I hesitate, because it feels almost too simple to say.
“To our future.”
That earns me silence.
Not awkward.
Attentive.
Sol moves back to the table and sits beside me this time instead of at the head. His thigh presses to mine. Kai’s arm drapes along the back of my chair. Koa’s foot nudges lightly against mine under the table. Finn reaches for the bottle of wine and refills my glass before I can ask.
No one announces it.
But we close in.
Five points drawing together. By choice.
I look at each of them in turn.
Kai – bright and reckless and somehow softer now that he doesn’t have to pretend he’s untouchable.
Koa – steady, grounded, the quiet centre that holds when everything else tilts, but the one who’s slowly coming into his own now that he’s not having to compete with his twin.
Finn – composed, controlled, powerful in ways that don’t need announcing, and so much more than his father ever gave him credit for.
Sol – solid, deliberate, building something tangible out of hope but finally willing to work with someone rather than insisting on going it alone.
They aren’t circling me like prey. They’re sitting with me. Planning. Existing.
Choosing.
A month or so ago I thought something in me was broken. Misfiring. Too much. Too strange. I thought maybe I needed curing. Fixing. Explaining.
I don’t. I don’t need curing. I don’t need fixing. I just needed them.
My pack.
The realisation doesn’t arrive like thunder. It settles. Soft. Calm. Certain.
Sol reaches for my hand under the table and threads his fingers through mine as Kai presses a lazy kiss to my hair. Koa sends me a soft look that makes me flush and Finn blows me a kiss from the other side of the table..
Outside, the tide rolls in slow and steady.
Inside, so do we.
And for the first time in my life, I am not bracing for loss.
I am home.
EPILOGUE
3 YEARS LATER
LANI
The tide islow when I paddle out.
The water folds around the board in slow, glassy ripples, late-summer sun warming the back of my neck. It’s cool but not biting – that perfect in-between temperature where your body adjusts quickly and then forgets the cold entirely.