Chapter 10
Pies And Panic Attacks
~HAZEL~
Dating three Alphas at once should come with an instruction manual. Or at least a warning label: May cause insanity, social ostracization, and spontaneous combustion.
I stand in my bakery kitchen, mechanically wiping flour from my hands while my brain runs through every possible disaster scenario like it's training for the Overthinking Olympics.
The afternoon light slants through the windows, turning flour dust into fairy sparkles, which would be magical if I wasn't having a complete mental breakdown.
How does this even work? Do we take turns? Is there a schedule? Do I need a color-coded calendar? "Monday: Panic over Rowan. Wednesday: Have anxiety about Levi. Friday: Existential crisis featuring Luca."
My hands won't stop moving—wiping, cleaning, straightening things that don't need straightening.
It's been three hours since Rowan left with his sandwich declaration, two hours since Reverie texted me seventeen different emoji combinations that roughly translated to "GET IT GIRL," and approximately thirty-seven minutes since I started seriously considering faking my own death and moving to Peru.
Do they have Alphas in Peru? Probably. Alphas are everywhere. Like mosquitoes. Or tax collectors.
I count breaths the way my therapist taught me—in for four, hold for four, out for four, contemplate screaming for four. It's supposed to calm the nervous system. Instead, it just makes me lightheaded, which is probably not the goal but at least it's different from the chest-crushing anxiety.
What's the etiquette here? Emily Post definitely didn't cover "How to Date Your Ex-Husband's Former Best Friend and His Two Attractive Associates Without Causing a Scandal."
The logistics alone make my head spin. Three different men, three different personalities, three different sets of needs and wants and probably three different favorite restaurants where the entire town will watch us eat breadsticks while taking bets on who'll claim me first.
God, the claiming. What if they all want to claim? Is that even legal? Would I just walk around looking like I got attacked by a vampire convention?
The bell above my door chimes, and I freeze mid-spiral.
All three of them walk in together.
Of fucking course they do.
It's like watching a natural disaster in slow motion—beautiful, terrifying, and absolutely inevitable.
Rowan enters first, still in his firefighter uniform because apparently he knows that's playing dirty.
Levi follows, sunshine smile already in place, flannel sleeves rolled up to display forearms that should be registered as weapons.
And Luca brings up the rear, silent and watchful, like he's cataloguing exit routes and potential threats.
Their scents hit me simultaneously—a triple wave of pheromones that makes my knees buckle and my omega hindbrain start shrieking in frequencies only dogs can hear.
Smoked cedar from Rowan, wrapping around me like a possessive embrace. Honey butter from Levi, warm and coaxing and dangerously comforting. Molasses gingerbread from Luca, dark and rich and tinged with that bitter coffee edge.
Together, they create something that shouldn't work but does—like someone mixed Christmas, summer barbecues, and really good sex into an airborne aphrodisiac.
I need to open a window. Or leave the country. Or possibly just die right here.
"Hey sunshine," Levi says, because of course he speaks first. "You look—"
"EMERGENCY! THERE'S AN EMERGENCY!"
The door explodes open with enough force to rattle the windows, and Bea Crowe bursts through like a geriatric hurricane.
Her lavender-gray curls bounce with the kind of manic energy usually reserved for Black Friday sales and custody battles.
Her eyes are wild, her cardigan is inside-out, and she's waving her arms like she's trying to achieve liftoff.
"FIRE! DISASTER! CATASTROPHE OF UNPRECEDENTED PROPORTIONS!"
Rowan shifts immediately into professional mode, his entire body changing from relaxed to ready in a heartbeat. "Where's the fire, Mrs. Crowe?"
"The station! The fire station! It's—it's—" She clutches her chest dramatically, and I'm genuinely concerned she's having a cardiac event until I notice the slight smirk playing at the corner of her mouth.
Oh no. Oh no, she's not—
"We need to go NOW!" Bea grabs Rowan's arm with surprising strength for a seventy-eight-year-old Beta. "All of you! Especially Hazel!"
"Me?" I squeak. "Why do I—"
"No time! Lives are at stake! Reputations hang in the balance! THE VERY FAbrIC OF SOCIETY IS THREATENED!"
Levi and Luca exchange glances that clearly translate to "what the fuck," but Rowan's already moving, training overriding skepticism.
"Let's go," he says, and there's something about an Alpha using his command voice that makes my feet move before my brain catches up.
I grab my purse on instinct, hands shaking as I lock the bakery behind us. My heart pounds against my ribs like it's trying to escape. What if something's really wrong? What if someone's hurt? What if—
We rush outside in a cluster of confusion and Alpha pheromones. The October afternoon has gone crisp, the kind of cold that promises winter's coming whether we're ready or not. Leaves crunch under our feet as Bea leads us not toward the fire station, but toward—
The town square?
"Mrs. Crowe," Luca says slowly, suspicion dripping from every syllable. "The fire station is that way."
"Details!" she waves dismissively. "Geographical technicalities!"
The town square comes into view, and I realize with dawning horror exactly what's happening.
Banners stretch between lamp posts: "OAKRIDGE ANNUAL HARVEST PIE CONTEST."
Tables line the square, covered in checkered tablecloths.
At least half the town mills about, and every single head turns when they see us approaching.
"The emergency," Rowan says flatly, "is a pie contest."
"The emergency," Bea corrects with the self-satisfaction of someone who's just pulled off a heist, "is that we're SHORT ON JUDGES and the contest starts in—" she checks her watch with theatrical precision, "—THIRTY SECONDS AGO!"
I'm going to commit elder abuse. It'll be justified. No jury would convict me.
"You said there was a fire," Rowan points out, his voice carrying that particular tone of someone reconsidering their life choices.
"There IS a fire," Bea insists. "A fire of COMPETITION! A burning desire for VICTORY! An inferno of CULINARY PASSION!"
"That's not how fire works," Luca mutters.
"That's not how any of this works," I add, but we're already being herded toward the judge's table by the crowd that's definitely been waiting for this exact scenario.
Dottie James materializes from behind a pumpkin display like some kind of gossip ninja. "Oh look! All three of them AND Hazel! What a COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED SURPRISE!"
This is a setup. This is absolutely a setup.
"We can't judge a pie contest," I protest. "I'm a baker! That's a conflict of interest!"
"Nonsense," Bea says, shoving us toward four empty chairs at the judge's table. "You're not competing, so you're perfectly qualified. Besides, we need someone with REFINED TASTES."
"And we need Alphas for the aesthetic," Dottie adds with zero shame. "The photographer from the newspaper just happens to be here."
Of course he is. Of course this is happening. Of course my life has become a small-town sitcom where everyone's in on the joke except me.
The judge's table has four chairs. Four places. Four score cards.
Three Alphas and one increasingly panicked Omega.
This is fine. Everything is fine. I'm just going to judge pies with three men I might be dating while the entire town watches and takes notes. Totally normal Tuesday—wait, is it Tuesday? Have I lost track of time? Am I dissociating?
"Sit," Bea commands, and something about her tone suggests resistance would result in a scene even more embarrassing than compliance.
I sit.
Rowan takes the chair to my right, his thigh brushing mine under the table.
Levi claims the left, immediately sprawling in that way tall people do when they're trying to take up less space but failing.
Luca bookends the group, radiating silent disapproval that somehow makes him even more attractive.
Stop noticing how attractive they are. Focus on the pies. Become one with the pies.
The crowd presses closer, phones already out, documenting every second of this disaster. The afternoon sun casts dramatic shadows across the square, turning the whole scene into something out of a movie where the small-town girl definitely ends up pregnant with triplets.
Don't think about pregnancy. Don't think about knots. Don't think about—
"First pie!" Bea announces, and Mrs. Henderson approaches with something that might be apple or might be a crime against nature. It's hard to tell under the burnt top crust.
She sets it down with the pride of someone who definitely doesn't own a timer.
We all stare at it.
It stares back, somehow.
"Well," Levi says slowly, "it's definitely... a pie."
"That's generous," Luca mutters.
"It has character," Rowan tries.
"It has carbon," I correct, then immediately feel bad when Mrs. Henderson's face falls. "But in a good way! Carbon is... essential for life!"
Smooth, Hazel. Very smooth.
We each take a obligatory bite, and I learn what regret tastes like. It tastes like burnt flour and sadness with a hint of what might have been cinnamon in a past life.
"Interesting texture," Rowan manages with a straight face.
"Very... crunchy," Levi adds.
"It's certainly memorable," Luca says, which is the most diplomatic way possible to say "I will remember this trauma forever."
Mrs. Henderson beams like we've just given her a Michelin star.
The next pie arrives—cherry, from the look of it, brought by Tommy Chen's mother who definitely knows what she's doing. It's actually good, which makes the contrast with Mrs. Henderson's attempt even more jarring.