Knot Your Average Florist

She planted roots. They walked in anyway.

I built my life out of things that stay put. The flower shop on the Square. My mother's name in gold over the door, kept there long after she left. A town that's known me since I was eight, and a cat that has never once worried about the mortgage. An omega doesn't need a pack when her roots run this deep. A flower shop can't pack a bag in the night. That's the chief argument in its favor. Then a wildfire crew builds a little city at the end of the Square, and four alphas walk into my summer. Knox barely speaks and misses nothing. Deacon's befriended the whole county by noon. Forrest is gentle as a Sunday morning, and Sawyer asks the questions nobody else dares. Smokejumpers stay exactly as long as a fire takes, then leave the hour it's handled. Temporary is a category I sorted years ago. But scent doesn't lie. And mine matches all four of them. I can keep my tidy, certain life. Or I can bet it on four men whose whole job is leaving, and let myself want, for once, to be the thing somebody comes back for.