Five to Love Him (Phoenix Immortal: Hive #1)

11. LEOPOLD

“W ait. If you guys are one and the same, does that mean you taste all the food at the same time?”

The hivelings all stopped chewing. The one who was having the veg scramble put his fork down. “Yes. But we don’t always eat different food.” The one next to me tapped his fork against the plate his cherry pie sat on. “We do like having something sweet on the side though. It’s not that different from when a singular has brunch.”

“I suppose.” The mention of sweet things made me remember what Farrow had said about cake. I wasn’t sure whether he’d been serious about me working at St. Auguste, but if so, I could see it as temp work. I definitely wasn’t going to mooch off this…small, five-person hive. “So my new boss—I mean, I don’t really know if it’s real—but he said he was going to order cake for after class today. He asked me to invite you. Do you want to come?”

“We would be delighted,” they chorused. “He is the vampire?” the one on my right asked before taking another bite of his cherry pie.

“Yeah. Odd guy. He told me Hawthorne expects me to find a job, and that they offered me a position as a paralegal. I hate that kind of work, and I said I was going to find something else to satisfy them.”

“Why would Hawthorne require you to be employed?”

“I guess if I’m employed, I’m less likely to sell supernatural secrets.”

“They don’t have to worry about that. We’ll take care of you.”

I snorted. “Easy there. I’ve never really worked. I actually think I have to if just to prove to myself that I can, now that I found what I was looking for all this time.”

The one across from me was having the sandwich, and he nodded. “You were looking for our kind.”

“Not exactly. I…hey, do you like horror movies?”

“We haven’t seen that many. We like K-dramas and danmei.”

“Fair enough. But if you want to head to my house after this? For a movie?”

“Yes.” All of them said it. “Would you be willing to watch with all of us? We would like that. We would like that very much, Leo.”

“I mean, sure, but my neighborhood isn’t that busy, and people might see you. Quintuplets tend to draw attention.”

“We’ll stagger our arrival. Being small is an advantage when living among humans.”

“Okay.” Their definition of small was really something.

“And we’ll bring snacks. We’re just out shopping—what do you like?”

“You’re shopping. Right now?”

“Yes. But we’re not distracted. You have our attention.”

“Huh. That’s weird.”

“The good weird, Leo?”

They looked hopeful. Still a bit scared maybe. I had an odd little thought then, something about how I’d never have met them if it hadn’t been for almost drowning in a freezing lake. If I held any stock in poetry, I might have mused that it was fate, but I was a realist and knew that it was my own trauma and thick-headedness that had gotten me to this place.

Either way, I was here now. “Good weird.”

They smiled. “And the snacks?”

“Surprise me.”

***

We took the subway back. One of the hivelings pulled up his hoodie. They all stuck close to me, but they were more focused on things going on around me. While I sat and one of them took the seat next to me, the other two were watching, alert. I was glad Instructor Arick had mentioned how protectiveness was often a trait for a hive once they had found something they cared about. If not, I might have wondered if they were afraid.

I took a moment to text Tate. One of the hivelings looked to see what I was doing but wordlessly turned away from my screen.

Leopold

Hey. Breakfast date went okay. Taking them home with me for a movie now.

Tate

?? You’re taking them home with you?

I struggled with a response. It made no sense. Made all the sense.

Leopold

For a movie. Just to hang out.

Tate

Here’s Ez’s number in case you need backup.

Tate sent me the contact. I frowned.

Leopold

They’re nice. I don’t need your roomie to back me up with them. They don’t have a name though, which is strange.

Tate

Primus, Secundus, Tertius, all the way down to however many they are.

Leopold

Huh. Didn’t know you knew Latin. Thought you only knew chemistry.

Tate

Oh, call them Methane, Ethane, Propane and so forth. Those are chem names.

Leopold

My lover Methane, lol. See you tonight.

Tate

Deets!

Leopold

??

“Is this your stop?” the hive on my left asked.

I put my phone away. “Yeah. Do you always do that?”

“What?”

I indicated the two others. They stood in front me, one watching some guy with headphones, the other glancing at a man across from us. He was staring, probably wondering if he was seeing double. Triple.

“Keeping watch.”

“We…aren’t used to being on the subway.”

I leaned closer while the train slowed. “Don’t you live in what was supposed to be the subway once?”

They stood after I was on my feet and holding on to the bar the other two had grouped around. I hadn’t noticed it during breakfast, but the three of them—the hive was taller than me though they were lean. The one with his hoodie up looked like a gamer, the type that was the underdog at a competition but won without breaking a sweat.

“True, but the underground is more suited to bikes and electric scooters now,” Hoodie said. “We also think you should be taking cabs more. It seems more convenient.” “And safer,” said the one who’d been sitting next to me. He was staring back at the guy across from us.

The train stopped then, and we got off, the hive keeping me between them like some fancy protection detail. Not that it was needed for my stop. Few people got off at Copsewyck Hall.

The residential areas of Newstaten were nothing like its busy center, and the hivelings around me seemed to relax while taking in the houses with all the greenery in the front yards, the smaller stores that had survived here, the dog walkers and joggers.

Grandma’s house fit right in, two stories, attic and basement. While I had stubbornly stuck to my unemployment, I’d kept the yard in order, had made sure the flowers could shoot up from their bulbs each spring and summer. I was going to have to cut the lilies down soon, and the blackberries and raspberries around the edges of the property would need to be harvested and cut back as well.

“How long have you lived here?” the hiveling with the hoodie asked when we walked in through the metal garden gate. It was creaky, another chore I needed to take care of.

“All my life. No, almost all my life. My mom died when I was just a few months old, and Gran raised me after that.”

“Your father?” one of the other two asked.

“Oh, he wasn’t really in the picture by that point. I mean, the relationship between him and my mom had sort of ended. He wanted to get to know me but didn’t want to parent, I guess you could say.” I shrugged. “He took me to Disneyland but wouldn’t change my diapers. Can’t say I blame him either. My mom was seventeen when she had me, and he was a few months younger.”

“We’re sorry.” All of them echoed it.

“You know, if he’d been in my life more, his heart attack so soon after Grandma’s cancer might’ve really done a number on me.” The lump in my throat stopped me from explaining how it was fine, how I was fine. I hated grief and the incredibly long shelf life it had even after the fact.

The hive seemed to sense it and pressed closer to me, one of them rubbing my shoulder gently. “We’re sorry.”

I nodded and pulled my keys from my bag, focused on breathing. Fuck grief. I hated grief. I loved being by my lonesome with no one around to trigger it, just another benefit of being chronically unemployed and avoiding being social. The good old days, apparently.

The door swung open, and I headed inside, taking off my shoes by the door. Gran had been strict about that, and the three hivelings followed suit without having to be told.

They went to explore then, one of them roaming into the kitchen on the left, the other following me to the living room on the right where I dropped my bag in the old basket next to the rocking chair. The third went for the built-in bookshelf across from the bay window.

When Gran was alive, there had been an old couch in the center of the living room as well as an old TV, but I had thrown that out, had added pillows and floor cushions to and around the bay window, and had installed a ceiling screen above the bookshelves—a bloody piece of work, that, because I wasn’t actually that great a handyman.

“That’s you!” The hiveling at the shelf had found a photo of me and Gran at my elementary school’s sports day. My smile was gap-toothed, Gran’s wide, her sunglasses pushed up on her head.

“Yeah. Me and my gran.”

He nodded. “You were really cute,” the one still standing next to me said. “Oh, you have a vegetable garden?”

“How do you—wait, you are seeing that from the kitchen?”

He nodded. “Yes. Can we go outside, have a look? We’ve always wanted a vegetable garden of our own, but we are not good with plants. We don’t understand why we can’t keep them alive. It should be so easy.”

I chuckled. “There’s no sunlight in the underground.”

“Not there. Before.” The one with the picture put it back on its shelf, and the one next to me turned and looked out the bay windows instead. “We’ll be here in ten minutes. Can people not see inside from here?”

He reached out to touch the window glass, expression wistful.

“Used to. I stuck this reflective foil stuff to it.” I pulled the curtain aside to reveal the belt that operated the shutters. “And we can let these down. It actually makes for a great movie spot.”

The one who’d picked up the photo was close all of a sudden, so close I could have rested my head on his shoulder if I’d just leaned over. I smelled soap, and that warm scent of sunlight on skin.

“We took your garden clogs. Your tomatoes are ripe, and so are your bell peppers and zucchini. We should cook for you, Leo. You should have told us we can cook for you.”

“But you already bought me breakfast.” I looked at the hive’s eyes, a dark blue, rich and striking against his pale skin.

“May we hold you? We’d like to hold you,” said the other, his head close to my right shoulder.

I bit my lip. My palms were damp. I’d never dared anything like this because it had scared me, opening up to someone else and allowing them to be this close.

And yet, here I was with several someones, saying, “Sure.”