Under Summer Sky • Zarry

34. Eleven

She wasn't wasting any time with these pancakes.

Daisy was our hyper active one, our rambunctious little sprout who probably learned everything she knew from her older cousin Sienna, Gemma and Jeff's second daughter, who was only a year older than Daisy at four years.

I don't know what it was with the girls in my family. They were all crazy. But Sienna and Daisy were just like two peas in a pod, exactly how Harlow and Stella were, who were sixteen now.

Like I said before; time really does fly. I can't believe it either.

And it really hit me hard the other day when I was out taking Harlow around for a driving lesson in my old Mercedes and she did so well with it. I started noticing just how much she was maturing when she would ditch her friends on a Friday night just to babysit me and Zayn's kids and when we came home after date night they were all having a dance party in the TV room to Whitney Houston.

I loved our family.

I threw on a soft pink colored t-shirt with my unicorn pajama pants and made my way down the stairs of our Enfield farmhouse, our calico cat Gypsy nearly tripping me as I turned the corner and entered the spacious, bright kitchen. Zayn was already working on making the pancakes like a loyal dad, still half asleep, while Daisy bounced on her knees up on the chair up against the island counter, plopping blueberries into her mouth one after the other.

I came up behind Zayn gently as he stood at the stove and I kissed the side of his cheek, noticing that he had poured me a cup of coffee already and it sat on the counter.

"Thanks babe," I offered him, grabbing the Beatles mug, taking a long sip. "We're running low on cereal and milk, by the way. I was up in the middle of the night eating again. Had like, two bowls of Wheaties for some reason."

"This whole sleep eating thing is so bizarre," said Zayn as he flipped the pancakes over in the pan, looking over his shoulder at me. "Maybe it's just stress eating or something."

I shrugged. I did have a lot of work to do with my business Malik Farms coming up that summer, our brand of wine going ten years strong now, and I was probably in over my head because I decided to buy another property in Italy, just south of Gio's estate outside of Florence, and I had to fly out there that weekend to go over the logistics without Zayn or the kids because Zayn had a gallery showing that weekend.

I hated being away from them.

"Have you seen Bodhi? He wasn't in his room," I replied, glancing out the bay window to see if he had ventured outside to tend to the horse.

And of course he was there, taking Bailey for a walk. That was his horse and he cared for her immensely, probably more than anything else in the world. Our son Bodhi (bo-dee) was eight years old now; our first born. He was biologically mine from when we did the IVF pregnancy with our surrogate, Katie, as opposed to Daisy who had Zayn's DNA.

We still saw Katie and the kids knew that was their biological mum. In fact, they understood the whole process and we often invited Katie to our holidays and family functions. It worked out pretty well, actually.

But Bodhi was the polar opposite of Daisy. Bodhi was such an introverted, shy little boy. He was sensitive and kind, a bit quiet but smart. He was fairly inquisitive and thoughtful as well, loved to spend a lot of time outside in nature and hanging out with his best friend, Mikayla, who lived a mile down the road from us.

Zayn began filling the plates up with pancakes next, now following my gaze for a moment out the window and watching Bodhi lead Bailey around back. "I think he's got a crush on Mikayla," he said out of nowhere.