Page 92 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves

I grin. “Make sure it vibrates.”

Carson hands me a towel for my chest and offers me milk with his other hand. Blake’s dozing now, cheek resting on my stomach, arms wrapped around my hips like a very tired, very smug teddy bear.

We shift and adjust until everyone fits better. I end up sandwiched between Carson and Edgar, with Blake snoring softly across my legs, clutching my thigh.

Edgar traces circles on my shoulder. “You do realize we’re never letting you go now, yes?”

“Obviously,” I say.

Carson kisses my forehead. “You’re safe. Always.”

I believe it. Even if we’re all wanted for murder. Even if our sex life could trigger a power outage. Even if we’re the unholiest thing this town has ever seen.

I close my eyes. “So… round two at breakfast?”

Blake makes a noise that sounds like both excitement and terror.

Carson chuckles. “Only if there’s pancakes.”

Edgar strokes my hip. “And syrup. On the side. Or on my cock.”

“Oh,” I whisper, grinning. “I vote cock.”

“Cock, for sure,” Blake says.

“Cock it is,” Carson says.

Turns out, true love isn’t soft. It’s sharp. It’s sticky. It’s covered in frosting and blood and three sets of bite marks. With a side of aiding and abetting, cock syrup, and a bakery.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Jennifer

The bakery box in front of me is white, tied with a black satin ribbon, and stamped in blood-red foil with the words The Definitive Crumb.

Edgar’s idea, of course. Dark. Elegant. A warning.

I call it The Crumb in my head. Like mobsters call it The Family. You don’t fuck with The Crumb. You don’t complain about the price of shortbread or ask if we have ‘real men’s donuts.’ You especially don’t slap my ass and tell me to smile. Not unless you want your bones composted under my basil and your balls mistaken for heirloom potatoes.

We debated names, obviously.

Blake was really pulling for Hot Crossed Buns. He made a PowerPoint. There were animations. He presented it shirtless with a pie chart shaped like actual pie. I blacked out somewhere around the ‘moist crumb’ slide.

Carson, deadpan, wrote Deadly Desserts on a post-it note and stuck it to my forehead while I was sprawled on the kitchen floor eating cheesecake off his stomach. No notes. He was serious.

My contribution was Bite Me, written in eyeliner on the back of a sex receipt the morning after an aggressively well-lubricated foursome. Everyone agreed it lacked…subtlety.

Even the librarian weighed in with Murder & Meringue. A respectable contender. Charming in a cozy-strangulation, found-a-body-in-the-tea-room kind of way.

But The Definitive Crumb won out in the end. It sounds like a final word. Like a mic drop. Like the last thing you taste before someone decides you don’t deserve another bite.

The sign out front used to say Cookie’s Place. That’s dead now. The old metal letters sit rusting behind the shed, and I sincerely hope raccoons are pissing on them. (Yes, I reference raccoons a lot. Lovable little trash goblins.)

Carson hung the new sign. Blake lit it with fairy lights. Edgar supervised while I baked lemon bars and plotted my grocery list around potential victims.

At home, the garden’s thriving. Tomatoes. Basil. A smug-ass row of lemon trees, plump with photosynthesis and vengeance. The soil is rich, dark, and suspiciously well-aerated. The zucchini are particularly robust, which makes sense when you consider the man who groped me in the flour aisle last week now lives underneath them.

Edgar turned him to ash in his crematorium, whistling while he worked. Sprinkled him near the seedlings with clinical grace. Said it was “poetic.” I agreed. Blake watered the spot with a little extra care. Carson said he hoped the man comes back as a slug.

---