Page 35 of Knot the Last Chapter

“She was supposed to be someone new,” I sigh from deep within my gut. “Someone I hadn’t screwed up with. I didn’t think I’d meet her randomly like this. We were supposed to meet at next week’s blossom festival.”

Corwyn tilts his head. “You think she’d have been happy to meet you the, too?”

Rhys cuts him off, voice low. “This might be a blessing in disguise. At least you won’t be publicly humiliated.”

I flinch. “Yeah.”

Corwyn nods slowly. “She definitely wasn’t giving you the ‘you’re the one I’ve been staying up to text’ eyes.”

Thanks, brother.

Rhys nudges Corwyn with his shoulder. “Lay off.”

“What? I’m just saying—look, I like her. I thought we had a vibe.”

“So did I,” I mutter before I can stop myself.

That hush falls between us again, and I let myself feel every dagger of pain in that silence. Because it hurt, and way more than I want to admit to my brothers.

Because I let myself feel something. I let myself imagine a future. I pictured meeting her and her smiling when she saw me. I pictured laughter and maybe a kiss and the first time she touched my face, whispering,You’re even better in real life.

Not… this.

Not polite indifference. Not tension so thick you could bite into it.

“She doesn’t even know it’s me who texted,” I remind myself, and my brothers.

“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled when she finds out,” Corwyn says as he throws another piece of clementine up and catches it in his mouth. He’s a bookseller, sure, but he’s an idiot at heart.

“Maybe she’s overwhelmed,” Rhys says. “Storm, wrecked boat, three strange alphas. It’s a lot. Might have had nothing to do with you at all.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Or maybe she remembers something I don’t. Maybe I did something stupid years ago that stuck.”

“I’d believe that,” Corwyn says, but his voice is light again. Teasing. Not cruel.

I let out a short laugh. “Yeah. Me too.”

They don’t press after that. The way only brothers can leave space when they know you don’t want to bleed in front of them.

Rhys clears his throat. “You gonna talk to her tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should,” he says. “Before it gets worse.”

I nod slowly, eyes drifting toward the hallway where she disappeared. I can still smell her, faintly. That wild-sweet scent of heat just barely blooming under her skin.

And I wonder if she’ll still want me when she finds out I’m Pine, the one who’s been holding her words in my hands every night.

Because I still want her. Even now.

Maybe more than ever.

Chapter nineteen

Lila

By the time I pull myself together and the war between anger and angst releases my chest, my determination to write is three times what it was when I returned to Starling Grove, my brain spinning like a carousel someone forgot to turn off. I stand up and stretch, Misty staying round on the bed, too comfortable to move.