Chapter 4 Beth
Beth
One month later
The coffee grinder wakes me up.
Believe it or not, the kitchen is on the other side of the apartment, but sound, I learned, travels through these walls like they're made of drum skins.
And while the grinder is not close to the loudest thing in this apartment (that would be Mason closing a cabinet, which sounds like a gunshot), the noise is persistent, and—I check my phone—damn, it's 7:48 A.M. on a Saturday.
I close my eyes. Press my face into the pillow. Count to ten. Doesn't help at all.
Fine, I was going to open the shop early-ish anyway. Get a head start on some arrangements before Ben and Harper's couples shower this afternoon.
I get up and put on socks first. The thick ones with the foxes on them, then my sweater with the cute little fox embroidered on the chest (I didn't buy them as a set, they just somehow found each other), because it is cold.
Which is weird, considering I set the thermostat to sixty-seven last night.
And the night before. And every single night for the last five days.
But every morning, it's magically set to sixty-three.
I haven't caught the Phantom of the Thermostat yet, but my suspect list is only three names long.
I head out to the hallway and follow the smell of butter and coffee to the kitchen.
Three mugs are already on the counter. Big ones. I open the upper cabinet and dig out mine.
"Morning," Arthur says, turning back.
He's at the stove in sweatpants and a t-shirt so thin I can see his skin underneath, flipping pancakes.
"You're cooking," I say.
"Made the batter last night." He slides a plate across the counter. Two pancakes, lopsided, syrup already pooling. "Forethought. Domestic competence. You're welcome."
He leans over and drops his voice. "Between us, I didn't want Mason anywhere near the stove this morning."
"I can hear you," Mason says from the hallway.
Damn, alpha hearing always impresses me.
"I know," Arthur says cheerfully.
Mason comes in. Henley, work pants, sleeves rolled revealing forearms the size of my calves. He glances at the sink, spots a spoon and a plate sitting there, and stops. Stares at them. Rolls his sleeves up another inch and starts washing them like they owe him money.
Knox walks in with his laptop under one arm. He sets it on the table, opens it, and starts typing.
"Morning," he says, not looking up.
"Morning." I sit down and take a bite. Mmmm. "You put cinnamon in this," I say to Arthur.
"And vanilla." He grins.
I take another bite. They're genuinely, surprisingly good.
I get up and head for the shelf above the coffee station. My tea shelf. I'm feeling oolong this morning—I bought a tin of it a while back.
I pick it up. It's light. Too light.
Then I open it.
"Okay," I say. "Who's been drinking my tea?"
Arthur's spatula stops mid-flip. Mason's scrubbing intensifies. Knox's typing gets very deliberate.
"It's half gone, guys. This is forty dollars a box."
Arthur's ears go pink. "That's—huh. That's a lot for tea."
"It's high-quality oolong, Arthur." I stare at him, one hand on my hip. "Do you know anything about this?"
He scratches the back of his neck. "First off, I want to say I didn't know what oolong was. I thought it was, like, regular tea." He's doing the thing where he talks faster when he's cornered. "I was going to ask you about it, actually—"
"So you do admit it was you," I interrupt, narrowing my eyes at him.
"I—okay, yes. But I didn't drink half of it. I had two cups." He holds up two fingers. "Maybe three, tops."
Knox clears his throat. "I also... had some."
I turn.
"It was late," he says. "Couldn't sleep. Fun fact, it didn't help." He looks at the table.
Mason finally puts the plate he's been scrubbing on the drying rack. Reaches for the towel. Dries his hands.
"I may have also had some." A pause. "It's good tea."
I cross my arms over my chest. "Anything else of mine you've been helping yourselves to, or is it just the tea?"
"In our defense," Arthur says, "we're used to communal—" He stops. Looks at the spatula. "We used to share everything with..." He trails off. "You know."
Yeah. I know.
Jessica. Who is probably fast asleep next to Grant right now. And here I am, standing in a cold kitchen, throwing a little tantrum over stolen tea.
When did I get so fun?
"We'll replace it," Arthur says, recovering. "All of it. You want some coffee in the meantime? Fresh pot."
"I'm good," I say, already losing steam on being annoyed. "But since we're on the topic of household mysteries—who keeps setting the thermostat back to sixty-three?"
Mason, who has stolen Arthur's last pancake and is calmly putting it on his own plate, freezes.
"Wait," he says. "You've been turning it up?"
"To sixty-seven, every night for five days."
"I thought it was broken." He puts the plate down.
Arthur drags a hand slowly down his face.
"So let me get this straight," I say. "You thought the thermostat was broken. It never occurred to you that maybe a person who lives here was changing it?"
"Who turns the heat up before bed?"
"Who assumes it's broken instead of asking if someone turned it up?"
Knox pinches the bridge of his nose. "Okay, well, now we know. Sixty-seven. Final answer. Nobody touches it."
"She can't just decide that for—"
"Sixty-seven, Mason," Knox says.
An alarm goes off. Knox picks up his phone and kills it.
"Okay," he says. "We need to be at Ben and Harper's couples shower by two."
"I know," I say.
"Just making sure."
Mason grunts. "Hopefully Grant caught something and won't show."
I almost laugh. Please. As if a single thing in the last six months of my life has ever been that convenient.
***
My hands strip thorns on autopilot, flicking them into the compost bucket one after another.
I've been here since eight thirty. Over two hours of conditioning stock, prepping the cooler for Saturday's corsages, roughing in a sympathy spray for the Delgado family—white lilies, soft fern, a few lisianthus because Mrs. Delgado always said they looked like tiny wedding dresses.
I didn't charge rush pricing. Seemed wrong.
The bell jingles. Short steps, quick heel-clicks on the tile. That has to be Luna.
"Please tell me you brought good coffee," I say without turning around.
"I brought myself, which is arguably much better," Luna teases.
I turn.
She's in leggings and a zip-up, hair in a bun, holding two iced coffees. She hands me one with a smirk (I knew she knew better than to deprive me of iced caffeine) and drops into the chair by the register.
"So," she says. "How's pack life?"
"You know we're not a real pack," I say.
"But you still live with three alphas." She sips her coffee. "You're at least pack-adjacent."
"I see it more as a temporary living arrangement," I counter.
"Uh-huh." She crosses her legs. "How's the thermostat mystery?"
"Resolved." I snip at the base of a stem. "Turns out Mason's been turning it down every night because he thought it was broken."
"Broken, huh."
"But Knox made a ruling. It'll now stay at sixty-seven."
"Knox made a ruling."
I pause with my floral shears mid-air, narrowing my eyes at her. "Are you just going to repeat every I say?"
She laughs. I strip another leaf and drop it in the compost bucket.
"Oh, and guess what?" I slap a free hand on my hip. "They drank half my oolong."
Luna gasps, hand to her chest. "Not the oolong."
"Okay, now you're just mocking me," I point a stem at her.
"I'm just happy to see you're all... bonding, that's all." I stare at her, my expression completely deadpan. A second of awkward silence ticks by. "How are they, though?"
"Fine," I say. "Arthur made pancakes today. Knox's been making lots of spreadsheets, like for the cleaning schedule and such. And Mason—well, he's been... around." I pick up another stem. "I heard work's been slower for him since the Grant thing."
Luna tilts her head. "I mean, tackling a guy whose family basically owns half the commercial leases in town... either that was very brave or very stupid."
"Yeah," I reach for the scissors. "It's so unfair that—"
The bell jingles.
"Oh my god, your shop is adorable."
Hold on, I know that voice. Unfortunately. I turn.
Jessica is standing in my doorway in a white sundress and sandals, her hair styled into perfect I-just-woke-up-like-this waves.
"Beth!" She says with a big, warm smile. "I was hoping you'd be here."
"It's my shop," I say. "So."
"Right! Of course." She laughs. "That was silly. I just—I've heard such amazing things. Lots of people say you're the best florist in town."
Luna has gone very still next to me, her coffee arm frozen halfway to her mouth.
"What can I help you with?" I say, because I'm a professional. And I can now proudly say I pay a quarter of rent thanks to my flower arrangements. I'm not going to throw scissors at anyone.
"Well." Jessica clasps her hands together. "I know this might be a little... I mean, I hope it's not weird—"
It is already really weird.
"—but Grant and I are starting to think about wedding flowers. And I really wanted to come to you first."
Luna puts her coffee down. Very carefully.
"You want me to do your wedding flowers," I say, slowly lowering my floral shears.
"If you're open to it! I totally understand if it's too much. I just thought—you know, we're all adults, and your work is incredible, and I really believe in supporting local—"
"Your wedding. To Grant," I say.
"Yes." She nods, her bright, expectant smile holding steady through two agonizing seconds of dead air. "We're thinking September. Theme-wise, we were thinking garden party. Lots of greenery. Maybe peonies? I've been looking at Pinterest."
She pulls out her phone. She's scrolling through a Pinterest board.
I look at Luna. Luna is looking at me.
"I'll think about it," I say.
"Of course! No pressure." She puts the phone away. "Honestly, I'm just so glad we can be normal about everything. I know the situation is... a lot." She does a head tilt, rescue-dog look. "But it's so nice that you've landed on your feet."
"Thank... you," I say.
"Being on your own," she continues. "It can't be easy. Especially during wedding season." She puts her hand on my arm and I feel my whole body go still, with the only exception being my elbow pulling back an inch before I can stop it.
What the fuck is happening?
"And I've been meaning to say—Grant feels terrible, you know.
We both do. What happened between us, it just..
. happened. We never planned it." She gives my arm a sympathetic little squeeze, and it takes every ounce of my willpower not to reflexively karate-chop her in the wrist. "But I'm so glad we can be mature about this.
I really, truly hope you find your special someone soon, Beth. You deserve that."
Let me get this straight: she's in my shop, touching my arm, making sure I know how sorry she feels for me? Wow.
"As a matter of fact, I have." I say.
I hear it leave my mouth.
I know—I know—I should stop here.
"Oh?" Jessica's eyebrows go up.
The last time I tried for a bluff, I told a recruiter I was an Excel prodigy just to escape a soul-crushing consulting job.
He immediately marched me into a back room for a skills test, where I spent thirty agonizing minutes failing to link two simple cells.
Eventually, I just grabbed my bag and left, enduring the walk of shame past his desk, eyes glued to the floor, before I could get home and block him on LinkedIn.
So my brain knows it shouldn't be doing this. But standing here, a victim of Jessica’s pity, my pride decides to take the wheel and drive me straight off a cliff.
"I'm seeing Pack Leroy, actually."
I can feel Luna staring a hole into the side of my head. I work hard to ignore her.
"You're—" Jessica blinks. "You're dating Knox? And Arthur? And Mason?"
Abort mission. Fix this. Tell her you’re just their roommate. That you’re "seeing" them in the hallway.
"The whole pack," I hear myself say.
I have to zip it right now, before I announce we’re planning a last-minute double wedding with Harper.
Jessica's smile does something. Flickers, maybe. Then it's back, bigger. Way bigger.
"That's wonderful," she says. "Oh my god. That's so great for you." She presses her hand to her chest. "I'm so happy. Really. You guys must be—wow. That's amazing."