Chapter 60
Chapter sixty
ASH
I stretch, yawn, and pull the blanket tighter around me. The kitchen counter is cool beneath my bare thighs, making me shiver. Heat has always left me drained and in pain and wanting to crawl away and die. And always alone.
Turns out, heat is a fucking blast with alphas who love you. There were snacks, baths, endless cuddles, massages, and naps that started and ended with kisses.
I’m wrung out, tender, like my nerve endings have been electrified. And I cannot wait to do it again.
Pierce stands between my knees, his fingers making lazy circles on my hips beneath the blanket. Every touch feels magnified, but not overwhelming. It’s just perfect. His chest is close enough that I can lean forward and rest my forehead against it whenever the world gets a bit too bright or loud.
“All good?” Pierce murmurs. His fingers pause their circular motion, then resume when I nod against his chest.
“Tired,” I say around another yawn, “and thirsty.”
Pierce reaches past me for a glass of water with a crazy straw in it that Beckett had delivered overnight just because I said they made me laugh.
The water’s cool on my throat, which I feel like will take days to not be sore from all the moaning.
“Not like that,” Liam interjects. “You need to spoon it in, then level it off. Otherwise, it’s too packed.”
“It’s a cup of flour. What difference does it make?” Beckett counters.
Pierce turns to watch our packmates bicker.
“The difference between cake and bread,” Liam replies dryly. “Baking is chemistry, not hockey. You can’t just muscle through it.”
“It’s cake, it can’t be that hard.” Beckett is grumpy now that he’s been relieved of the measuring cups.
“Do you ever see me baking? No. There’s a reason for it.”
“I told you a box mix would be fine.” I offer.
“You know, I’ve been to eight different grocery stores looking for pre-made yellow cake with chocolate frosting,” Beckett announces to the room, running his finger down the printed recipe again.
“Eight. You’d think it would be a standard combination, but no.
It’s always chocolate cake with vanilla frosting, or vanilla cake with chocolate frosting not yellow, or some weird red velvet or Oreo thing. ”
I smile against Pierce’s chest, picturing my six-foot-four professional hockey player alpha prowling through bakery sections with single-minded determination.
“Apparently yellow cake with chocolate frosting is the unicorn of baked goods.”
“It’s the trailer trash of cake. Everything has to be fancy now.” Pierce says as he holds the glass up for me to take another sip.
“You should have just gone to Estelle. If the diner doesn’t make it, I’m sure she has a cousin who bakes,” Liam adds. “But Mr. Eight Grocery Stores here insisted on doing it himself.”
Beckett points a flour-covered spatula in our direction. “Hey, I made a promise. An alpha keeps his promises.”
“You made two promises,” I count them off on my fingers, “Cake. Knot.”
Beckett beams like he got a gold star from the teacher.
Liam snorts, “The cake is still debatable.”
“The knot sure as fuck isn’t.” Beckett winks at me.
“Yo, we find an omega and that unlocks your ability to curse? You’re rocking the potty mouth.” Pierce barely holds back a laugh.
Beckett gasps and puts his hand to his chest.
“This is my trauma!” He wags a finger between Liam and Pierce. “You said I didn’t have any childhood trauma. This! This is it! In the second grade, I hit my funny bone and said ‘fuck’ and Mrs. Brindle made me write an apology letter to the whole class and then read it aloud.”
We try, we really try hard to be serious but it only lasts three heartbeats before we’re laughing so hard we cry.
“Just my luck,” I say, wiping away a tear, “I had to fall for a hockey player traumatized over the word fuck, a criminal who hacked the government to get me a gift, and the guy I hated for eight years because he didn’t kill my brother.”
“Oh god,” Pierce stiffens next to me. “I’m fucking Reed’s sister. He would have hated this. No. Would have killed me.”
Liam chokes on his sip of water. “No, my guy, you got it all wrong. He would have loved this.” He pauses for a second.
“Yeah, okay, he might have run screaming from the sex part but this,” he motions to all of us in the kitchen.
“He would have loved this. All the people he loved in one place, fucking up a cake.”
I wrap my arms around Pierce and rest my head on his shoulder.
“Yeah, he would have loved this,” I say around the lump in my throat.
Later, after cake and a nap and maybe some more sex, I’ll find Reed’s pocket knife and find a special spot in the kitchen for it, so he’ll always be in here with us.
THE END