The balancing act I do with the soup and the bread is damn near on a professional level as I reach for the doorknob. When I turn it, the door inches open. An unlocked door, in broad daylight.
Sure, Honeysuckle Grove is a safe town. I still don’t like the fact that the front door is unlocked.
“Eli?” I say as I breach the threshold of the house. “Knox? You guys here?”
The quiet of the house is the only response I get. My mind is already running through worst-case scenarios as I close the front door behind me.
I’m so caught up in my worry that I don’t clock the most obvious thing lingering around me: the smell of the house. It isn’t until I get halfway down the hallway that my senses tingle.The hairs on the nape of my neck stand on end as their scent hits me straight across the face.
Pack.
The house smells like my pack.
It’s everywhere. Lia’s soft Omega sweetness is woven through Eli’s bright citrus and Knox’s unique smell of petrichor and mocha. Their intermingled scents are thick and unmistakable. Even Pickles’ fur somehow makes its way in there, with the smell of Amber’s crayons and markers filtering through it all.
Eli’s house smells like home.
My villa could smell like this for the rest of my life.
The thought hits me like a punch to the jaw. My lungs draw in a slow, deep breath before I even realize what I’m doing.
I feel my shoulders drop as I stand in the hallway, greedily sucking in the scent all around me.
A strange warmth spreads through my chest as I continue down the hallway, heading for where Amber was tucked in last. I open the door as softly as possible and find Pickles staring at me when I crack it open.
His tail wags against the bed. Amber shifts, groaning and mumbling something to herself before she flops down on the mattress and continues snoring softly.
Pickles continues to stare at me until I close the door.
I can’t ignore the scent around me any longer, though. It grows headier with every step I take until I’m standing in front of a closed bedroom door at the end of Eli’s hallway. I think about what this would be like in my villa as I stand there, my nostrils flaring as I commit the scent to memory.
Lia’s cardigans tossed over the back of my couch.
Amber’s markers and crayons spilled across my dining room table.
Knox’s tools filling a shed I’d have built for him.
Eli’s work covering a desk in an office I’d make up for him.
The image of my villa, filled with them, flickers through my mind. No longer would I have a big, empty kitchen or silent rooms with nothing in them. No longer would my dining room table sit lonely while I eat on the couch.
I reach for the doorknob in front of me as I imagine Amber running through the vineyard rows with Pickles in tow, chasing after her in a game of tag.
I imagine Lia humming in the kitchen while she bakes up her latest creation for her bakery.
I imagine Knox stomping around in mud working on whatever project he’s got going on around the vineyard.
I imagine Eli playing tag with Amber and Pickles when he’s not inundated with grading papers.
The thought of my villa full and alive with pack settles deep in my chest.
Maybe Knox is right.
Maybe we really are?—
The door in front of me whips open, revealing a shirtless, disheveled Eli. His mouth quirks into a lazy, tired smile.
“I thought I smelled something,” he mumbles.
