Page 97 of Knot Baked Out For This
ME: Anyone else get a delivery this morning?
LUCA: Cinnamon rolls.
LUCA: Still warm.
ROWAN: Same…
ROWAN: Think she was up all night baking?
I picture it: Hazel in her kitchen, flour in her hair, kneading dough and thinking about us. About our message. About what we're offering.
LUCA: It's a good sign, right?
ME: It's a start, I type back.
I bite into one of the rolls, the sweetness exploding on my tongue, and let myself believe that maybe—that hopeful possibility—this can work. We can be what she needs. What she deserves.
A real Pack that can love her to the moon and back.
CHAPTER 17
Renovation Surprise
~HAZEL~
Monday mornings are when Satan reviews his previous week's work and decides how to make things worse.
I arrive at my bakery at 4 AM, same as always, except nothing is the same,and everything is chaos, and there's a construction truck parked where my sanity used to live.
The front of MY building looks like someone declared war on architecture and everyone lost. There's plastic sheeting where my window display should be. Power tools scream from inside. Dust motes dance in the streetlight like particles of my disintegrating life.
What the fuck. What the actual fuck.
Did the building get damaged? Did I forget to pay rent? Did Mrs. Henderson finally follow through on her threat to "modernize" Main Street by force?
I fumble for my keys with shaking hands, but the door's already open. Inside, my bakery has become a construction site. Workers in hard hats navigate MY space with casual familiarity. Someone's removed the back wall of my kitchen. There's a hole. A HOLE. Where my WALL used to be.
I'm having a stroke. That's the only explanation. I'm having a stroke, and this is what dying looks like.
"Morning, sunshine!"
Levi's voice cuts through the power tool symphony. He's standing by what used to be my storage closet, measuring tape in hand, looking far too cheerful for someone committing property crimes.
"What—" My voice cracks. "What is?—"
"Rowan, she's here!" he calls over his shoulder, then turns back to me with that golden retriever smile that usually makes my knees weak but right now makes me want to commit murder. "Surprise! We're expanding your kitchen!"
We're. WE'RE expanding MY kitchen.
The rage that floods my system is immediate and volcanic. Every muscle tenses, every nerve fires, my vision actually goes red at the edges.
"You're WHAT?"
Luca appears from behind a contractor, clipboard in hand, because of course he has a clipboard. "The permits came through faster than expected. We had to move today or wait another month."
"Permits? What permits? I didn't file for?—"
"Morning, Hazel."
