Page 146 of Knot Baked Out For This
"You're better, though," she says, unlocking her door. "More... consuming."
Consuming. She thinks I'm consuming.
"Keep talking like that and we're not making it to dinner."
"Promises, promises," she teases, but she's blushing as she says it.
The door opens to chaos—Levi cooking something that might be food, Luca trying to stop him, three cats and a dog creating their own drama, and Reverie apparently filming it all for TikTok.
"THE DATE WORKED!" Reverie screams when she sees us. "LOOK HOW GLOWY THEY ARE!"
"We're not glowy," Hazel protests.
"You're totally glowy," Levi says, then to me: "Finally kissed her properly?"
"Finally," I confirm. "No thanks to you two."
"We warmed her up for you," Luca says with a smirk.
"I'm going to warm you up with my fist."
"Promises, promises," Levi echoes Hazel's earlier words.
And as chaos erupts—Reverie demanding details, the animals deciding to join whatever Levi's cooking, Hazel laughing bright enough to power the town—I think maybe romantic math is real after all.
All these years of waiting… were worth the wait.
CHAPTER 26
Roses And Remembrance
~HAZEL~
Four-thirty AM is when the world belongs to bakers and bad memories, when darkness still has teeth but dawn threatens at the edges.
I step outside to grab the mail—because apparently even pre-dawn has deliveries now—and freeze at what's waiting on my doorstep.
Roses.
A full bouquet of them, blood-red in the dim streetlight, wrapped in cellophane that crinkles like whispered threats. The smell hits me immediately—that cloying sweetness that once meant romance but now just means pain.
No. Not these. Anything but these.
My hands shake as I stare at them, unable to move forward or back. The roses sit there, perfect and poisonous, such a contrast to the wildflowers that now decorate every surface of my apartment. Levi's cheerful sunflowers in mason jars. Luca's thoughtful lavender in tiny pots. Rowan's careful arrangements of whatever's blooming wild. Those flowers mean safety, choice, love without thorns.
These roses mean something else entirely.
I've been finding things lately—strange mail, packages with no return address, items that shouldn't be here but are. I've been pretending it doesn't bother me, shoving the anxiety down with flour and sugar and the warmth of my pack's presence. But this...
Roses. He knows what roses mean. That's why he sent them.
The memory crashes over me like cold water:
The banquet, three years ago. I'd spent hours getting ready—a deep purple dress that hugged every curve, heels that made my legs look endless, makeup that took forty-five minutes because I wanted to be perfect. I'd felt beautiful, powerful, worthy of standing beside my Alpha husband.
"You look like a whore," Korrin had said, voice flat. "Too much makeup. Dress too tight. You're embarrassing me."
"But you said to dress formally?—"
