Page 30 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
“You should’ve seen Dane trying to boil pasta,” Theo adds. “He didn’t turn on the burner. And no salt.”
“It was the first night!” I protest, though there’s no heat to it. “And you scorched rice the next day, so maybe don’t cast stones.”
Cam giggles, eyes sparkling. “So, the culinary dream team, huh?”
“It’s why we got better,” Jamie says, winking. “Trial by fire. Literally.”
“I think there were actually burn marks on the ceiling,” Theo adds.
“That wasn’t me!” I point at Jamie.
“Okay, technically it was the toaster oven,” Jamie allows, raising his hands in surrender. “But we all survived. Barely.”
Cam leans forward on her elbows, completely at ease. “And now you’re landlords together?”
“Roommates turned business partners,” I say, glancing around the table. “We spent enough time fixing up that junkerapartment ourselves, we figured—why not do it for real? Buy, renovate, rent.”
“The dream,” Cam says lightly, though there’s a note in her voice I can’t quite place.
Jamie jumps in before the quiet can stretch. “We even argued about what to name the LLC. Dane wanted something serious.”
“Because itisserious,” I say.
“Theo wanted something minimalistic and obscure.”
“Because it’s branding, and you wouldn’t know subtlety if it hit you in the—”
“And I wanted to call us Alpha Asset Avengers,” Jamie interrupts proudly.
Cam chokes on her soup, coughing with laughter. “Please tell me you did.”
“Absolutely not,” I say.
“We compromised,” Theo says, smirking. “It’s called Grove Holdings.”
Cam gives a mock sigh. “That’s very respectable, and I did note it on my lease agreement. But Alpha Asset Avengers would’ve looked great on letterhead.”
Her laughter wraps around us again, golden and easy. She belongs here. Somehow, in just a few days, she’s slipped into this rhythm like she’s always been part of it. She teases Jamie like she’s known him for years, sidesteps Theo’s sarcasm with practiced ease, and meets me glare for glare. And yet... I can feel something unraveling in me. Some plan I’d spent years building.
Because I was supposed to leave.
Starling Grove was never meant to be permanent. It was a stepping stone—a place to build experience, not to plant roots. I’ve been looking at listings in the city. Bigger opportunities. Higher stakes. I want to grow, stretch, make something of myself beyond the county lines of this quaint little town.
But now?
Cam reaches for the pepper grinder and says something about needing more kick, and Jamie immediately starts arguing about flavor balance while Theo mutters something about refined palettes. I watch her laugh with them like she was meant to be at this table.
And I don’t know if I can leave.
Not when the idea of walking away from this—this laughter, this easy companionship, this radiant omega who smells like she was poured into the cracks of my carefully planned life—feels like a mistake.
Cam glances at me. “You’re quiet tonight. Too busy judging our soup etiquette?”
I blink, then smile. “Just taking it all in.”
She tilts her head slightly. “Does it meet your standards, landlord Dane?”
“Barely,” I tease, and Jamie groans.
