thought peace was gonna come when everything slowed down — when the noise stopped, when the lights faded. But it wasn’t that. It was this. You. Me. Her. The small stuff. The kind of quiet that means something because of who’s in it.”

His fingers tightened lightly around hers, just enough to make sure she knew he was holding on.

“I used to write songs about forever,” he said after a beat. “But I don’t think I ever understood what that word meant until now.”

He smiled against her hair — tired, honest, full. “It’s not the perfect moments. It’s the staying. It’s lighting the fire again when it burns out. It’s… starting over, together.”

The last of the flames folded into embers, the air cooling around them. The world was so still it almost didn’t feel real — like even the stars had stopped moving just to listen.

He looked up at them — the ones Wren had claimed as theirs — and for the first time, he didn’t wish on them. He didn’t have to.

Lennon’s hand shifted slightly in his, the smallest movement, but it grounded him like gravity. He turned back to her, pressing a slow, quiet kiss to her temple.

“Guess we’re both right,” he said softly. “We’re gonna be just fine.”

He pulled the blanket a little tighter around them, the gesture instinctive, protective. Wren murmured something in her sleep — a sleepy, mumbled sound that almost made him laugh.

Kai smiled into the dark, his voice barely more than breath.
“Go on, little dragon,” he whispered, his arm tightening around Lennon. “We’ve got you.”

Then, quieter still, just for the woman in his arms:

“And I’ve got you too.”

The night didn’t answer back — it didn’t have to. The fire’s last glow faded, the stars kept shining, and the three of them — tangled in love and quiet and belonging — stayed exactly where they were.

Home.

Lennon squinted at the chaos in front of her — flour-dusted counters, apple peels curling like confetti, the dough refusing to cooperate. She sighed.

“Okay,” she muttered, pressing her hands to her hips. “So, in case it’s not obvious… this is a cry for help.”

She turned toward Kai, who was leaning against the counter, clearly amused. “You can wipe that look off your face. Some of us are trying to impress your mother, not sabotage her kitchen.”

Her voice softened — just a little. “She’s hosting Thanksgiving. I can’t just show up with store-bought pie. She’ll think you’re dating a fraud.”

A small laugh escaped her as she tried to re-roll the dough. “And before you say it — no, I don’t care that she likes me. This is strategic. I’m cementing my position as ‘the girl who brings dessert and doesn’t burn it.’”

She frowned at the dough again. “Except, apparently, I do burn it. Or at least emotionally damage it.”

When he chuckled under his breath, she shot him a mock glare. “Don’t even start, Mercer. You’re the one who said, ‘It’ll be fun, babe — we’ll bake together!’” She held up the mangled crust like evidence. “This is not fun. This is a domestic disaster in real time.”

He reached for one of her mixing bowls, and she leaned forward, catching his wrist. “Wait — before you fix it and make me look worse, at least let me pretend I’m learning something.”

Her tone lightened, teasing again. “You’re too good at this. It’s infuriating. How do you even slice apples that thin? You’ve got producer hands, not baker hands.”

He said something smart — probably something smug — and she rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. “You are so not helping my case with your perfect pie geometry. If your mom sees us together, she’s gonna think I’m the one freeloading off your talent.”

She brushed a bit of flour off her cheek, realizing it only made things worse. “You realize this is how Hallmark movies start, right? The stressed-out overachiever who pretends she’s not terrified to meet the mom — and the guy who pretends not to notice.”

Her words trailed for a second, softer now. “Except… I think yours would actually have a happy ending.”

She reached for the sugar bowl and found it empty. “Wait—did you already use all the sugar? Oh my God.” She laughed, shaking her head. “You’re out here freelancing as a pastry chef while I’m emotionally unraveling over apple ratios.”

She stopped long enough to glance up at him, her smile pulling gentler. “Still,” she said quietly, “I like this. The trying part. Even if I fail spectacularly.”

Then, after a beat — the kind that carried more honesty than she meant to give away:
“Your mom’s important to you. So I want to get it right.”

Her gaze met his — steady this time, unguarded. “Not perfect. Just right.”

The timer beeped faintly in the background, and Lennon exhaled a shaky laugh, brushing flour off her palms. “Alright,” she murmured, voice slipping back to playful. “Moment of truth. If this pie’s edible, you’re telling her I made it. If it’s not…”

She smirked, sliding the oven mitts on. “We’re blaming Wren.”

She bent to open the oven, heat spilling out like applause, the smell of cinnamon and courage filling the room.

Kai bit back a laugh, hard enough that it came out as a strangled cough instead.
He lifted a hand, feigning innocence. “Hey, I didn’t say anything—” he started, but the look Lennon shot him over her shoulder could’ve burned the crust right off the pie.

He grinned anyway. “Okay, okay, first of all… emotional damage to dough isn’t real. I Googled it once during quarantine, and the internet said it’s not diagnosable. So we’re safe there.”

She shot him another look, and he had to press his lips together to keep from smiling outright. “And second, for the record, I didn’t say it’d be fun because I thought you’d enjoy it. I said it’d be fun because watching you narrate your own baking breakdown like a Food Network hostage situation is objectively hilarious.”

He gestured broadly at the counter — the flour cloud hanging in the air, the dough crime scene, the apple massacre. “This is art. Like performance art. You’re Banksy with a rolling pin.”

When she groaned and pointed her rolling pin at him like a weapon, he lifted both hands. “Alright, truce! But you can’t blame me for being good at this. My mom had me peeling apples before I could spell ‘peeling.’”

He reached around her, grabbing the bowl she’d been trying to rescue, and gave the dough a practiced fold. “See, you just gotta be gentle with it,” he said, keeping his tone serious but eyes teasing. “Talk nice to it. Whisper encouraging things. Maybe hum a ballad. I recommend something mid-tempo, emotional bridge.”

She muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like you’re impossible, and he laughed. “Yeah, but you love it.”

He stole a quick glance at her then — the streak of flour across her cheek, the mess of her hair, the focus in her eyes — and damn if his heart didn’t just do that thing again. That ridiculous, unhelpful, completely traitorous thing where it forgot how to keep rhythm.

When she said your mom’s important to you, it landed softer than anything else in the room. He felt it in his chest — the way she meant it, the way she wanted to get it right. He reached out, brushing a bit of flour off her jaw with his thumb before he could stop himself.

“She’s gonna love you,” he said simply, like it was fact — because to him, it was. “You could show up with a burnt Pop-Tart and she’d still tell everyone her son’s dating a goddess who bakes.”

The timer beeped again, and he straightened with mock ceremony. “Moment of truth,” he declared, stepping back like an announcer clearing the stage. “Will the pie rise to glory, or will the ghost of Julia Child haunt us forever? Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.”

When she pulled open the oven, the smell hit him — cinnamon, butter, sugar, and victory (or at least survivable defeat). The crust was… not perfect, but definitely not a disaster. He tilted his head, squinting in exaggerated critique.

“Okay, okay… I’d give it a solid eight out of ten,” he said, pretending to jot something down on an invisible clipboard. “Bonus points for style. Deduct one for emotional trauma sustained by the dough.”

She gave him that look again — the one that meant she was about to either laugh or throw something — and he couldn’t help it. He leaned in, low and conspiratorial. “You know,” he murmured, “if it really does taste bad, we can always tell my mom Wren made it. Everyone loves Wren. She’s the untouchable brand.”

He smirked. “We’ll just say she freelances in pastry arts when she’s not fighting dragons.”

Then, softer — the humor still there, but threaded with warmth — “But, hey… for what it’s worth? You already got it right.”

He nodded toward the pie, then back to her. “You showed up. That’s the part that counts.”

A beat passed, then his grin returned, crooked and smug. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go hide the evidence of the Great Sugar Shortage of 2025 before Wren finds out and files a grievance with Santa.”

He winked, grabbing a towel to wipe his hands — and maybe, just maybe, brushing it playfully across the flour on her cheek before ducking out of reach.

Lennon stilled, rolling pin in hand, eyes narrowing as she slowly turned to face him.
“Oh, you didn’t say anything,” she said, voice deceptively calm. “But you were absolutely thinking it. Loudly. Like—megaphone-level loudly.”

When he started in on the dough’s emotional damage, she let out an incredulous laugh. “You Googled it? During quarantine?” she repeated, shaking her head as she dusted flour off her hands. “That might actually be worse than me stress-baking right now.”

But when he called her a “Food Network hostage,” she lost it completely — pressing a flour-covered hand to her face to smother a laugh. “You’re the worst. You know that, right? The actual worst.”

Then came Banksy with a rolling pin.
Lennon pointed the rolling pin straight at his chest. “You’re really committed to your own death, huh?” she said, but her lips betrayed her, twitching upward. “And for the record, this is called dedication. Not chaos.”

When he mentioned his mom, she softened a little, setting the pin down. “That’s actually kind of sweet,” she admitted. “So this runs in the family, then — the Mercer men and their weirdly competent domestic skills.”

She glanced sideways as he reached around her, his arm brushing hers, and tried to focus on the dough instead of how warm his hand looked against the bowl. “Gentle, huh?” she said, voice dipping somewhere between teasing and self-conscious. “Okay, but if I start serenading the crust, that’s on you.”

At his yeah, but you love it, Lennon gave him a look that could’ve curdled milk — except it didn’t quite land because she was fighting a smile. “Careful,” she warned. “You’re on thin ice, Mercer. One more line like that and I’m putting your smug ass in charge of cleanup duty.”

When his hand brushed her jaw, her breath caught. Just for a second.
“That’s… that’s not fair,” she said quietly, eyes flicking up to his. “You can’t just say stuff like that while I’m trying to impress your mother through pastry.”

And then, because the silence that followed was too charged for her own sanity, she grabbed the oven mitt and announced, “Moment of truth,” like it was a line in a movie.

When he gave his mock critique, she huffed a laugh, shaking her head. “Eight out of ten? Wow, you really do grade like a producer — never a perfect score, just enough to keep me hungry for approval.”

At the mention of blaming Wren, Lennon laughed for real this time — a small, bright sound that filled the kitchen. “Oh, she’d take full credit,” she said. “She’d be like, ‘Miss Lennon was my sous chef, but I did all the magic parts.’”

But when he got serious — you already got it right — her laughter faltered, replaced by something quieter, steadier.
She met his eyes, a soft smile tugging at her mouth. “You really think so?” she asked. “Because I swear, the last time I saw your mom, I had purple streaks in my hair and called her ‘dude.’ I think I’ve got a little PR work to do.”

He just kept looking at her like she didn’t need to fix a damn thing.
That did something to her.

“Okay,” she said finally, exhaling. “Fine. Maybe you’re right. Maybe she’ll like me even if I burn the crust.” A beat. “But if she doesn’t, I’m blaming you for hyping me up.”

When he made his grand exit with that towel, she gasped, feigning outrage as he swiped it across her cheek. “KAI!” she yelled, laughing so hard she nearly dropped the pie plate. “You did not just—okay, that’s it. I’m making you scrub this counter until it shines.”

She chased him halfway to the sink, still laughing, flour now dusting both of them.
“Fine!” she called, leaning against the counter with a grin she couldn’t fight. “Go ahead, run. But if your mom asks who destroyed your kitchen, I’m telling her it was you.”

Then, softer — mostly to herself as she glanced back at the cooling pie —
“…and that it was worth it.”

Kai froze mid-escape, one hand on the faucet, the other holding the towel like a weapon of mass flour destruction.

He turned slowly — mock-serious, eyes narrowed, lips twitching. “You’re threatening a man in his own kitchen,” he said, voice all low gravitas. “You realize that’s a dangerous move, right? We’ve got a code in the Mercer family.”

He walked back toward her, dusted in flour like a ghost of domestic failure. “See, here’s the thing—” he leaned in conspiratorially, lowering his voice as if sharing a generational secret “—the Mercer men only gain their domestic magic once they find their perfect match. It’s genetic. Ancient folklore. Probably written on a casserole dish somewhere.”

He gestured toward the pie cooling on the counter, the crust golden and slightly uneven but undeniably theirs. “So technically, if this thing tastes even half decent, you might’ve just activated my powers.”

He squinted down at the pie with exaggerated intensity. “Can’t confirm until the tasting ceremony, though. Legend says the chosen one has to take the first bite while the other watches dramatically from the shadows.”

Lennon shot him a look over her shoulder — the one that said you’re out of your mind — but he was already grinning, the kind of grin that reached his eyes.

“Oh, don’t give me that face,” he said, smirking. “You’re the one who started this whole ‘strategic dessert diplomacy’ plan. I’m just fulfilling my ancient Mercer destiny.”

When she didn’t immediately respond, he reached past her, stole a tiny piece of crust, and popped it into his mouth. He paused theatrically, hand over his heart. “Oh, yeah,” he said after a long beat. “Yep. Magic officially confirmed. You did it, Lennon Rae. You’ve unlocked the domestic gods. My mom’s gonna build a shrine in your honor out of pie tins.”

He leaned against the counter beside her again, arms crossed, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “You realize what this means, right?” he asked, his tone a perfect blend of mock-gravity and affection. “You can never leave. Mercer family law states you’re now responsible for all future holiday desserts. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Arbor Day… it’s in the fine print.”

She rolled her eyes, but the corners of her mouth betrayed her, and that soft, reluctant smile broke him a little every time.

He bumped her shoulder gently with his. “Hey,” he said, quieter now, still smiling. “Don’t worry so much, alright? My mom’s gonna love you.”

He tilted his head, eyes softening as he looked at her. “She’ll take one look at you — at us — and she’ll get it. She’s gonna see the way you fit here, the way this fits.”

The teasing edge in his voice faded, replaced by something steadier, something that felt like certainty. “You don’t have to prove anything. Not with her. Not with me.”

The pie steamed gently between them, the kitchen smelling like sugar and warmth and whatever the opposite of chaos was.

Kai’s grin returned then, smaller but still bright. “Besides,” he added lightly, “if she doesn’t love you, I’ll just tell her you’re the reason my domestic magic finally kicked in. She’ll take that as fate.”

He bumped her shoulder again, softer this time. “So yeah,” he said, voice low but sure. “We’re good. You’re good.”

And for once, it didn’t sound like reassurance. It sounded like truth.

Lennon blinked at him, a laugh catching somewhere between disbelief and affection. “You’re out of your mind,” she said, turning fully toward him, hands on her hips. “Ancient folklore? On a casserole dish? That’s your big Mercer family legacy?”

She gestured toward the pie with mock solemnity. “Wow. Centuries of domestic greatness, and it all comes down to this slightly lopsided apple pie.”

When he called it a tasting ceremony, she tilted her head, eyes narrowing playfully. “You mean to tell me you’ve turned my panic-baking into a religious experience?” she asked. “Should I light a candle? Say a prayer to Saint Betty Crocker before you take your sacred bite?”

But the corner of her mouth twitched when he leaned in like that — all dramatic and smug and too close for her composure. She swatted at him lightly with the oven mitt. “You’re ridiculous,” she muttered, laughing now, the sound breaking through the warm quiet of the kitchen.

Then he stole a bite of crust, and her jaw dropped. “You did not just—Kai!” she said, reaching to grab the towel from him, but he dodged, grinning around his words. “Unbelievable. You’re supposed to wait for the official presentation!”

Still, when he called it magic, her laugh softened into something smaller, quieter. “Magic, huh?” she said, eyes flicking toward the pie, then back at him. “I think it’s just dumb luck and too much butter.”

But when he started talking about never leaving, about Mercer family law, she just shook her head, smiling to herself. “Oh, right. The fine print,” she said, pretending to sigh. “Guess I should’ve read the terms and conditions before I started dating a Mercer. I didn’t realize ‘mandatory pie duty’ was part of the deal.”

She nudged him with her elbow when he bumped her shoulder, trying not to let how natural it felt show too much. “You know,” she said softly, “you really shouldn’t be this confident about me meeting your mom. I was a teenage disaster the last time she saw me.”

Her tone was teasing, but there was truth there — the old nerves, the memory of their Disney Channel days and all the noise that came with it.

Lennon leaned against the counter beside him, mirroring his stance but letting her voice drop a little. “She always had that look, though. Like she could see straight through the PR version of us. That scared me when I was sixteen.” She smiled faintly. “Now it kinda makes me want to hug her.”

When he said you don’t have to prove anything, she went still for a beat. Her hands stilled on the counter, flour dusting her fingertips.

“I know,” she said quietly. “But I still want her to like me. Not because she’s your mom — because she’s your mom. You talk about her like she’s the one who taught you how to love people right. So, yeah… I guess I just want her to see what you see.”

Her throat tightened, and she tried to shake it off, reaching for humor again. “Also, if she doesn’t, I fully plan to bribe her with dessert. I can weaponize cinnamon like nobody’s business.”

The teasing didn’t quite hide the warmth in her expression when she looked back up at him.

He bumped her shoulder again, gentler this time, and she smiled — small, genuine. “You really believe that, don’t you?” she said softly. “That I fit here.”

She exhaled, glancing at the pie between them. “I think I do too.”

Then, lighter — her grin returning — “But just so you know, if your mom ends up liking the pie more than me, I’m holding you personally responsible. That’s also in the fine print.”