Chapter Forty-Three
Theo
T here’s spaghetti on the ceiling.
Not metaphorically. Not in a " this kitchen is a mess " kind of way.
No; there is literal spaghetti on the actual ceiling.
Finn’s pretending he didn’t cause it, Jax is trying to salvage the meatballs, and Rory has retreated to the wine like a man who has seen too much. Meanwhile, I am elbow-deep in flour, trying to convince a lump of dough to become garlic knots and not some sort of sentient goop monster.
We’re cooking for Frankie. Correction: we are ‘ cooking ’ in the loosest, most legally non-binding sense of the word.
After the hell of yesterday—her going home, confronting her mom, coming back pale and shaken but proud—we all agreed we needed to do something. Something sweet, something dumb, and something very, very us.
So we decided to make her dinner. The idea was charming. Romantic , even.
The execution, however?
Yeah. That’s been a culinary emergency.
“Why is there cinnamon in the mashed potatoes?” Rory asks, holding a spoon like it personally betrayed him.
Finn blinks. “Is that bad?”
“Yes.”
“I was experimenting.”
“You’re not on Top Chef ,” Jax mutters. “You’re on thin ice.”
The oven dings.
“Oh, God,” I say. “That’s me. That’s the garlic knots! Pray .”
I open the oven door, and there’s smoke. It’s not billowing, exactly, but certainly enough to qualify as a health risk. Jax swoops in with a dish towel and the reflexes of a man who’s lived through too many kitchen fires; and that’s when the front door opens.
Frankie follows the scent of chaos and catastrophe like a bloodhound and steps into the kitchen still in her work clothes—blouse slightly wrinkled, claw clip holding back a halo of loose strands, mascara barely hanging on after what was probably a hell of a day.
She stops in the doorway, takes in the haze of garlic-scented smoke, the flour coating half the floor like we’ve summoned a demon via sourdough, and a singed oven mitt lying on the stove in what I’m almost sure is defeat.
We all freeze—
And then she grins.
Full wattage, tired but genuine. The kind that short-circuits my entire nervous system.
“You guys cooked ?” she asks, incredulous.
“We attempted ,” I say, wiping my hands on a towel that is somehow both wet and burnt.
“Finn assaulted the potatoes,” Rory adds from his perch by the sink, where he’s nursing a shallow cut.
“Yeah, well, Jax incinerated a wooden spoon,” Finn fires back. “And we’re not even sure how.”
“I regret nothing,” Jax says flatly, stacking meatballs onto a tray with calm precision.
Frankie laughs— really laughs—and the room shifts as all the tension in her shoulders melts into something warm and light.
“You did all this for me ?”
“You’ve had a rough week,” I say, stepping closer, ducking to kiss her temple. “We wanted you to come home to something that wasn’t trauma.”
“Mission mostly accomplished,” Rory mutters.
“I feel so loved,” she says, eyes shiny now, voice soft. “Like… aggressively loved.”
Dinner is edible. Mostly. We end up with garlic knots that are slightly charred, definitely crispy, allegedly intentional; dense meatballs, a salad Jax claims full ownership of despite the fact it’s 80% croutons, and mashed potatoes that have texture .
That’s all I’ll say.
We eat on the floor around the coffee table, because the dining table is still a crime scene, and absolutely no one wants to touch it.
“I swear,” Frankie says mid-bite, “if I ever go missing, just follow the trail of over-seasoned food and emotionally unstable alpha devotion.”
“I prefer the term enthusiastic,” I reply.
“Is that what we’re calling your seasoning choices now?” Rory says, chewing thoughtfully. “Because my sinuses are sweating.”
“I have a refined palate,” I argue.
“You dumped half a bottle of cayenne into the sauce.”
“I was expressing passion .”
Jax grunts. “You were trying to impress Frankie with your forearms and forgot the lid was open.”
“Okay,” Finn chimes in, fork raised like he’s solving world peace, “but if she passes out from spice-induced respiratory failure, I get to take over content management.”
“Fair,” Frankie says with a mouthful of garlic knot.
We fall into easy conversation—legs stretched out, laughter echoing. For a moment, it’s just… us. Our pack. No board meetings, no OSC letters, no mothers with vendettas or betas named Nigel. Just a kitchen full of smoke and terrible decisions and people who love each other too much to pretend otherwise.
“I’ve been thinking,” Finn says between bites, “about traveling. After the season ends. Just a few weeks. Europe maybe. Or Australia.”
Frankie perks up. “Can I come?”
“You’re literally the whole reason,” he says, grinning. “I want to show you the world. Or at least, like, half of it before I get sunburned.”
“I’m in,” I nod. “Let’s take the chaos global.”
“We should do a pack retreat,” Jax adds, leaning back on his elbows. “Somewhere with no cell service. And trees. Big ones.”
Rory raises an eyebrow. “We live near a forest.”
“Yeah, but he means an intentional forest ,” I cut in. “Think: paid-for solitude. With hot tubs and spiritual awakening.”
“More knives,” Jax adds.
“You don’t need more knives,” Frankie says without looking up.
“I need to expand my collection.”
“You bought one last week and named it.”
Jax shrugs. “It spoke to me.”
Frankie giggles, resting her head against Rory’s knee. “You’re going to get us banned from several countries.”
“Worth it,” I say. “We’ll film it. Post it as a series.”
Finn nods. “ Pack Gone Feral. We’ll get matching merch.”
Frankie leans back and stretches, eyes drifting around the room, soft and bright and entirely ours.
“You guys are ridiculous,” she says.
“And you love it,” I shoot back.
She meets my gaze, and her smile—slow, sleepy, sincere—makes my heart skip.
“I really, really do.”
Rory, who’s been unusually quiet, clears his throat.
We all look at him, and he doesn’t say anything, but he nudges his phone toward me.
There’s an email open on his phone, and I blink down at it. It’s from a scout. A regional scout.
Frankie reads over my shoulder and gasps. “You emailed them back?”
“They saw the final,” he nods. “And… they’re definitely interested.”
“You’re kidding,” I say.
“Nope.”
Finn immediately starts cheering, and Jax smiles, quiet and proud. I grin and slap Rory on the back as Frankie’s eyes go wide.
“Wait. Does this mean—?”
“It means,” Rory says, “that we should probably train a little harder.”
“It means ,” I correct, “that our Captain is about to go pro .”
Rory rolls his eyes, but I see the smile tugging at his mouth. Frankie watches us all, curled into my side, eyes full of something warm and quiet and huge.
“This,” she says, voice soft, “is what happy looks like.”
And she’s right.
…Even if the potatoes are weird.