Safe With You

A Warm House, Open Windows

~Kelsi~

Alyssa’s kitchen is all soft light and the smell of garlic and rosemary. The radio murmurs some old Motown tune, and the back doors are flung wide to the garden where squeals carry in like sunshine.

“Right, chef’s choice,” I tell Lillian, tying my hair up and opening the fridge with the authority of someone who’s cooked here a hundred times. “We’re doing proper comfort food. One tray-bake chicken with lemon and herbs, roast potatoes, green beans with almonds. And sticky toffee pud if I can wrangle it in time.”

Lillian lifts a brow, impressed. “You can make that from scratch?”

“Watch me, darling.” I wink, then lower my voice, conspiratorial. “Also, there are emergency chocolate fingers in the bread bin. For morale.”

She laughs, the sound light and young, and I realise I like this girl immediately—sharp, kind, no airs. Like her brother, she takes everything in, stores it for later. She sets to work topping and tailing the green beans without me asking. Good girl.

From the garden, Tray roars like a dragon; three smaller roars respond in chaos. I can see them through the doors—Poppy in a denim jacket and sparkly trainers, Quinn in her stripy leggings, and Bailey barrelling across the lawn like a golden retriever with limbs. Tray’s chasing them with a foam sword someone’s dragged out of the toy basket. He’s ridiculous and he’s brilliant and, for my sins, he’s mine. Not mine-mine. Just… mine enough. The father of my boy. The person who knows my worst and still shows up with petrol in my car and a pack of Hobnobs when I look like I’ve slept in the tumble dryer.

“Uncle Tray, you can’t catch me!” Poppy shrieks, legs pumping. She is pure sunshine with a giggle at the end.

“Oh, I can,” Tray vows, feinting left, swooping right, scooping her up while Quinn tackles his knees and Bailey launches himself onto his back. They collapse in a heap, all elbows and laughter. I feel my chest loosen. This is what a safe garden sounds like.

“Is Alyssa okay to stay downstairs?” Lillian asks quietly, rinsing the beans. She flicks a look to the lounge where Alyssa is propped on the sofa—blanket over her legs, hair in a messy ponytail, colour back in her cheeks. Greyson’s beside her, arm along the back of the sofa like he’s building a wall no one else sees.

“She’s fine,” I say, and mean it for the first time this week. “Bit washed out, but she’s eating, and Markus has sent me a list of bossy instructions. I’ll pin it to her forehead later.”

Lillian smiles; the worry in her eyes softens. “Mum will ask for that list.”

“Savannah can have a laminated copy,” I say, tossing potatoes with olive oil and sea salt. “Right. You in charge of the beans, I’ve got the chicken.”

We fall into an easy rhythm: clatter of pans, doors to the garden banging as the kids tear in for water and tear out again; Greyson’s low laugh; Alyssa’s softer one answering. I keep half an eye on her without making a show of it—she’s sipping tea, she’s warm under the blanket; she smiles at something Quinn holds up at the door (a daisy chain, of course).

“Do you cook at home?” I ask Lillian, mostly to give her hands something to do other than worry.

“Sometimes,” she says. “Mostly I bake. It’s the precision for me.”

“Right, scientist-baker. We’ll have to get you doing the sauce.” I slide the sticky-toffee date mix into a saucepan. “You and I are going to make caramel behave.”

She beams, that teenage glow you wish you could bottle. “Deal.”

From the garden, Tray whoops again; I look up just in time to see him lift both girls—one hooked under each arm—while Bailey pelts him with a foam ball. He staggers dramatically, falls backwards onto the grass, and all three children pile on with unholy glee.

“He’s very...” Lillian searches for the word.

“Loud?” I offer.

“Present,” she decides.

My throat does a silly, traitorous thing. “Yeah,” I say lightly, “that he is.”

We don’t talk about it often—me and Tray. We’re not a couple, and haven’t been for years, not properly. We tried when we were far too young and full of pride. We broke each other a bit. Then we had Bailey and grew up in the same five minutes. Now there’s this gravitational pull. He dates. I date. We orbit. We co-parent like champions. We make each other tea when the other looks frayed at the edges. Somehow we’re both free and not free at the same time. It’s a funny sort of peace.

“Sauce is your moment,” I tell Lillian, handing over the wooden spoon. “Low heat, no panic. Just like life.”

She smirks. “I’ll tell my exams that.”

We work. The house keeps breathing. I plate the beans. I baste the chicken. I breathe again.

Alyssa calls through. “Kels? Need a hand?”

“Stay put, boss lady,” I call back. “I’ve got an assistant and she’s better looking than you.”

“Oy!” Alyssa protests, and everyone laughs, even Greyson. Especially Greyson.

I catch the way he looks at her when he thinks no one’s watching. That’s a man who’d stand in front of an avalanche and ask it to be quiet because she’s sleeping. Hm. Good. That’s exactly her portion.

Tray thunders in with the kids to wash hands, grass in his hair, grin a mile wide. He catches my eye and for a second we are just… us. Ten years of shorthand in a single look. You okay? I’m okay. You? Yeah. Good.

“Everything smells banging,” he says, scooping Bailey under one arm to stop him nicking a roast potato. He brushes my shoulder as he passes—completely casually, completely not casual at all. I roll my eyes and pretend it didn’t land.

“Out,” I tell them, herding the muddy mob back to the patio. “You can set the table and feel very important.”

“Aye aye, Chef,” Tray says, saluting. I try not to smile. Fail, obviously.

By the time the chicken’s resting and the pud is in the oven, the table’s set outside under the festoon lights. It looks like a small festival: jam jars with daisies, crayons scattered in a pot for the girls to draw placemats, Bailey demonstrating the correct way to fold napkins that he allegedly “didn’t learn on YouTube.”

“Food!” Quinn crows, sprinting back to the sofa to tug at Alyssa’s blanket. “Mummy, come on!”

“Slow and steady,” Greyson says, easing Alyssa up with a hand under her elbow. He’s careful without smothering. It’s an art.

“Chef Kelsi,” Poppy announces as I carry the tray out. “You’re the best cooker in the world.”

“I’ll take that,” I say, and bow, because why not.

We eat in the golden end of day, the garden basking in it. The chicken is a triumph; the potatoes are perfectly indecent; the beans snap just so. The girls inhale everything and argue amiably about who gets the flower cup. Bailey tells an elaborate story about a substitute teacher who looks exactly like a wizard. Tray does the voices. I pretend not to watch his mouth.

Alyssa manages two helpings and then leans back with that particular satisfaction of a body finally sated. Colour in her cheeks. Tea cradled in her hands like a blessing. Greyson’s arm around the back of her chair, little brush of his thumb at her shoulder every now and again when she laughs.

Good. Good. Keep.

When the sticky toffee emerges, Lillian gets a standing ovation because I make everyone stand up. She blushes to her hairline as she soaks the sponge in caramel like a pro.

“Low heat, no panic,” she mutters, and I grin down at her like a proud auntie.

As the light folds into dusk, we clear plates together. Lillian stacks and I wipe, the warm hush of a kitchen after a meal wrapping us both. The sound of the garden is softer now—more giggles, fewer roars. Quinn and Poppy have commandeered Greyson and are trying to teach him a dance routine. He’s terrible. He’s perfect.

“You love them,” Lillian says quietly, not looking at me as she slides cutlery into the drawer. “Alyssa and Quinn.”

“I do,” I say without faff. “And I like your lot more than is sensible.”

She smiles into the drawer. “Good.”

I glance down the hall—Alyssa has her feet tucked up on Greyson’s lap while he pretends not to notice he’s massaging her ankle. She’s laughing at Bailey doing keepy-uppy with a balloon. She’s safe. For now, she’s safe.

“Right,” I say, clapping my hands softly. “Let’s go ruin them with dessert.”

~Tray~

I’m sweating, I’ve lost one sock somewhere in Alyssa’s garden, and I swear one of the foam swords has a personal vendetta against my shins. Worth it. Always worth it.

Look, I’m a simple man: give me a stretch of grass, three kids I’d walk to the moon for, and the woman I… well. The woman who knows what my face looks like when I’m not performing. Give me that, and a roast potato nicked from the tray, and I’ll call it a life.

“Uncle Tray, again!” Quinn yells, face pink, hair escaping in curly question marks.

“Mercy,” I pant, hands up. “I’m old.”

“You’re thirty-two,” Bailey says, deadpan, like he’s reading a dangerous diagnosis.

“Thirty-two and very tired,” I argue, flopping onto the grass. The trio collapses in a heap on my stomach. It’s chaos. It’s heaven. Poppy’s giggle does a strange thing to my sternum. I look across the lawn and catch Kelsi watching from the kitchen doors, tea in hand, mouth doing that little tilt it does when she almost smiles and then chooses not to. My chest goes hot-cold like I’ve dunked it in the sea.

We were a mess, me and her. Twice, maybe three times. We got the best of it right—a boy with her eyes and my chin and the stubbornness of a goat. We got the love bit right. We didn’t get the living bit right. Now we’re… tidy. Mostly. Except when it isn’t tidy, like when she brushes past me with a pan and the kitchen smells like Sunday, and I want to ask her if she ever wonders about the version of us that didn’t run out of road.

“Uncle Tray,” Poppy says, deadly serious, “can you lift both of us and Bailey at the same time?”

I consider my lower back and my pride. “Absolutely not.”

They boo me. Fair enough.

We set the table. I let the girls decide where everyone sits, which is how I end up between Quinn and Poppy, with Bailey opposite like a referee. Alyssa and Greyson sit alongside us, all domestic like they’ve been doing it for years. Alyssa looks better. Not fragile. Just… softer at the edges. I clock Greyson’s hand not leaving her for more than a minute at a time. Good man.

Kelsi brings out the food and my insides go “oh, hello then.” I catch her wrist as she sets down the beans. Don’t even mean to. It’s a quick touch, but I feel it in every bad decision I’ve ever made. She pulls away gently, doesn’t meet my eye, and I swallow it down with a roast potato. We are not doing this tonight. Not here. Not with Bailey watching me like I’m a tell waiting to be read.

Dinner’s loud and normal and like a blanket being shaken out after rain. I do the voices for the wizard teacher story because the kids demand it. Kelsi rolls her eyes and mouths don’t encourage him at Greyson over Alyssa’s head. He grins. Traitor.

Later, when the puddings arrive, I catch Kelsi and Lillian high-fiving like they’ve won a Michelin star. And you know what? They have. It’s the best thing I’ve tasted in weeks.

I help clear, take the bins out, come back in to the sight of Alyssa with her head on Greyson’s shoulder, eyes half-closed, listening to the girls’ endless theatre about who stole whose crayon. A scene I didn’t know I needed, lodged under my ribs like a warm stone.

Bailey tugs my sleeve. “Can I sleep over?”

“Not tonight, mate,” I say, ruffling his hair. “School tomorrow.”

He nods with a suffering sigh of world-weary nine-year-old. “Alright.”

“Next time,” Kelsi calls, already knowing what he asked.

We move into the evening like boats drifting to the same harbour. I stack plates. Kels puts on the kettle. We orbit. We always do.

On my way past, I lay a hand on Alyssa’s shoulder, squeeze once. “Good to see you making a dent in the sofa,” I murmur.

She smiles up at me, eyes clear. “Good to be a dent.”

Greyson gives me that silent thanks again. I nod back. No need to say it out loud. We’re men, after all—fluent in grunt.

I walk back to the kitchen, and Kelsi is there. She doesn’t move when I stand too close. Neither do I.

“You did good today,” I say.

“So did you.”

We look at each other too long. Then the kettle clicks and whatever it was dissolves into steam.

“Tea?” she says.

“Yeah,” I say, throat tight. “Tea.”

~Lillian~

I’ve seen a lot of beautiful things in AQ’s studios—silk catching morning light like water, beadwork that turns fabric into stars—but nothing looks like this.

Poppy is asleep on Alyssa’s lap, thumb tucked under her chin. Alyssa’s stroking her hair with that absent-mind softness mums have, sipping tea in the other hand. Quinn is wedged into Greyson’s side, drawing on a scrap of paper and occasionally holding it up for his serious opinion. He gives it like she’s presented blueprints for a cathedral. It makes her glow.

“Ready, girls?” Alyssa whispers eventually, because bedtime is a ritual you don’t rush. They go like sleepwalkers—Quinn tugging Poppy by the hand, Greyson carrying the stray blanket, Alyssa shuffling behind with that tired, anchored grace.

I follow to the hall and stop before the stairs, because I don’t want to be a person who intrudes on prayers. But I hear it anyway—Poppy’s quiet voice, sure as anything:

“Night, Mummy.”

It’s soft. It’s not the first time I’ve heard her say it, but tonight something in it settles. Like the house itself nods.

I press my fingertips hard to my mouth to keep my smile from making a sound. It’s not a big thing and it is everything. My big brother—who has always made space for the world on his shoulders—isn’t holding it alone anymore. There’s this woman with black-and-red hair and steady hands who sits next to him at dinner and lets him breathe.

Mum would say: Families are built in small rooms, Lil. In kitchens and gardens and hallways, not just in churches and courts. She’d be right. She usually is.

I go back to the kitchen where Kelsi’s doing that grown-up thing of scrubbing a perfectly clean pan because the motions keep your heart from bursting. Tray is laughing at something Bailey’s said, chest thrown back, and then he catches Kelsi’s eye and something softens at the edges.

I think about the dress Alyssa made for Mum’s charity ball—how it moves like a night sky when she turns—and how the fabric wasn’t what made it magic. It was the way Mum stood taller inside it. Like herself, but more so.

That’s what this house is doing to all of us tonight.

When Alyssa and Greyson come back down, they don’t announce anything grand. They just fit into the room the way light does. He reaches for her tea. She steals half his biscuit. He rolls his eyes and pretends it’s a tragedy. She leans into him without thinking about it. And no one in the room makes a fuss because none of us need telling: some things are obvious once you’ve seen them.

I stack the last plate; Kelsi flicks off the big light; the lamps glow warmer for it. Tray shepherds Bailey to the door with promises of breakfast and school runs and some surprise I know is just an extra-large hot chocolate.

As they go, Poppy’s voice floats faintly from upstairs—sleep-thick, sure, safe.

“’Night, Mummy.”

Alyssa looks up, eyes shining, and for a second I see all the versions of her I never knew—the fighter, the builder, the girl who stitched a future out of spite and tenderness and work that never ends. My brother looks at her like home is a person and he’s not daft enough to let go.

I press my palm to the warm wood of the kitchen door as I pass through, and I think: this is what it means to belong. Not gowns, not galas. A garden full of shrieks and a kitchen that smells of caramel and the word Mummy spoken like a promise that nobody breaks.

I can’t wait to see what we all look like in a year.