Chapter 44
June
“June?” Torin calls out from the other side of my bedroom door.
I stand with my back to it, staring at the rumpled white sheets on my bed. “Yeah?”
“You said you were going to open the door,” Callum says.
“I did say that,” I agree.
Yesterday, I happily embraced this new life with the scent matches I have forgiven. This morning, my doubts have resurfaced. It’s perfectly normal to be wary after my other first morning with them was complete and utter hell, right?
“Do you want us to go?” Archer asks.
With my arms crossed and my back against the door, I chew my bottom lip, contemplating whether I want to open it.
My sister has taken over my apartment. Callum, Torin, and Archer drove me back there yesterday to help me pack up my stuff and bring it here, but I was tired and overwhelmed, so I didn't explore much of the house.
We ordered pizza for dinner; I brushed my teeth and crawled into bed, exhausted.
But this house—and my bedroom—is beautiful. It’s all bright white walls, oak hardwood floors with splashes of green walls and trailing plants everywhere. Like an oasis in one of the quietest parts of the city.
The downstairs has floor-to-ceiling glass walls that make it feel like the outside is flowing inside. It’s light, bright, and airy. Almost the complete opposite of the last house, which means this feels like a fresh start for all of us. It’s perfect.
Upstairs is just as gorgeous. I have my own bedroom with an insane view of the city in the distance, and all of my clothes I left at the old house are here.
Callum, Archer, and Torin prepared a room for me, hoping I would come back to them, but not knowing if I ever would.
There’s no nest, and I’m relieved about that.
Callum asked if I wanted one, but I said, not yet.
I destroyed my last nest when they broke my heart so badly I thought it would never heal again.
Some wounds still need time to heal, and that’s one of them.
“We’ll come back,” Torin says.
“No, it’s okay.” I grab the doorknob, twist and pull it open, coming face to face with three fully dressed alphas, loaded down with trays of breakfast.
My cheeks burn, and I’m mortified that I kept them waiting outside my door for so long. “Why didn’t you say you had breakfast for me?”
“We wanted it to be a surprise,” Torin says with a small smile and a sweet kiss.
I step aside, and they file in, touching their lips to mine in a far-too-brief morning kiss. They get everything settled on my bed while I eye the white linen bedsheets with a raised brow. “Um…”
Grinning, Torin grabs my hand and, with a gentle tug, pulls me into the bed. “Quit worrying about the sheets. If we spill, we’ll wash them or replace them. This is about bringing you breakfast in bed and you having the best morning.”
“Okay,” I agree, get settled on the bed and gratefully accept the plate overflowing with scrambled eggs, toast, pancakes with maple syrup, crispy bacon, and sausage that Archer passes me.
Coffee, juice, toast with jam, and generous servings of maple syrup are never a good idea on white bedding, but no one seems concerned about the mess we make as we dig in.
“What do you want to do today?” Archer asks me between bites of his bacon.
I sip my vanilla latte, closing my eyes to savor the sweetness, and appreciating that Archer clearly knows how I like my coffee because this is as good as the latte from any coffee shop. “I don’t know. Anything is fine.”
“What would make you happy?” Torin asks. “We’ll start there.”
I set my latte down on the tray, furrowing my brow as I think about how I want to spend today.
When I left my mates, I was in survival mode. Life was about getting back on my feet, working, and dealing with an unhealthy fear of roaches. Happiness was pretty low down on the agenda.
Now I’m here with my scent matches, and I’m not sure what our life is going to look like. I quit my job at the hotel. It hadn’t been making me happy, and even if my scent matches hadn’t come back into my life, I wouldn’t have stayed there long anyway.
I know how I want this new life to feel: like that first meeting in the library with Torin and me and when Pack Wells claimed me at the mate bonding, full of heat and humor and sweetness and excitement. Can an entire life feel like that?
“June?”
I look at Callum, who’s studying me with a frown deepening the lines around his eyes.
“It’s not a trick question,” he says.
I pick at the small stack of pancakes I’ve nearly decimated. “I know.”
Torin bounces his shoulder against mine. “So…”
“Breakfast is fine,” I say. “I guess maybe we could go for a walk.”
A walk is good. Maybe a little boring, but that’s the point. If I keep expectations low, I won’t be disappointed if today isn’t filled with all the fun I want.
“Oh,” Callum says with a level of surprise that instantly piques my interest.
I look up at him, struggling to read his expression as he sips from his cup. “What do you mean, oh?”
“Just surprised.” Archer drags his last bit of bacon through the maple syrup on his plate and tosses it in his mouth.
“By?” My eyes dart to them one by one, and I get the sense they’re dragging this bit of information out to torment me, all while secretly laughing at me.
“You said you bake when you’re happy, and…” Torin’s voice trails off.
My mind seizes on the word bake. I sit up, breakfast all but forgotten.
I told myself I would never bake again, and I meant it, but if this thing they’re keeping from me involves baking, I’m definitely interested. “And…?”
“We bought this house for the kitchen,” Callum explains. “There are three ovens, a proofing cupboard, and an outdoor kitchen with a pizza oven. There’s even a—”
I nearly fall down the stairs.
That’s how fast I scramble off my bed, definitely spilling at least five different things on my bed, on my way to sprinting down the stairs.
Torin, a step behind me, half-laughing and half-alarmed, loops his arm around my middle and sets me back on my feet before I can break my neck.
“Careful, beautiful.” He drops a kiss on the side of my neck, and I nearly forget what’s waiting for me downstairs. “Left,” he says with a huskiness in his voice that makes me wonder if he knows exactly what that neck kiss just did to my insides.
He lets me go, and I continue down the stairs, turn left, and five steps later, skid to a stop in the kitchen of my dreams.
I don’t know why the designer of this kitchen thought a person needed three ovens, but I could kiss the guy. Or girl. I can bake a cake, cookies, and brownies at the same time without having to adjust temperatures or move cookie trays even once.
Laughing, I hop up and down between speaking literal gibberish as I fling myself at Callum, Archer, and Torin, then bounce back to the kitchen of my dreams.
“My god, the proofing cupboard is big enough to live inside,” I breathe.
Archer laughs. “Please do not live in the proofing cupboard. Here.”
I twist around in time to catch the white apron he tosses me. “An apron?”
“Where do you want us?” Torin asks.
Which is when I notice they all have aprons they put on while I was losing my mind over this insane kitchen.
“You want to bake?” I ask, eyes widening. “With me?”
Callum’s smile fades as he takes the apron from me to slip it over my head and drops a kiss on my lips. “This is a do-over. What I did… knocking over the cake you made us that first morning will haunt me for the rest of my life. I’m not worthy of your love yet, Juniper, but one day, I will be.”
I hug him hard, squealing when he wraps his arms around me and lifts me slightly off the ground.
“Idiot. Do you think I’d have come back if I didn’t love you?
Any of you? And it’s June." I poke him in the gut when he sets me back down on my feet, and, smiling, he leans around me to tie my apron for me.
“So, you still want to go on that walk?” Torin asks with a teasing smile. Nudging Callum out of the way, he lifts me by my hips and seats me on the counter. The look on his face tells me he knows exactly how I feel about walks.
Sliding my arms around his shoulders, I lean in close to give him a lingering kiss on his neck that draws a rumbling groan from deep in his chest. “I would have been bored out of my ever-loving mind,” I say, making everyone laugh.
I pull back to meet Torin’s amused, heated gaze, and I realize I’ve never seen him this happy or relaxed before. I like this look on him. “Then I’d like to go see Lottie at the hospital. Maybe we could take her something we bake, and my sister. And…”
“And…” Archer says.
“Whatever makes you happy,” I say, twisting to face him. “I don’t want today to be just about me. It’s about us.”
Callum scratches his stubbled jaw, his expression thoughtful. “We spent more years trying to get out from under our parents’ thumb than thinking about what made us happy. I was a quarterback at school, and I miss just throwing a ball around.”
“So we’ll throw a ball in the backyard,” I declare, then wrinkle my nose when I remember what happened the last time I tried to catch something. “River nearly died laughing once when she tossed me mascara, and I just stood there with my arms up while it sailed right past me.”
Archer is laughing as he finishes pulling brand new baking equipment from the cupboard. The trays and cake tins are top-quality from France.
“I’ll have to buy another camera to capture that hilarious moment if it happens again,” Torin says, leaning on the counter beside me as Archer draws me into a deep hug that makes me forget all about baking and instead want to find a couch to snuggle.
When a strange silence fills the kitchen, and Archer stops running his hand up and down my back, I glance at Archer and then at Callum. Both are staring at Torin, eyes wide with surprise. Clearly, I missed something important.
“What is it?” I ask them.
A smile softens Archer’s face. “He used to take photographs.”
“Why’d you stop?” I ask Torin.