I let Elias guide me forward, my legs feeling shaky beneath me, my heart pounding so hard I can feel it in my throat. As I get closer to the corner, I realize what they've created, and a fresh wave of emotion crashes over me.
It's a memory wall.
Dozens of Polaroid photographs are arranged on the wall in the shape of a heart, each one capturing a moment from the past weeks. Real moments. Unplanned moments. The kind of snapshots that happen when someone is paying attention to the small, beautiful details of everyday life.
There's me laughing at something Elias said at the ice skating rink, caught mid-giggle with my cheeks flushed pink from the cold and my eyes crinkled with joy. There's Julian and I at the D&G photoshoot, the candid moment before we realized the cameras were rolling, his hand on my waist and my face tilted up toward his. There's Tank teaching me to make s'mores at his cabin, marshmallow fluff somehow on both our noses, both of us grinning like idiots. There's all four of us at the Valentine's Dayfair, medals around our necks, Cookie Champions, Tank's arm around my shoulders.
There's me asleep on the couch with a book open on my chest. Me making coffee in the morning with my hair still a mess. Me playing with Sasha in the backyard, throwing a ball that's almost bigger than my head. Me at the bakery, covered in flour and beaming at the camera like I've just created the world's most perfect croissant.
Every photo is spontaneous. Unstaged. Real moments captured in real time, proof that someone was paying attention, that someone thought these ordinary instances were worth preserving. Proof that even when I wasn't looking, even when I was just being myself, they saw something worth remembering.
"We wanted to give you something sentimental," Tank says, his deep voice rough around the edges in a way I've never heard before. "Something that would prove that... even though this started as a temporary arrangement, a fake thing just to get you through to Valentine's Day..." He glances at Julian and Elias, then back at me. "We actually cherished every moment with you. Every single one. Ruby suggested the Polaroids would be a good way to show that what we feel is actually real. That this isn't fake anymore. That it hasn't been fake for a long time."
"It was the best thing we could come up with," Julian adds, and there's genuine vulnerability in his voice that makes my chest ache. "Which, technically, was mostly Ruby's idea because we're not creative enough for this kind of thing on our own. We're good at investments and firefighting and security protocols. Romantic gestures are... not our strong suit."
"I would have figured something out eventually," he adds with a hint of his usual aristocratic pride. "She just... sped up the process considerably."
I'm crying.
I don't even realize it's happening until a tear splashes onto my hand, warm and wet, and suddenly I can't stop. The tears are streaming down my cheeks in rivers, dripping off my chin, and I'm making these embarrassing hiccuping sounds that I can't seem to control. My whole body is shaking with the force of emotions I don't know how to contain.
"Wow," I manage between sobs, my voice cracking on the single syllable. "For the first time in... in forever... I'm actually being loved. Actually, really, truly loved."
They're on me in an instant--all three of them, wrapping around me in a tangle of arms and warmth and the mingled scents of cedar and campfire and bergamot. I bury my face against someone's chest--Tank's, I think, based on the steady heartbeat I can feel against my cheek--and let myself fall apart in the safest way possible.
This is what it feels like. This is what being chosen feels like. Not tolerated, not used, not treated as an obligation or a burden or a bargaining chip. Chosen. Wanted. Loved. For exactly who I am, messy and imperfect and sometimes too loud and sometimes too quiet and all the complicated bits in between.
"If she's crying over this," Julian whispers somewhere near my ear, his breath warm against my hair, "then what's she going to do about the shed?"
"Shh," Elias hisses immediately.
Tank sighs heavily, his chest rumbling against my cheek. "Welp. Too late now."
I pull back from the group hug, blinking through my tears, mascara probably running down my face in tragic black streaks. "Shed?" I ask, my voice still thick with emotion and confusion. "What shed?"
Tank and Elias both turn to glare at Julian, who shrugs with absolutely no remorse whatsoever. "She would have found itanyway," he says defensively. "Sasha keeps sneaking over there. It was only a matter of time."
As if summoned by his name, Sasha bounds into the room, tail wagging furiously, tongue lolling out in a doggy grin that suggests he knows exactly what's about to happen. He barks once, twice, then turns and trots toward the door like he's trying to lead us somewhere, looking back over his shoulder to make sure we're following.
"Well," Tank says dryly, watching his dog's enthusiastic guidance, "I guess we're checking out the shed now."
"What did you do?" I ask, looking between the three of them with wide, tear-wet eyes. "What's in the shed? How is there more? How can there possibly be more?"
They exchange a look--that silent communication thing they do that I've come to recognize as pack shorthand. Then Julian steps forward and takes my hand, his fingers warm around mine.
"Come see," is all he says.
They bundle me into one of Tank's sweaters--a massive thing that hangs past my thighs and smells overwhelmingly of him, pine and cedar and that underlying Alpha warmth that makes my Omega instincts purr with contentment--before guiding me back downstairs and out the back door. The snow is still falling, lighter now, delicate flakes drifting down like confetti, and the world outside is blanketed in pristine white. Our boots crunch against the stone path that winds through Tank's backyard, past the fire pit where we've spent so many evenings telling stories and roasting marshmallows, past the garden that's sleeping peacefully under its winter cover.
The shed sits at the edge of the property, tucked beneath a cluster of old oak trees whose bare branches are frosted with snow like something out of a winter fairy tale. I've seen it before, from a distance--just an ordinary garden shed, I'd assumed,the kind that holds lawn equipment and forgotten holiday decorations and maybe some spiders.
Except it doesn't look ordinary anymore.
Someone has painted it. The weathered wood is now a soft sage green that somehow manages to look both cozy and elegant, with window boxes beneath each window spilling over with winter-hardy plants that add touches of color even in the February chill. Fairy lights are strung along the eaves, matching the ones in my new nest upstairs, creating a warm glow that makes the shed look like something out of a storybook illustration. A small wooden sign hangs beside the door, hand-painted with flowers and vines and butterflies and the words "Rosemarie's Reading Room" in elegant script.
Rosemarie's Reading Room. They named it. They named a whole building after me. They took a garden shed and turned it into something with my name on it.
"Open it," Elias encourages, his voice soft with anticipation. "Go on."
