Page 41 of Knot So Sweet
After I finish eating and tidy up, I curl up in my reading chair with Liam's book recommendation and the soft throw blanket when voices echo near the front door. Usually, when Garrick finishes, Xaden tends to pick him up or Liam, so they can all ride home together. The apartment door is slightly ajar, another new habit letting me hear the comforting sounds of life below.
"...definitely changed," Liam's voice drifts up. "Have you been up there lately?"
"Brought her..." Garrick cuts himself off. "Place doesn’t look the same."
“What do you mean?” Liam asks.
"Just different. Moved stuff around."
I hold my breath, straining to hear while pretending to focus on my book.
“Good you noticed it too. She’s nesting," Liam says quietly, and I nearly drop the book.
Well, fuck. Of course I am.
"What?"
"Classic nesting behavior. The furniture rearrangement, collecting soft items, creating barriers and comfort zones. She's been unconsciously preparing a space for long-term habitation."
"But she's planning to leave."
"Is she? Because everything about her behavior suggests the opposite," Liam says.
I set down the book with shaking hands. He's right, isn't he? Everything I've been doing, the careful arrangement of furniture, the accumulation of blankets and pillows, the way I've been optimizing every aspect of the space for comfort and security. It's all classic nesting behavior.
Like some kind of delusional bird building a nest on a construction site.
"She has got to,” Garrick says flatly, like he doesn't care about the answer. But there's an undercurrent of tension suggesting he cares more than he wants to admit.
"I don't think what she has done is temporary."
Their voices fade as they move away, then Garrick locks up the bakery, which is my cue to shut the door. Their conversation runs over in my mind. Nesting. The word I'd pushed away returns with uncomfortable clarity.
I look around seeing each change for what it really represents. Not practical improvements, but the deep,instinctive drive to create a safe space. The kind of space you share with people you trust.
The thought should terrify me. Six months ago, I was convinced I'd never escape Mark's house, never find anywhere I belonged. The idea of wanting to stay somewhere, of putting down roots, of trusting people enough to build permanent structures should feel impossible.
Instead, it feels like coming home. And that’s usually when the floor drops out from underneath me.
I pull the throw blanket higher, breathing in the faint scent of Garrick's grandmother's apron, and let myself imagine a future where this isn't temporary. I’m building my writing career from this corner booth. Where Garrick's evening food deliveries become a tradition, along with the flutter in my stomach when he looks at me like he's seeing beneath my carefully constructed walls. Where Liam's coffee breaks become the rhythm of my days.
A nest.
The thought doesn't terrify me anymore, which is probably the most terrifying thing of all. Because the last time I felt this safe, this settled, this stupidly optimistic about the future, I ended up trapped for seven years with a man who slowly convinced me I was worthless.
But as I sink deeper into my perfectly arranged reading chair, surrounded by all the soft things I've gathered, in the space I've shaped into home, I can't bring myself to worry about the risks.
I pull the throw blanket tighter around myself, breathing in the familiar scents of my nest. Vanilla and honey and traces of all three alphas from the times they've been here. The apartment that's become mine, in the building one of them owns, eating food another provides, wearing the coat the third bought me because mine was too thin.
Taking care of me all along. I just didn't let myself see it because seeing it meant acknowledging how much I've come to depend on them. Tonight, I'm going to let myself experience the thing I haven't felt in years: the possibility I might actually be exactly where I need to be.
Even if admitting it out loud might destroy everything.
10
GARRICK
The lunch rush finally clears out around two, leaving me with a destroyed kitchen and a headache that won't quit.
