25. Talia
Talia
“Wait—no, that’s not right.”
Flynn hovers over the kitchen table, marker uncapped in his hand, his tongue pressed to the corner of his mouth in concentration as he stares down at the small white tag in front of him. I pause in the doorway, my bag still hanging off my shoulder, and watch him for a second before stepping inside.
“What’s not right?” I ask, setting my keys down on the counter.
He doesn’t look up. “My name,” he says, like that should explain everything.
Declan is already there, leaning one hip against the edge of the table, his sleeves rolled up in that way he never seems to think about, his attention fixed entirely on Flynn like nothing else exists in the room.
He glances at me briefly when I come in, something quiet passing between us in that look before his focus goes back just as easily.
“What about it?” he asks.
Flynn taps the tag with the end of the marker. “It only has one,” he says. “That’s not all of it.”
Declan straightens slightly, stepping closer to the table. “Show me.”
Flynn turns the tag toward him, the letters already written in careful, uneven strokes across the plastic.
Flynn Wynn. He’s taken his time with it.
Each letter is deliberate and slightly too big, the spacing inconsistent in that way that comes from trying to make it perfect instead of just writing it.
“It’s missing,” Flynn says, more firmly now. “The other one.”
Declan doesn’t correct him or rush to explain; he just nods once, like this is a question worth answering properly.
“Okay,” he says. “Then we fix it.”
Something in my chest tightens before I can stop it. It’s such a small thing. A backpack tag. A name written in marker on a piece of plastic that will probably get scuffed and scratched within a week of school starting again. It shouldn’t matter, but it does.
Flynn wiggles in his seat, scooting closer to the table as Declan pulls out the chair beside him and sits down, not across from him, not directing from a distance, but right there next to him like this is something they’re doing together.
“How do I fit it?” Flynn asks, holding up the marker again. “There’s not enough room.”
Declan takes the tag, turning it slightly, studying it like it’s something more complicated than it is. “There’s enough,” he says after a second. “We just have to do it differently.”
He reaches for another tag from the small pile on the table. Extras I’d picked up without thinking, because I always pick up extras, and sets it down in front of Flynn.
“Try again,” he says, sliding it toward him. “Start here.”
Flynn leans in immediately, his attention snapping back into place, the earlier frustration gone as quickly as it came. “Okay,” he says, nodding to himself.
Declan doesn’t take the marker from him, and he doesn’t write it out himself. He just moves closer, his arm brushing lightly against Flynn’s as he points to the edge of the tag. “You can make the letters smaller,” he says. “Or stack them.”
“Stack them?” Flynn echoes.
“Yeah,” Declan says, his voice steady and patient in a way that still catches me off guard sometimes. “Like this.”
He takes a scrap of paper from the table and another marker and writes it out quickly. It’s not neat or perfect, just enough to show the idea. Flynn watches like it’s the most important thing he’s ever seen.
“Okay,” he says again, more certain this time.
Flynn starts writing, slower now, more careful, adjusting the size of each letter as he goes. Declan doesn’t hover. He stays close, his hand resting lightly on the table near Flynn’s, stepping in only when Flynn hesitates, guiding him without taking over.
I don’t realize I’ve stopped moving until I feel the edge of the counter against my hip, and I stay there, watching.
Flynn presses the marker down a little too hard on one of the letters, the ink bleeding slightly at the edges. “Oops,” he mutters.
“It’s fine,” Declan says immediately. “Keep going.”
Flynn does. Letter by letter, uneven and slightly crooked, but determined, until the full name stretches across the tag in a way that shouldn’t work and somehow does anyway.
He leans back when he’s done, lifting it up like he needs to see it from a different angle to be sure. “Does that look right?”
Declan looks at it, really looks, not glossing over it, and not giving an automatic answer.
“It looks exactly right,” he says.
Flynn grins, and something in my chest catches sharp enough to make me still, because it isn’t just the name. It’s the way Declan sits beside him, guiding without taking over, letting him get it wrong and fix it, letting it stay messy and uneven without correcting it into something else.
Flynn doesn’t question it or hesitate. He just accepts it, like it’s always been this way.
For years, this was something I only let myself imagine in pieces, a moment here, a possibility there, never the full picture, never something I let myself hold onto long enough to feel real.
Now it’s right in front of me. Messy. Uneven. Real.
Flynn turns the tag over in his hands, studying it like he’s looking for something he missed, his brow furrowed in concentration before he looks up again.
“Can I put both?” he asks, holding it out toward Declan like he already knows the answer but wants to hear it anyway. “On the real one?”
Declan doesn’t hesitate.
“Yeah,” he says easily. “You can put both.”
Flynn nods once, satisfied, like that settles something important, and reaches for another tag from the table, already uncapping the marker again before the first one has fully dried.
“What do I write?” he asks.
Declan shifts his chair slightly closer, not crowding him, just enough to see what Flynn is doing without taking over. “Start with your first name,” he says, his tone steady, the same quiet patience he’s carried through the whole thing. “Then your last names.”
Flynn pauses, the marker hovering over the blank space. “Both of them?”
“Both of them,” Declan repeats.
There’s no weight in the way he says it, no hesitation, just certainty.
Flynn nods again, more firmly this time, and starts writing, slower now, sounding out the letters under his breath as he goes. The marker squeaks faintly against the plastic, the lines uneven but careful. Each letter placed with more intention than the last.
Declan stays beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touch, his attention fixed entirely on what Flynn is doing.
He doesn’t correct him when a letter leans too far to the left or when the spacing tightens near the end.
He just watches. Stepping in only when Flynn pauses too long, offering a quiet prompt before letting him continue.
“Wynn,” Flynn murmurs, finishing the second name before lifting the marker again. “And then…”
He hesitates for just a second, and Declan doesn’t rush it.
“Ward,” he says after a moment, not filling the space so much as holding it steady until Flynn is ready to move through it.
Flynn nods and writes it out, each letter slightly smaller than the last as he tries to make it fit, his tongue pressing against the corner of his mouth again in concentration.
I feel it before I understand it. That quiet, almost imperceptible catch somewhere in my chest as the letters come together in a way that shouldn’t feel like anything more than a name on a piece of plastic.
Flynn Wynn Ward looks uneven, crowded, a little off-center, and somehow exactly right.
Declan glances up then, like he feels it too.
His eyes find mine across the table for just a second before shifting back to Flynn.
But the look lingers, not long enough to draw attention, but long enough that I don’t miss it.
Flynn caps the marker with a small, decisive click, holding the tag up between us like it’s something worth showing off.
“Done,” he says.
Declan smiles. It’s not the easy one he gives in meetings or the sharper one he uses when he’s negotiating something he’s already decided he’s going to win.
It’s quieter than that, steadier, like this, right here, is enough.
“Looks good,” he says.
Flynn grins again, wider this time, and hops down from the chair, already moving on before the moment has time to catch up to him. I don’t move. Something about the way that name looks in his small, uneven handwriting holds me there.
For years, I told myself I didn’t need this. Didn’t need the version of my life that included him, that depended on something more than the choices I could control. I told myself it was easier that way.
Standing here now, watching Flynn carry that tag across the room like it’s nothing more than the next thing he’s excited about, I feel how wrong that was, and I don’t step around it.
This isn’t simple, and it isn’t clean, and it doesn’t fit into the version of my life I built without him.
It’s better than that. Somehow, that’s the part that makes it harder to breathe.
I don’t realize I’ve moved until I’m closer to the table, my hand resting lightly against the back of the chair Flynn just vacated, my focus still on the tag he left behind.
Declan notices.
His gaze lifts to me, not sharp or searching. Just aware in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s asking for anything. For a second, neither of us says anything, the space between us settling into something quieter than it was a moment ago, something that doesn’t need to be filled.
Flynn darts past us, already onto the next thing, his energy spilling into the room in a way that leaves the rest of us behind. “I’m putting it on now,” he announces, disappearing down the hallway before either of us can answer.
The sound of his footsteps fades, the room stilling as Declan’s attention stays on me, not pulling away.
Just there, and something in my chest tightens again.
Not sharp this time, and not overwhelming.
Just enough to remind me that this, whatever this is, has settled into something real whether I’m ready for it or not.
“Seems we’re a package deal,” he says.
It’s quiet and almost casual, like he’s commenting on something obvious instead of saying something that shifts the ground under my feet all over again.
I let out a breath that doesn’t feel steady. “Seems that way.”
My voice sounds softer than I expect, like it’s still catching up to everything that’s already happened.
He doesn’t look away. And there’s a beat, small, almost nothing, and then his hand moves. They slip into the inside pocket of his jacket in a motion that’s so familiar it takes me a second to realize what’s different about it.
He doesn’t hesitate or overthink it. He just reaches in and pulls out a small box, setting it on the table between us like it’s been waiting there. Like it’s been waiting for this moment instead of being introduced into it.
My breath catches. Not because I didn’t see it coming. Because I did, somewhere between the bridge and now, somewhere between the way he stayed and the way he didn’t pull away, I knew this was where we were headed.
That doesn’t make it any less overwhelming.
“Declan…”
I don’t know what I’m about to say, whether it’s a question, a warning, or something that slows this down long enough for me to catch up to it.
He doesn’t give me the chance. He doesn’t rush or interrupt.
Just holds my gaze steady enough that whatever I was about to say doesn’t feel necessary anymore.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says quietly. “Not from you. Not from him.”
The words melt my heart as he flips the box open.
The ring catches the light from the window, nothing overdone, nothing that feels like it belongs to a different version of this moment.
It’s simple. It’s intentional and real, like everything else about this, and I laugh before I can stop myself.
It just happens, the sound breaking through the tightness in my chest before I can stop it, the edge of it catching somewhere between disbelief and something that feels dangerously close to relief.
“This is real,” I say. The words come out uneven, but I don’t take them back.
His mouth curves, not into something sharp or practiced, just something that feels like him. There’s nothing practiced about it.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I’m here. This is real.”