Brittanis Buttkicking Brigade
“We need a game plan,” Jade said, waiting as I helped Lucy into her seat.
“I need Jesus at this point,” I muttered. “Did you see that list? There’s no way I’m getting that done by Friday, at 5:00pm. I can’t miss work, either, I just started.”
“No, no, no, we’re getting this done.” Jade dropped into the driver’s seat with a determination that was unmatched. “What are your work hours this week?”
“I’m off at 3:00 to get the kids, but next week, I think I’m supposed to head back in after that and keep working till closing.”
“Does that mean we get to be home alone?” Dylan asked, perking up.
“Not on your life.”
“Aw, why not?” Lucy said, pouting.
“For starters,” I said, looking over my shoulder, “you’re five years old, and the last time I stepped out of the house, you tried to cook bread on the stove.”
“Innovative,” Jade said slowly.
“There was no pan. She placed a slice of bread on the burner, disabled my child lock apparatus, and then let the burner sit there clicking away, releasing gas into the apartment.”
“Right,” Jade said immediately. “No such luck on that staying home alone thing.”
“Awwww, Mom, I won’t cook bread again,” Lucy pleaded. “I’m a big girl! I can be home alone!”
“No dice,” I said flatly.
“You just don’t trust us,” Collin muttered.
“Should I bring up that one time I tried to take some paperwork out to a coworker at the curb, and you two decided to open all the windows and stick your-“
“NEVERMIND!” The twins shouted in mutual panic.
“That is exactly what I thought,” I said, smirking. “So. Next week, you guys’ll be coming with me to work and doing your homework there. We can talk about bringing a game console with you for something to do.”
“Great,” Collin and Dylan groaned.
“Right, so back to the plan,” Jade said, “this works out. So we’ve got six pies, right?”
“Pecan, apple, cherry, pumpkin, key lime, and… banana cream.”
“Yikes. Okay, some of those are tricky. What else?”
“Chocolate chip cookies, gluten free oatmeal cookies, and… you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
“She wants macarons.”
Jade muttered under her breath, looking irritable. “She’s setting you up for failure at this point. And the cakes?”
“Vanilla, red velvet, chocolate, and carrot cake.”
“Mom,” Collin said, apparently forgetting his grumpiness with me. “Is all of that… are you going to be able to pull this off?”
“Laid out like that, it’s a bit intimidating,” Jade admitted. “I need to double check, but the only recipe I’ve ever followed for macarons- which I’ve failed at making, by the way-“
“I remember that video!” Dylan said excitedly. “Are we going to film this?”
Jade snorted. “You know what, maybe. It’s so insane, we might have to. It recommends ‘aging’ the egg whites for like 24 hours, and we’re going to need to be really exact. I swear macarons are super fragile.”
“Great,” I moaned, smacking the papers against my forehead.
“I don’t suppose you have any fancy recipes you might want to just… throw in there, just to pis- I mean, make her mad?”
I thought about it. “I made Turkish Delights, once.”
We’d pulled up to our house now, but Jade paused in parking to stare at me. “Turkish Delights? Aren’t those super complicated, too? You need like a whole candy thermometer for that.”
“It was for a project Collin had,” I said, turning slightly pink.
“Oh! I remember that,” Collin said suddenly, perking up. “I chose The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe for a book report. It’s got that whole bit where one of the characters eats magically cursed Turkish Delights, and he gets put under a spell where he’ll do anything the evil lady asks him to do. My teacher didn’t like mom, so she was all weird about it.”
“She thought I missed a PTA meeting on purpose,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “If I’d left work, I’d have lost my job, and the school’s stupid little meeting over a total misunderstanding wasn’t important enough for me to risk that.”
“Wait, what was the meeting about?”
“He put one of those chocolate cakes with white icing inside on his teacher’s chair when she wasn’t looking,” Dylan said, snickering.
“Anyway,” I said loudly, “the point is, she got all weird about his project, so I figured we needed to do something extra to make sure she didn’t, I dunno, flunk him on purpose or something.”
“And did he pass?”
“She said it wasn’t possible that I had made the Turkish Delights because I was only eight years old, so Mom had to have made them, which meant it wasn’t my project,” Collin grumbled. “I got an F, until Mom raised hell.”
“I had video footage of him doing every single step,” I said, smirking in spite of myself. “She didn’t need to know that every single shot was mostly staged, because it was still pretty much me doing all of the cooking.”
Jade snorted. “Well, we can try making some of those, if we… magically have time. Or the macarons fail.”
“I like macarons,” Lucy said wistfully. “If we make some, can I have one?”
“If we can successfully throw together a batch of macarons in one sitting, honey, we’ll absolutely give you some,” Jade said seriously. “For now, I need to make a game plan. We’re going to need backup.”
----
“Backup” apparently consisted of Ivy, Aegis, and Paul, all three of whom were far too happy to take part.
Jade took off to gather the troops for a few hours, and I managed to get everyone settled into some semblance of our old routine, albeit in a much happier, larger space. As I sat at the kitchen counter, watching them lounge about the living room in the afternoon light, I had the sudden pricklings of this soft, contented feeling.
This was home.
Jade arrived with her army with all the pride of a conquering hero. She led the way inside with Ivy hot on her heels, nearly vibrating with excitement, and Paul almost as giddy as her. Aegis followed after, looking tired.
“Did you manage things all right with Lawrence?” I asked, getting up to pour some mugs of hot chocolate. It felt like one of those kinds of nights.
“I think so,” he said, grunting as he rolled out his shoulders. “He mostly accepted my diagnosis. I think a part of him knew he’d screwed up his car and this was all his fault, and he was probably just grateful I wasn’t mentioning it.”
“Or he thought you hadn’t noticed,” Ivy snorted. “He’s got such a low opinion of you, it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“We’re not here to talk about Lawrence,” Paul complained. He was so big, he filled up nearly my entire kitchen, which I’d originally thought was pretty dang big. Lucy was staring at him in total awe from the living room, where the twins were now gaming… though Collin continued to sneak peaks in their direction. We now had three grown werewolves in our house; I could imagine his curiosity mounting.
“True,” Ivy said, clapping her hands together. “The Baker’s Brigade’s first meeting is officially on!”
“Baker’s Brigade?” I asked, confused.
“She had a different title that wasn’t so appropriate for the kids,” Jade said quietly. “I made her change it.”
“Something like ‘The Brittani Buttkicking Brigade’,” Ivy said, snickering.
“Oh, hell yeah, that’s the secret title,” Paul said, his grin broadening.
“We don’t need a title, we need a miracle,” I said, trying to keep serious as I passed out the hot chocolate. Laughter was threatening to bubble up and dissolve my concern. “I have one oven, and thirteen baked goods to deliver.”
“Okay, hear me out,” Ivy said. “I’ve got an air fryer. I’ve used it to make chocolate chip cookies before, and they were amazing.”
“Okay, and the cakes?” I said, raising my eyebrows. “We have six pies and five cakes.”
“We can start at least a day in advance,” Paul said. “I’ve got three fridges.”
We all stared at him. “You have… three fridges?” Aegis asked, looking shocked. “Why have I never seen these other fridges?”
“No, I have three extra fridges,” Paul explained. “Sometimes when I meal plan, I go a little crazy, so I stock up on a ton of stuff and I need extra space for it.”
“Human black hole,” Ivy muttered, staring at him in disbelief. “I always wondered where the hell it all went.”
Paul kissed his biceps. “All in the muscle, baby.”
“And where are these extra fridges?” Aegis said, still looking confused. “I’m at your place all the time. Where the hell are you keeping these fridges?”
“The garage, dude,” Paul said, as if this were obvious. “And one at the Auto Repair.”
“That’s your fridge?”
“Yeah, man. I figured the Auto Repair could make use of it, you know? I replaced my main fridge with a bigger unit, so the last of the three wasn’t getting any use.”
“I feel… so confused right now,” Jade said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Let’s just all accept as fact that Paul has four fridges total, and that’s not weird at all, so we can use three of the fridges to store the pies and the cakes.”
Aegis looked like he wanted more information, but he swallowed it down and shook his head. “First you hide a monster truck from me, and then it’s the fact that you have four fridges.”
“You get a little distracted sometimes,” Paul said, suddenly snickering. “Especially when a certain topic comes up. You miss a lot, these days.”
Aegis shot him a particularly intense glare. “We’ll gather here and put everything together, then?”
“I’ve also got a toaster oven,” Jade said. “I can bring that by. Ivy’s air fryer, my toaster oven, and the regular oven; we’ve totally got this.”
None of us looked like we were totally convinced.
We quickly chose the recipes we wanted to go with for each item required. We tried to pick the simplest ones, but some of the steps were very exacting and stressful.
“Mama, I wanna help cook,” Lucy said, coming to sit in my lap while we organized our shopping lists.
“You can absolutely help me cook,” I said, kissing her cheek. “I need someone who’s really, really good at stirring.”
“Ooo, I can do that!”
I laughed, but as I looked up, I realized Aegis was watching me. I was startled, because his expression was… oddly soft. I’d never seen such a look on him before.
He seemed to realized, because he quickly straightened and turned back to my laptop, which we were all pouring over.
“Remind me to get you a new laptop for Christmas,” Jade muttered, staring in mounting frustration at my poor, ancient laptop. “This thing went out of fashion like four years ago.”
“And the screen is falling off,” Ivy said, wincing when the screen tilted slightly. She gingerly pushed it back on.
“You’re all just too soft,” I scoffed. “Look at you, with your fancy technology. I’ve got the patience to handle a classic beauty like this old guy.” I patted one part of the laptop, and several of the keycaps popped off with an unceremonious cracking sound.
Aegis raised his eyebrows at me.
“Look, it’s either the car first, or the laptop,” I said, deadpan. “It opens up all my office software, so for now, it works just fine.”
“As long as you don’t have one of those spicy pillows,” Ivy said, looking nervously at the side of my laptop. “I feel like your keyboard’s starting to… you know… lift a bit.”
“What’s a spicy pillow?” Dylan asked. Apparently bored, he’d now come over to join the group.
“It’s a battery that can literally blow up in your face,” Jade said, quite serious. “I think that is an expanding battery, Sylvia.”
“Look, let’s just get this done, and then we can talk about my electronics,” I said quickly. “It’ll do for now.”
“Well, I’ve got the lists all created,” Ivy said dubiously, passing around papers to all of us. “I’ve tried to make things as fair as possible. Jade, you’ve got the nicest equipment out of all of us thanks to your social media money, so you get the macarons... but I did also give you pumpkin pie, because you can kind of cheat with that.”
“Alas,” Jade said with a sigh. “My old nemesis. I’ll ask my community for some tips.”
“Can I help Jade?” Dylan asked quickly.
“Only if you’re not in her way.”
“I need all the help I can get,” Jade said, chuckling when Dylan pumped the air in elation.
“Who do you want to help, Collin?” I asked, turning to him.
Collin hesitated, eyes darting around the group.
“I need a good, steady hand,” Aegis said, scanning his page. “I’ll take Collin. Ivy gave me the gluten free oatmeal cookies, and I… don’t know what that means.”
Collin snorted. “You think I do?”
“No, but if we stick together, we can pretend we do.”
Collin laughed in surprise at that, and I saw him relax.
“I didn’t get a list,” Paul complained. “Where’s my list?”
“You’re with me,” Ivy said, pointing at him. “Everyone else has a partner, and I don’t. Besides, I know you’re good with machines, but you… can’t cook beyond a barely seasoned steak to save your life, Paul.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then shrugged and grinned. “Guilty as charged.”
“Excellent.” Ivy pushed up and beamed at us all. “Brittani wants all this done? It shouldn’t matter how Sylvia gets it done. She’s never been alone before, and she’s not alone now. Right, gang?”
I felt a surprised warmth in my chest at those words, especially when everyone grinned and nodded.
“Oh, oh, oh,” Jade said suddenly, brightening. “Come on, can we do one of those ‘all hands in’ things?”
“Oh, please, no,” Ivy said, groaning. “Come on, that’s too corny.”
“No, come on, pleeeeeease? I’ve always wanted to do that!”
“What are we doing?” Aegis asked.
I mimed putting my hand out in front of me. “She wants us to do that thing where we all put our hands in, and then shout something, and then throw our hands up in the air.” I mimed throwing my hand up.
“Oh, for- Jade,” Aegis said, looking pained. “Come on.”
“Pleeeeease?” She begged, pulling an unbelievably accurate puppy dog expression.
"I'll do it," Dylan said immediately. Collin snorted and rolled his eyes, but said nothing.
“I wanna do it!” Lucy said eagerly, leaning forward. “I’ll do it!”
“Oh, why not,” I said, feeling strangely optimistic. “Come on, Jade. I’ll do it.”
Begrudgingly, the others all added their hands on top of Jade’s.
“On three,” Jade said excitedly. “We shout ‘Brittani Buttkicking Brigade’!”
“This is not Alpha behavior,” Aegis complained.
“One!”
“Is it too late to back out?” Ivy grumbled.
“Two!”
“Can I eat one of the cakes if we have time to make another one?” Paul asked thoughtfully.
“Three!”
A very awkward and embarrassed “Brittani’s Buttkicking Brigade” went around the table, and then Jade burst into laughter, nearly falling out of her chair in the process.
“Well, that was… something,” Aegis muttered. “Come on. It’s getting late. The kids are going to need to sleep.”
“Everyone, go get started on your bed time routines,” I said, and Lucy took off screaming down the hall way.
“I got it,” Aegis said, winking at me before turning and following after her. “Here comes the big bad wolf!”
“No way!” Lucy squealed. “I ain't gonna brush my teeth!”
“Good! Big bad wolves eat gross, unwashed teeth, and little kids who use words like 'ain't'!”
“NOOOOOO!”
“Better go get mine cleaned, then,” Collin said, raising his eyebrows at me.
I laughed, relieved that we were at least able to joke around. “Good idea.”
“I’m going to get a head start on going over these recipes,” Ivy said, pushing off the counter. “I’ll come by tomorrow to say hi, Sylvie.” She grinned. “We’ll get this done, no problem.”
“Yeah,” Paul said, grinning. “We got this.”
They left one by one, and I knew it had to be on purpose, because they very pointedly left me nearly alone with Aegis.
He chased Lucy around the house until I finally got her into her pajamas. The boys were a lot easier- they were hitting that age of “I’m too old for that”- and they quickly retired to their rooms.
That, or they were in on it, but I didn’t think my eleven year old boys- one of which was going through puberty on the hardest difficulty available- had the ability to plan something that didn't immediately benefit them in some way. Not that was their fault; they were just pre-teens, after all.
I followed Aegis out onto the front porch, wishing I had a couch to collapse onto. The air was brisk and chilly, and I pulled my jacket around me, glad I’d been able to get it.
“Well,” Aegis said, rubbing the back of his neck and grinning at me. “I always wondered what it’d be like, being a parent.”
“Blows me away that you’re not one. You’d make the greatest Dad, I’m utterly convinced.”
He paused. “You think so?”
“Yeah.” I leaned against the door, trying very hard to keep my brain on a leash. “When you find your fated mate, you’ll be just about the best Dad in the Pacific Northwest.”
Aegis crossed his arms and leaned against the railing, those intense amber eyes on me. “What makes you think I haven’t already met my mate?”
I looked at him in surprise, trying to quell the tremor of terror. “No one’s mentioned your fated mate. Did you?”
“Hmmm.” He scratched his chin. “Did you know that they made a big discovery about fated mates, recently?”
“Oh? What sort?”
“Some mates never realize they’re fated because at least one of them is human.”
My skin was electric suddenly. My stomach did the sort of somersault that would turn my back into a pretzel these days. “…Oh?”
“Yes. They conducted some pretty big surveys. Werewolves who were particularly intent on a human mate were nearly 99% of the time proven to be fated mates.”
“That’s a… really specific thing to be able to prove.”
“Admittedly, the data pool was small, but consistent across several countries.” Aegis shifted. “Sometimes, even without the bond that comes from the virus, we just know.”
I stared at him. “Do you know? Your fated mate, I mean.”
Aegis shrugged. “Maybe. Sometimes, I think I have a pretty good idea, especially if I think back on life.”
“Why haven’t you asked her out?”
It was a coward’s question. I did not for a second think he seriously meant me.
Aegis paused, cocking his head at me. “She’s not ready.”
My breath caught in my chest, and my brain did a backflip off a diving board and left the country.
Aegis pushed off of the railing, moved over to me, and in one very swift, very smooth move, kissed my forehead.
My entire body broke out in shivers, and my knees nearly buckled. By sheer dumb luck alone, I kept a grip on my sanity. God only knew what my expression was, though.
“Good night, Sylvia,” Aegis said, voice low and deep, his breath warm against my skin.
Then he turned and hopped down off the stairs and walked over to his car, dropping into the driver’s seat. Just like that, he was gone.
“You jackass,” I hissed, my hand over my pounding chest. “How the flying fig am I supposed to sleep now?”