Page 178 of Scrum Heat

“Triple lemon. Glazed twice. I zested with intent.”

Her eyes widen. “Did you… weaponize baked goods for me?”

“Frankie; I would commit actualcrimesin your honor,” I say, already moving to grab her a cookie. “This was theleastI could do.”

She takes the first bite and lets out a groan that does unspeakable things to my sense of moral stability.

I lean against the counter beside her, grinning. “Good?”

She doesn’t answer as she goes in for another bite, eyes half-lidded like this is a religious experience.

I’m still grinning when I brush a kiss to her cheek.

“Tell me: if I put you up on this counter, drop to my knees, and cheer you up using only my mouth and an understanding of your most sensitive nerve endings…”

She pauses, cookie halfway to her lips.

“…does that technically make me avery attentivealpha,” I finish, “or just someone who believes in well-rounded aftercare?”

She snorts into her cookie, then swallows hard and looks at me—eyes bright, cheeks flushed.

“Both,” she says, reaching for my shirt. “Definitely both.”

The oven timer beeps, and I pretend not to hear it.

Chapter Forty-Three

Theo

There’s spaghetti on the ceiling.

Not metaphorically. Not in a "this kitchen is a mess" kind of way.

No; there isliteralspaghetti on theactualceiling.

Finn’s pretending he didn’t cause it, Jax is trying to salvage the meatballs, and Rory has retreated to the wine like a man who has seen too much. Meanwhile, I am elbow-deep in flour, trying to convince a lump of dough to become garlic knots and not some sort of sentient goop monster.

We’re cooking for Frankie. Correction: we are ‘cooking’ in the loosest, most legally non-binding sense of the word.

After the hell of yesterday—her going home, confronting her mom, coming back pale and shaken but proud—we all agreed we needed to do something. Something sweet, something dumb, and something very, very us.

So we decided to make her dinner. The idea was charming.Romantic, even.

The execution, however?

Yeah. That’s been a culinary emergency.

“Why is there cinnamon in the mashed potatoes?” Rory asks, holding a spoon like it personally betrayed him.

Finn blinks. “Is that bad?”

“Yes.”

“I was experimenting.”

“You’re not onTop Chef,” Jax mutters. “You’re on thin ice.”

The oven dings.

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