Page 90 of Knot Your Sugar Rush
“Short,” Dane says. “No rock-hopping. Path only.”
“I will stroll,” Jamie assures us. “I will meander. I will glide.”
“You will not glide,” Theo says, but he’s already pushing himself up to grab Jamie’s jacket.
We go two by two out into the damp afternoon—Dane in front, checking the ground like the earth might try to shift under us if he doesn’t stare it down, me beside him with my sleeves shoved to my elbows so I can feel the cool brush of air; Theo and Jamie behind, trading barbs in low tones that keep drifting forward and making me smile. The trees drip, the path gives softly under our boots, the world smells like sap and wet bark and something green that feels like it has a name I’ve forgotten.
At the little rise beyond the safehouse, the view opens and the sea flashes through the trees: pewter and pearl and pinpricks of sun where the clouds have thinned. It feels like an answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking.
“Tomorrow,” Theo says quietly at my shoulder, as if he can hear the question anyway. “We’ll go.”
I nod. My chest tightens—but not with the bad kind of fear, not the one that says run. More like the breath you take when you step onto a stage and see the lights and know the song by heart even if you’re still afraid to sing.
We turn back when Jamie’s stride shifts; he doesn’t protest, and I love him a little bit more for pretending he would have continued, if not for the committee. Inside, we peel off damp jackets and socks and pile them near the stove. The cabin smells like wet wool and faint pine and us. Dane builds the fire a touch higher. Theo ticks through a quiet evening checklist: fill canteens, top off the oil in the lantern, put the map where we can’t forget it. Jamie writes “No ass over teakettle” in the margins of his fake minutes and then adds a noble stick-bear outside a courthouse.
Dinner is stew warmed slow, with shavings of the cured meat and potatoes that have turned buttery at the edges.
When the bowls are scraped clean and the fire has slid into its ember-sigh, we make a nest bigger than the one from last night—more blankets, a pillow fortress, the kind of sprawl you can only achieve with three alphas who all insist their preferred blanket is objectively superior. Jamie claims the corner closest to the fire like a sun-drunk cat. I end up between Theo and Dane without planning it, my calves tucked under a quilt, my shoulder against Theo’s arm, Dane a steady warmth at my back.
Someone (Theo) says we should get sleep. Someone else (Jamie) says he’s already sleeping with his eyes open and can prove it. Dane’s laugh is a soft thing I feel instead of hear. I look at each of them and make myself memorize what this feels like—not because I think I’ll lose it, but because I want to keep choosing it when the road is long and the weather is ugly and the flower is still far away and I’m tired.
“Tomorrow,” Theo says again, barely above a whisper.
“Tomorrow,” Dane echoes.
Jamie reaches out without opening his eyes and squeezes my ankle through the quilt. “Tomorrow,” he murmurs, and it sounds like a promise and a dare and a prayer.
I tuck my cheek into the curve of my arm and breathe them in—pine and smoke and earth—and let the safehouse hold us while the night draws its soft curtain. The future waits where it always does. For once, I don’t rush to meet it. I fall asleep inside the answer I didn’t know I’d been writing this whole time: stay, together, and go, together.
Tomorrow.
Chapter sixty-eight
Cam
The safehouse is quiet, but my thoughts aren’t.
I slip away from the table after breakfast, tea still warming my palms as I find the little patch of sunlight in the corner by the window. The blanket stays wrapped around my shoulders, cocooning me in the lingering scents of the pack—warm, grounding, safe.
I let my mind drift to Zae. My sister would have loved this: the adventure, the wildness, the way the air smells sharp and new after a night in the woods. She’d have teased me about my hesitation, coaxed me toward the unknown with that grin of hers, daring me to jump first. She was always braver than me—or maybe just less afraid of falling. Thinking of her now makes my chest ache in that old, familiar way, but it’s softer, too. I like to think she’d be proud I’m here at all.
The floorboards creak behind me, and when I turn, Theo is there, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck like he’s not sure if he’s interrupting.
“I’ve been looking at the maps again,” he says quietly, holding a folded sheet in one hand. His voice is low, like the words arejust for me. “I think I’ve found a better route to the flower. Safer. And… maybe faster.”
Something in his tone makes me step closer. He smells like tea and fresh air, like the outside still clings to him. “You never stop looking, do you?” I ask.
He smiles—small, almost shy—and I can’t help it. I lean in and kiss him.
It’s not tentative, not anymore. My fingers find the edge of his sweater, clutching lightly as he responds, his hands bracketing my waist. The kiss deepens, turns warmer, fuller, until my toes curl and my heart is racing like it wants to match his. The whole world narrows to the press of him, the way he exhales through his nose like he’s been holding his breath all morning.
When we finally part, my cheeks are warm and my lips tingle.
Jamie’s voice calls from the kitchen, followed by the sound of Dane’s laugh, and a moment later they appear in the doorway. They both glance at me, then at Theo, and there’s a flicker of knowing in their eyes that I don’t even try to deny.
I tug the blanket closer and meet their gazes. “If you’re all with me… I’m ready to find the flower again.”
Dane’s grin is slow and certain. “Always with you.”
