Page 193 of Knot Baked Out For This
"What? It's a serious question! Rowan, back me up here."
"Clothes are definitely optional," Rowan says solemnly, but his eyes are dancing.
"See? The captain says so. Captain's orders."
"That's not how captain's orders work!"
"It is in nests!"
Luca makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be exasperation—with him, it's hard to tell.
"For the record, I'm neutral on the clothes situation."
"Liar," I accuse. "You're the one who bought me that silk robe 'just because.'"
"The robe was practical!"
"The robe was see-through!"
"Practically see-through. Different thing."
I'm surrounded by ridiculous Alphas who built me a nest and a test kitchen and bought property and are currently arguing about clothing while their hands do things that make it very hard to care about winning arguments.
"I love you," I say suddenly, into the warm, scented, perfect chaos of them. "All of you. Even when you're being idiots."
"Especially when we're being idiots," Levi corrects.
"Especially then," I agree.
Rowan presses his forehead to mine, and his cedar smoke scent wraps around us like a blanket.
"Welcome home, firefly."
Home.
Not the apartment above the bakery, not the building I own, not even the town I'm slowly learning to love.Home is this.Thisnest, these Alphas, this pack that built something beautiful to make me feel welcomed, loved, and adored.
"Welcome home, pumpkin," Luca murmurs, and kisses my temple with a tenderness that makes my chest ache.
"Welcome home, sunshine," Levi adds, squeezing me tighter. "We're never letting you go."
I don't want them to.
CHAPTER 35
Ashes & Accusations
~HAZEL~
Adelivery carrier arrives at 6 AM on Halloween morning, which is either cosmic irony or the universe's idea of a practical joke.
I'm elbow-deep in ghost cookie dough—literally seventeen dozen to finish before noon—when someone pounds on the bakery's back door hard enough to wake the dead. Or at least the very exhausted baker who got approximately three hours of sleep in her new nest before her alarm dragged her back to reality.
"If that's another food blogger wanting a photo shoot, I'm going feral!" I yell, not looking up from the industrial mixer that's churning out its third batch of pumpkin spice filling.
"It's a courier!" The voice is official, impersonal, and thoroughly unimpressed with my threats of violence. "Need a signature!"
I wipe flour from my hands—it's everywhere, always everywhere, I'm pretty sure I was born with flour in my hair at this point—and open the door to find a man in a postal uniform holding an envelope that looks far too official for 6 AM on Halloween.
