Page 69 of Knot Baked Out For This
We're so close now I can feel his breath on my face, see the way his pupils have dilated until the amber is just a thin ring. My scent is spiraling—vanilla and cinnamon but underneath something raw and vulnerable I haven't let anyone smell in years.
"Rowan," I breathe, and it sounds like a prayer or a plea.
He leans down slowly, giving me time to pull away, to run, to throw something at him like the crew predicted. But I don't. I stay. I tilt my face up to meet him.
Our lips are a breath apart when?—
The station siren explodes through the night like the universe's worst timing, loud enough to wake the dead and definitely loud enough to shatter whatever moment we were about to have.
Rowan jerks back, duty and training overriding everything else. His face is a portrait of conflict—want versus responsibility, the eternal firefighter's dilemma.
"I have to?—"
"Go," I say, stepping back, wrapping my arms around myself. "Go."
He squeezes my hand once—brief, firm, promising—then jogs toward the station where the crew is already scrambling into gear.
I stand there in the pool of headlights, breathless and confused and feeling like I've been struck by lightning that somehow missed. My lips tingle with the kiss that didn't happen. My hand burns where he touched it.
The emotional connection between us is undeniable now. He came back for me. He researched how to free me. He's been waiting, watching, hoping for three years.
And I almost kissed him. Would have kissed him. Wanted to kiss him more than I've wanted anything in so long.
The fire trucks roar to life, lights flashing, sirens wailing as they tear out of the station toward whatever emergency has called them away. I watch until the lights disappear, then slowly make my way back to my booth.
The fundraiser continues around me—people laughing, chatting, buying cookies they don't need for causes they half-support. But I'm suspended in that moment by the truck, in the almost of it all.
My phone buzzes: Levi.
LEVI: Heard there was almost a moment. Sorry about the timing. He's kicking himself.
ME: How do you already know?
LEVI: Firefighter group text. Jenkins live-tweeted the whole thing until the siren went off.
ME: I hate this town.
LEVI: No you don't. Also, I call next almost-kiss. It's only fair.
I laugh despite myself, despite the ache in my chest where the kiss should have been.
ME: That's not how this works.
LEVI: How does it work then? We're all kind of making this up as we go.
He's not wrong. We are making it up. Three Alphas, one disaster of an Omega, and a town full of spectators waiting to see how it all crashes and burns.
Or maybe, just maybe, how it all comes together.
ME: To be continued?
LEVI: Definitely. Always. As many continuations as you'll give us.
I put my phone away and focus on selling cookies to support the fire department, very deliberately not thinking about Rowan's mouth almost on mine, his confession still ringing in my ears.
I've been half in love with you for fifteen years.
The night continues around me, but I'm already gone—lost in the possibility of being wanted, being chosen, being worth coming home for.
