Epilogue
Alexia
I hear the shouting even before I've closed the car door.
"Maybe I should just come home with you," I say to Aria, who'd insisted on picking me up from the airport.
She'd wanted some girl time, but after the guys wouldn't stop fighting over pick me up so she'd used the excuse that she wanted me to come with her to a wedding dress fitting.
After Marcus said he'd happily come as well, Aria had said, really loudly, that that was great, how nice of him to offer to come into the dressing room and help her change out of her wedding dress, and that she'd feel much safer with him there because she'd be COMPLETELY NAKED.
It had taken Hunter zero point three seconds to leap over the bar and land on top of Marcus, shoving a handful of ice down his shirt and threatening worse if he went anywhere near that dressing room.
We'd just stood there watching them roll around on the floor, knowing the discussion was over.
It's my fourth trip back from Sydney in six months, and I'm building up a routine, somewhat.
At this stage of the fellowship, I do most of the work remotely, trips to Sydney are mostly for touching base with the department head, using the in person for what I can't do online, and staying in touch with the other research fellows on campus.
Between the fellowship and the classes I'm teaching in Adelaide, I'm busier than ever.
And happier than ever.
I'm dragging the suitcase up the driveway, remembering doing the same thing nine months ago, not knowing what was going to be waiting for me at the end of the contract. And I can't help but smile.
Until the sound of shouting and something clattering from inside the house has me flinching. Someone shouts, then something that sounds like a power tool goes off, drowning out the voice.
Well, what's the worst that could be happening? Rhys and Zachary cutting up Marcus's body to bury? Wouldn't be the first time they'd threatened to do that.
I open the front door to the sound of the whirring stopping, but the shouting kicks back up again. I pull the door closed behind me, and all noise stops dead. Except for the sound of someone shushing so loudly it seems to defeat the whole purpose of shushing.
I follow the noise to the kitchen and stop in the doorway.
All three of them are lined up behind the counter in matching aprons, what looks like an entire drum of flour dusted across the kitchen island and no small amount of the floor. They look like a naughty trio being caught red-handed.
It takes me a moment to notice that over their normal attire, they're wearing almost matching aprons that somebody — it's Marcus, we all know it's Marcus — bought specifically for the occasion.
Marcus's says "Chef," Rhys's has "Chef's Bitch" printed on it, and Zachary's says "Chef's Other Bitch.
" Or so I think — the words "Bitch/Other Bitch” on both has been scratched out with marker.
Rhys has added the words “is a dick" and Zachary "can kiss my arse. "
"What," I say, dropping my bag by the door, "is going on?”
Zachary's the one who steps forward, wiping his hands on the apron and leaving two more streaks of flour on it in the process.
"You mentioned a few weeks back, for the anniversary of your dad's passing, you wanted to make his chai banana bread.
Put together a little altar for him." He gestures at the absolute disaster occupying every surface of the kitchen.
“So we thought we'd do a little altar at all of our bars, hand slices out with drinks.
Which means we need a lot of banana bread.
" He gives me a big, proud, beautiful grin.
I look at him, unable to comprehend how thoughtful this is. All the fatigue of the last week just seeps out of my body. And I'm so glad I'm home with my men.
"Leon wrote up the recipe," Rhys adds, holding up a piece of paper already splashed with something brown. "But, well, you might need to check it because…"
"Leon," all four of us say at once.
We love him, but we also know my darling brother. There's every possibility he mixed up salt and sugar on purpose, or just because he thought it was funny. There's really no way to know for sure.
Zachary comes over and takes my bags, pulling my jacket off and throwing it over the chair, giving me a sweet, soft kiss that refuels me as much as it arouses.
He gives me a little wink as he steps back, and already I'm wondering how long this baking is going to take before I can get a proper welcome home.
"Sit down, baby, you don't have to do a single thing," Marcus says, already reaching for a mixing bowl like it's a personal challenge, "except show us how, and then get out of the way and let the professionals work."
I look at the three of them, at the flour, at the aprons, at the absolute earnestness on their faces, and wonder how I could've gotten so lucky.
It goes haywire almost immediately.
Zachary is, it turns out, catastrophically bad at baking. Not ha-ha his cake might come out a little dense, more like the kind of bad that makes me genuinely worry about how he's survived to adulthood.
How did he ever learn to make such delicious cocktails? It takes him about six tries before he's able to crack his first egg, and even then he somehow manages to get shell, yolk, and a worrying amount of his own sleeve into the bowl.
His second attempt goes better and he gets all the way to adding the dry ingredients, which is when he loses his grip on the whole thing and it drops straight into the flour, exploding in a small white cloud that coats him from head to toe.
"I don't understand," he says, staring down at himself, genuinely bewildered, looking like the Michelin man, flour settling on his eyebrows like snow, "how any of you do this on purpose. For fun."
“It’s because you're doing it wrong," Marcus says, not even looking up from his own bowl.
Zachary growls, "I'm aware I'm doing it wrong, Marcus, thank you."
"Hey," I say, and wrap my arms around him from behind.
"You're doing fine." I kiss him on the neck, breathing in his scent mixed with cinnamon and flour.
He pulls me closer and turns his head to give me a kiss that seems to calm him.
I help him get the rest of the ingredients into the bowl, then, with both hands over his on the whisk, help guide the motion slower, steadier.
"Like this. Gently, and with your wrist. You're not arm wrestling it. "
"Oh." He goes very still under my hands, all the flustered chaos draining out of him at once. "Oh, that's — yeah. Okay. I can do that."
"Of course you can," I whisper, hugging him from behind, loving the feel of his body against me.
"Hang on," Marcus says, from across the island. "Why does he get the hands-on tutorial?"
I roll my eyes. "Because he's having trouble with his eggs and I was worried he was going to cause someone grievous bodily harm with his whisk."
Zachary pokes his tongue out at Marcus but keeps stirring, somehow managing to keep the bulk of the ingredients in the bowl... but not all of it.
Marcus puts his hands on his hips and pouts. "I could be dangerous with a whisk. Nobody's given me the chance. And eggs are hard for me too!"
“I just watched you crack four with one hand and not spill a drop or have to fish out a single piece of shell. You don't need help."
He stands there for a moment, staring, as I help Zachary add a pinch of salt and wipe down the bowl.
Then he sighs dramatically and flops onto the kitchen bench, head in his hands.
"This is soooooooooooo hard. I think I need some help.
" He looks up at me with big pleading eyes.
“Moral support. That's a kind of help." Then he straightens up, abandoning his own bowl, wiping his hands down his apron as he crosses the kitchen to us.
"Please come over there, I need you to watch me fold in the mix. "
I lean over. "There's nothing to fold yet, you haven't creamed the butter."
He blinks and looks down at Zachary's recipe sheet, which Zachary snatches away and hides behind his back.
"Fine. Then come supervise the creaming. What if I do it wrong and waste all the butter?"
I roll my eyes and whisper some more encouragement to Zachary, who gives me another flour-puff kiss on my cheek before I leave.
"Go on then," I say, and let Marcus lead me back to his section of the bench. He pushes me against it, grinding against me as he tucks his face into my shoulder from behind, his arms coming up around me, one hand grabbing his bowl.
"It's better if you watch up close, babygirl," he murmurs against my ear, then drags his tongue down my neck. I shiver and press back against him, feeling his hardness against me. "Do you like my creaming technique?" he asks, as I let out a little moan, one hand sliding down to graze my thigh.
"No one is going to want to eat your porny banana bread, bro," Rhys says from his end of the counter without even looking up.
"Shut up, it's going to be delicious, just you see," Marcus calls over, forgetting all about me and focusing on whisking the butter into a pale consistency, face all furrowed in concentration.
Rhys comes over, pushes Marcus out of the way, and in one movement hauls me over his shoulder to carry me back to his station.
"Rhys!" I shout, unable to look away from the unique view I have of his arse.
He lowers me onto the bench which, unlike the rest of the kitchen, is pristine — the only place I could sit without an arsecheek full of flour.
He braces his hands on either side of me as I wrap my legs around him, my arms around his neck, as he kisses me deep, his tongue soft and warm in my mouth, and I'm glad I'm sitting.