Page 21 of Knot on the Market

"Would you like to have dinner? I was thinking I could cook for you. Make up for that oven disaster the other day." His cheeks flush slightly. "I mean, if you want. No pressure."

I hesitate, and Dean must read something in my expression because he quickly adds, "As friends, I mean. Just neighbors being neighborly. Nothing more than that."

The clarification makes it easier to breathe. Just dinner. Just friendship. No pack dynamics or expectations.

"That sounds wonderful," I hear myself say, and Dean's face lights up with relief.

"Great! I'll bring everything over around six, if that works? I make a decent stir-fry."

"Perfect. I'll try not to burn the house down between now and then."

"I have faith in you," Dean says with that warm smile. "Besides, if anything goes wrong, you know where to find me."

He heads toward the produce section with a spring in his step, and I watch him go, appreciating his confidence and the fact that dinner with Dean will be exactly what it appears to be. Good food, pleasant company, no hidden agendas.

But as I finish my shopping, I can't shake the memory of Julian's steady hands and the way he looked at me like I was an equation he wanted to solve. And beneath that, the warm solidity of Callum's presence in my kitchen yesterday, the way his gruff competence made everything feel manageable.

Three alphas, three different ways to ruin my perfectly planned independence. I should write a guide. "How to Attract Exactly What You're Trying to Avoid: A Memoir."

The walk home gives me time to think. Julian makes me want to be known in ways that feel dangerous. Dean makes me want to be cared for in ways that feel safe. Callum makes me want to be respected in ways that feel empowering.

And all of them make me question whether independence is really what I came here to find, or if maybe I came here to figure out what I actually want instead of what I think I should want.

But as I sit in my quiet kitchen, surrounded by groceries I bought myself and books that will teach me to fix my own problems, I can't shake the feeling that independence might be more complicated than I originally thought.

I'm still puzzling over this when there's a soft knock at my door. When I open it, I find a small package on my front porch, wrapped in brown paper.

I look up and down the street, but there's no one in sight.

I retrieve the package and unwrap it to find three books. One on historical home restoration, another on basic electrical work, and a slim volume of poetry.

There's a note tucked between the pages of the poetry book, written in the same careful handwriting as the card that came with the flowers:

Thought you might find these useful. The poetry has nothing to do with fixing houses, but sometimes you need words that aren't about purpose. - J

I open the poetry book to find a page marked with a small piece of paper. The poem is about building something beautiful from broken pieces, about finding strength in starting over.

The fact that Julian chose this specific poem, marked this specific page, feels deliberate in a way that makes my chest tight with something I'm not ready to name.

Between Dean's dinner invitation, Julian's literary care packages, and Callum's promise to teach me actual home repair, independence in Honeyridge Falls is going to be significantly more complicated than I planned.

But as I sit in the late afternoon light, reading poetry about rebuilding and renewal, I find I'm not quite as bothered by that complication as I probably should be.

Chapter 8

Julian

Ishould be working on quarterly reports, but instead I'm sitting in Levi's bookstore, staring at a spreadsheet that might as well be written in Latin for all the attention I'm paying it.

The problem is green apples and white musk. More specifically, the way Lila's scent changed when I stood close enough to crowd her space, and how I've been replaying that moment for the better part of an hour.

This is not like me. For five years, since I moved to Honeyridge Falls after my own relationship imploded, I've been content with careful distance. No complications, no messy emotional entanglements, no one expecting me to be something I'm not. I came here to escape the kind of alpha everyone expected me to be in the city and to forget the kind of alpha my own pack decided I wasn't.

It wasn't just that my ex-omega called me "emotionally intense" and "too much work" before she left. It was that she took the rest of our pack with her. Apparently, a nerdy accountant with controlling tendencies wasn't what any of them had signed up for. "You're not what we need," she'd said, likeI was a piece of furniture that didn't fit the aesthetic they were going for. "We want someone more... straightforward."

The other two alphas hadn't even had the courtesy to disagree with her assessment. They'd just packed their things and left, leaving me alone in an apartment that still smelled like the life I thought I was building.

So I came here, where no one expects me to be part of a pack, where I can be useful without being wanted, where my particular combination of analytical mind and need for control doesn't make anyone uncomfortable because I keep it carefully contained.

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