Page 181 of Scrum Heat

“Itmeans,” I correct, “that our Captain is about to gopro.”

Rory rolls his eyes, but I see the smile tugging at his mouth. Frankie watches us all, curled into my side, eyes full of something warm and quiet and huge.

“This,” she says, voice soft, “is what happy looks like.”

And she’s right.

…Even if the potatoes are weird.

Chapter Forty-Four

Frankie

I’m not asleep.

Everyone else is, obviously. And not just, like, lightly napping. No—this is full-scale, post-carb-coma, dead-to-the-world snoozing. I think someone’s drooling—pretty sure it’s Theo.

The room is warm; and the good kind. Soft and scented like everything safe. It smells like skin and laundry and leftover sugar from Finn’s baking binge. There’s a hoodie half off someone’s shoulder, someone else’s leg is flung over mine like they own it, and honestly?

I’ve stopped trying to figure out which limb belongs to who, given that we’re packed in like this bed was made for five. Which, spoiler: it wasnot.

Still… I’ve never felt more held.

Theo’s head is on my chest, hair mussed from where I ran my fingers through it hours ago. He’s got a palm splayed protectively over my stomach and his lips are parted, breath softagainst my collarbone. It’s not fair, truly:nobodyshould look that good asleep.

Rory is behind me, one arm around my waist, fingers curled against my ribs. His face is tucked into my hair, and he’s the only one not starfishing across the bed.

Jax is at my feet; having taken post like some grumpy, six-foot-long emotional bodyguard, while Finn is somewhere to my left, curled up like a question mark with his hoodie sleeves rolled halfway up and cookie crumbs suspiciously close to his mouth.

He looks like a boy who just ran barefoot through his own joy and tripped straight into my heart. Come to think of it, they all do.

And they’remine.

How the hell did that happen?

I blink up at the ceiling and try to trace the steps, try to backtrack through the chaos, the jokes, the body heat, the knotting, the garlic knots, the board meetings, the bond marks, the bruises, the soft kisses behind closed doors.

It’s only been a few months. That’s what gets me. All of this? This whole storm of becoming? This only started a few months ago.

Since then, I’ve passed out in a medical room, bonded to four alphas who’ve completely and utterly ruined me in the best possible way, survived hate and a hometown that tried to bury me…

And I’m still here.

God.

I think about my mom. About what she said, about the way she looked at me like I’d done something unforgivable just by livingoutside her expectations. I think about Nigel and his stupid smug face and his goddamn beige apartment and how small I used to make myself even six months ago just to feel safe in a world that didn’t know what to do with me.

And then I look around, at this chaos of limbs and bond marks and alpha snoring.

Thisis what safety actually feels like. Not silence. Not smallness. Not being so ‘good’you disappear.

Theo grumbles something in his sleep and shifts against me, his hand slipping under the hem of my shirt like he needs to feel skin-to-skin, even while unconscious. Rory lets out a soft sigh, his grip tightening fractionally. Jax’s hand flexes on my ankle just as Finn kicks me in the shin; and I smile.

I’m not running anymore. I’m not hiding, I’m not pretending, and I’m not waiting for someone to love me on conditions I can’t keep up with. I’m an omega in a pack with four emotionally volatile, occasionally unhinged alphas who learned how to fold me into their world without ever asking me to shrink, and this pack? This love? Thisstory?

It’s ours.

And I wouldn’t change a single word.

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