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The kitchen smells like cinnamon and burnt sugar—again. Maddie sighs, swiping a flour-dusted hand across her forehead as the latest batch of pão de mel threatens to char at the edges. "Jack, I told you the oven runs hot in this house."
"Aw, c'mon, Mads, they're rustic!" Jack grins, already elbow-deep in a bowl of vivid green goiabada filling, his fingers sticky with the sweet paste. He licks a dollop off his thumb, humming. "Rustic is in."
Vlad rolls his eyes, but there’s no venom in it—just fond exasperation as he nudges Jack aside with his hip, rescuing the tray before disaster strikes. "Rustic," he drawls, "is what we call it when you bake."
His smirk softens when Jack leans into him, leaving a smear of guava on his sleeve like a territorial claim. Maddie tosses a slice of starfruit at Vlad’s head. He catches it between his teeth without looking, chewing lazily.
"Show-off," she accuses, but her lips twitch.
"Morango," Vlad counters, lobbing a strawberry back.
It lands squarely in her cleavage. She gasps, indignant, before dissolving into laughter as Jack—ever helpful—plucks it free and pops it into his own mouth.
"My fruits," Jack declares, arms looping around both their waists.
His hands leave ghostly imprints of powdered sugar on their clothes. Rio’s December heat presses against the windows, but, between flour-dusted counters and the electric hum of fairy lights, it’s all sticky fingers and murmured Portuguese endearments. The radio crackles with samba; Youngblood’s abandoned cookie cutters (shaped like dinosaurs, naturally) gleam under the oven light. And when the kids inevitably storm the kitchen tomorrow, demanding breakfast, they’ll find the counters still dusted in sugar—and their parents, curled together on the couch, asleep under a blanket of flour and laughter.