Page 89 of Knot Baked Out For This
LEVI: Ten bucks says I can make it through a whole date without falling in something.
ME: Twenty says you spill something on her instead.
LEVI: Deal. May the best Alpha win.
LUCA: May we all win.
And maybe we will. Maybe this impossible thing—three Alphas, one omega, an entire town watching—might actually work.
But first, I need to figure out how to get through a date without falling into anything.
Probably impossible. But for her? Worth trying.
CHAPTER 15
Market Day Madness
~HAZEL~
Saturday markets in Oakridge: where vegetables meet voyeurism and everyone's business becomes public property.
The morning air bites with October's teeth, but the farmer's market is already alive with controlled chaos by the time I finish setting up my booth. Six AM starts are brutal, but the early bird gets the good spot, and the good spot gets the customers who actually have money left before they blow it on Mrs. Chen's overpriced orchids.
My table is a monument to anxiety baking—apple turnovers that took three attempts to get right, cinnamon rolls glazed to pornographic perfection, pumpkin bread that could make grown men weep. Everything arranged with the kind of obsessive precision that definitely doesn't scream "I'm trying not to think about three different Alphas who want to date me."
Totally normal. Nothing to see here. Just a regular omega having a regular mental breakdown via baked goods.
The market sprawls across Town Square like a patchwork quilt made by someone with questionable taste but good intentions. Mrs. Chen's flower stall explodes with chrysanthemums that cost more than my weekly groceries.Theo's coffee cart sends steam signals of caffeine hope into the morning air. Araminta Vale haunts her herbal remedy booth, probably selling love potions that are definitely just overpriced tea.
"Morning, sunshine!"
Theo appears with a coffee that's more sugar than bean, exactly how I secretly like it despite pretending to be a serious baker who appreciates coffee "notes" and "undertones."
"Morning, Theo. Good crowd today?"
"The best. Everyone's here for the—" He stops, grins. "Well. You know."
"I don't know."
"Sure you don't." He winks, moves on to his next delivery.
What does that mean? What does everyone know that I don't?
The day flows in waves of customers, gossip, and barely contained chaos. I sell out of apple turnovers by nine, cinnamon rolls by ten. The pumpkin bread holds strong until Mrs. Patterson buys six loaves because her son is visiting and she needs to prove she "supports local businesses" which is code for "show off to her city-dwelling offspring."
The sun tracks across the sky, October painting everything in shades of gold and rust. My feet ache, my face hurts from smiling, and I've consumed enough sample-sized pastries to put myself in a sugar coma.
But it's good. Normal. Safe.
The sun is starting its descent, casting long shadows across the market, when I begin packing the last batch of goods. Only a few sad cookies remain, the ones with imperfect icing that I couldn't bring myself to throw away.
That's when I see him.
At first, I think I'm hallucinating. Stress-induced psychosis brought on by too much butter and emotional complexity.
But no.
Korrin Delacroix stands twenty feet away, looking like he stepped out of a magazine about assholes who vacation in the Hamptons.
