Page 50 of Knot Baked Out For This
ME:Jesus. The Oakridge gossip network works faster than the internet.
ME:Neither. He fixed my door.
REVERIE:That's what they're calling it now?
ME:Literally. Fixed. My. Door.
REVERIE:Uh-huh. And how do you feel about that?
I stare at the question, thumb hovering over the keyboard. How do I feel? Confused. Warm. Terrified. Seen. Wanted. Suspicious. Soft.
ME:Like I might be in trouble.
REVERIE:Good trouble or bad trouble?
I don't know yet.
And I don't. Because this feeling—this warm, spreading feeling that maybe I don't have to do everything alone, maybe someone will notice when I'm struggling, maybe it's okay to accept help—it's the same feeling I had with Korrin in the beginning.
Before the criticism started. Before the isolation. Before I realized that his help came with strings, that every kindness was a debt, that his pack's protection was really possession.
But these three haven't asked for anything.
Rowan fixed my oven and only stole a cookie.
Levi brought flowers and charmed my cat.
Luca repaired my door and disappeared into the night.
No demands. No expectations. No Alpha posturing about how grateful I should be.
Just... help. Freely given.
Maybe that's the trap. Maybe that's how they get you—with kindness that feels real until it's too late to run.
I close the door—smoothly, silently, perfectly—and lean against it.
Outside, October continues its slow descent into winter. Inside, my bakery smells like cinnamon and vanilla and now, faintly, of molasses and dark coffee.
Three scents. Three Alphas. Three chances to make the same mistake.
Or maybe—maybe—three chances to get it right.
"I'm so fucked," I tell Muffin, who responds by knocking Levi's flowers off the counter.
Water spreads across the floor in a puddle that perfectly captures how my life feels right now—messy, unpredictable, and somehow still beautiful in the chaos.
I grab towels, start cleaning up, and try not to think about strong hands and fixed doors and the dangerous possibility that not all Alphas are the same.
Try not to think about falling in love again.
Try not to admit that maybe—just maybe—I already am.
With all three of them.
"Fuck," I say to the empty bakery.
The universe, in the form of Muffin's dismissive meow, seems to agree.
