Page 118 of Knot Her Beta

Then she pulls away, wiping her eyes with the back of her wrist, and joins Leif at the dining table where he’s already sketching layouts for the new shared office space they’ll build in the den upstairs.

I join Grady on the sofa, stealing a handful of the popcorn he made. The last batch to be popped in this microwave.

He leans closer. “Is she okay?”

“She will be.” Boxes crowd every corner of the room. “This place has a lot of memories. Some good, but also too many bad. This move will be good for all of us, but especially for her.”

Grady hums and holds out the popcorn bowl for me to take another handful.

Together, we watch Leif and Emily put their heads together over the paper, Emily’s hand moving in quick, confident strokes, Leif’s finger tracing lines and offering quiet suggestions that Emily either agrees to or crosses out with a firmness that brings a smile to his lips.

“Custom cabinets here,” Emily says, tapping the paper. “Desks on this wall. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the north side.”

“With a reading nook,” Leif adds, drawing a curve in the corner. “Right by the window for grading papers and pretending to work while actually napping.”

“You’ll have to help me build it,” Emily says as she sketches the nook into the draft. “I’m not your personal carpenter.”

“You’re everyone’s personal carpenter,” I call from the couch. “It’s literally your job.”

She throws a pencil at me. It bounces off my chest and lands in my lap. I don’t give it back.

Friday night, we have nothing left to prepare for the move. The barge is reserved for Sunday, and the moving truck will arrive at the cottage earlier that morning.

We gather around the living room, boxes of Chinese food spread out around the registration documents Dominic completed in record time, his careful handwriting on sticky notes in the margins.

Emily’s folder sits off to the side, the corner of the Petition for Expulsion from Lavender Sky Pack visible beneath the flap. She hasn’t talked about it, and none of us have asked. We’ll be bringing it just to cover our bases, but otherwise, it holds no sway on our future.

I stretch out along the couch with my sock-covered feet in Emily’s lap. Her hand finds my ankle, thumb tracing the bone through my sock, and I melt into the cushions.

Leif pulls a blanket from the back of the armchair and drapes it over his legs as he goes over a clause near the bottom of the third page. “Who do we name as life insurance beneficiaries?”

“Emily can have everything if I die,” I say.

She turns to me. “What about Kyle?”

“All he needs is a boat and his fishing pole.” I wiggle my feet for more attention. “And he already has that.”

“I agree.” Leif writes it down. “Emily can have everything.”

“That works for me,” Grady says from where he’s settled on the other end of the couch, his leg propped on the coffee table. He refilled his wine glass ten minutes ago, and his eyelids keep drooping.

Everyone turns to our Alpha.

She frowns. “I have to pick just one of you?”

Leif reads over the paperwork. “It can be split by percentage.”

“Then thirty-three percent to each of you,” she says.

“That leaves one percent.”

She considers it. “Give that to my old foster home.”

He adds that to the paperwork.

We talk through the rest of the paperwork, going through the particular logistics of four adults combining their lives under the umbrella of a larger pack.

It’s a long process, but none of us complain, because it’s all leading to a destination.