Page 47 of Knot Baked Out For This
Instead, something else unfurls in my chest—something warm and complicated and absolutely unwelcome.
He saw me almost fall. And instead of leaving it, instead of assuming someone else would handle it or that I'd handle it myself like always, he just... showed up. With tools. At dusk. To fix my door.
Korrin's pack never did this.
The thought hits like ice water.
Four Alphas in that pack—Korrin, his brother, his two cousins—and not once in three years of marriage did any of them voluntarily fix something for me. Oh, they'd help if I begged, if I performed the right amount of omega submission, if I made it clear I couldn't possibly handle it with my delicate female hands.
But this? This quiet competence without being asked? This assumption that I deserved help without having to earn it?
Foreign. Alien. Suspicious as hell.
"I didn't ask you to?—"
"Didn't need to." He still doesn't look up, hands working steadily. "Door's been broken for months. Someone should've fixed it before now."
There's something in his tone—not quite condemnation, but close. Like he's personally offended by the existence of my broken door. Like it represents some larger failing of the universe that he needs to correct.
"I've been managing," I say, crossing my arms over my chest. Protection. Barrier. Something between his quiet intensity and my traitorous body that's already cataloguing his presence.
"You shouldn't have to manage," he says simply. "Pass me the Phillips head?"
I could refuse. Could go back inside and leave him to his self-appointed task.
Could maintain the distance that keeps me safe from Alphas who think they know what's best for me.
Instead, I find myself picking up the screwdriver, our fingers brushing as I hand it over.
Fuck.
His skin is warm, callused in different places than Levi's—these are hands that know precision work, careful control. The touch lasts less than a second, but heat spreads from that point of contact like I've been branded.
My pulse kicks up, that stupid omega flutter that saysAlpha touching, Alpha near, Alpha Alpha Alpha.
His scent wraps around me in the narrow space between door and frame—molasses gingerbread, dark and rich, mixed with coffee so black it could strip paint. Underneath it all, that note of bitter chocolate that makes my mouth water and my hindbrain purr. It's comfort and danger mixed together, a warning wrapped in a promise or maybe the other way around.
Step back. You need to step back.
I don't step back.
Instead, I lean against the doorframe, watching him work in the dying light. The October sun paints everything gold and rust, turns his dark hair into something that catches and holds light like it's personal. His movements are hypnotic in their precision—every turn of the screwdriver deliberate, every adjustment measured.
"You don't talk much," I observe.
"You talk enough for both of us."
Excuse me?
"I do not talk too much."
"Didn't say too much. Said enough." He finally looks up, and his storm-gray eyes in the dusk light are almost silver. "You fill the silence like you're afraid of it."
"Maybe I am."
"Why?"
Because silence is when the memories come. When I hear Korrin's voice telling me I'm not enough, too much, never right.When I feel phantom bruises that healed years ago but still ache when it rains.
