Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Honey
I really did feel horrible about what had happened with Bren. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would even go to Sapph in the first place and then I’d surprised her and wrecked her night. I’d done my best to salvage the situation, but she’d just completely shut down on me no matter what I’d done. So I blabbered and tried to make pleasant small talk so we weren’t standing there silently waiting for her car. That probably annoyed her more, but I didn’t know how to do anything else. For a second, I even thought about singing, but she might have strangled me and that would have ruined both of our nights.
So I sent her off in a car and had to decide if I went back into Sapph, or if I went home. Aunt Eileen’s words ran through my head. She’d told me to go out and here I was. I hadn’t even had the chance to order a drink when I’d needed to hit the restroom to pee.
If I left now, then I was giving in. And I had been having a good time, the few minutes I’d been there. Sure, the karaoke was mostly offensive to my ears, but it was all in good fun. If I had a few drinks in me, I might even get up and sing.
I turned around after watching Bren’s car vanish around a corner and went back into Sapph.
A little while later, I had a pink drink in my hand and was posing for a selfie to send to Aunt Eileen as evidence I was out and having a good time.
The drink was sweet and fruity and masked the taste of the alcohol, which was exactly the kind of drink I liked, so I did my best to pace myself and not gulp it too fast.
I’d somehow managed to find a corner far enough away from the bathrooms and the karaoke that I could actually hear myself think. I sipped and breathed a sigh of relief when there was a break in the karaoke madness for some real music. Bopping along, I looked around at all the beautiful people. A few caught my eye, but I was still thinking about Bren. I wished she was here with me. No doubt she’d be scowling at everyone and grumbling about something under her breath, but maybe I could tease her and drag her out onto the dance floor, doing my best to make her smile.
That was the fantasy. Reality wasn’t that kind. I’d never made Bren laugh, not even close. And after making her spill her drink, she was going to be even more annoyed by me when I saw her tomorrow. That was going to be awkward. I fully intended to pay her back for the drink, though. She had her payment accounts linked on her displays at the marketplace so it would be easy to send it to her. She might reject it, but I was going to try. And if I ever saw her at Sapph again, I’d buy her another one.
Aunt Eileen sent me back a message that she was thrilled I was out and having a good time. And then she told me to find someone cute to kiss, but I wasn’t going to do that. Besides, the last few people I’d kissed had been total disasters.
A few people approached me and asked to buy me a drink or have a dance and I said no. I could have just gone and danced, but I was scared. After my last several completely awful relationships, I was terrified to try again.
My most recent girlfriend, Mila, had left me for her high school boyfriend when she’d gone to her ten-year reunion and had informed me that our eight-month relationship was over via a drunken voice note, and again via text in the morning.
I should have known she wasn’t serious about me because she always said, “why do we have to put a label on it?” whenever I asked if she was my girlfriend, or if we could talk about our relationship. But she’d been sweet when she wanted to be, was funny as hell, and the sex was pretty good. I’d been all too happy to pretend those red flags weren’t slapping me in the face until it was too late.
Some people only got their hearts broken once in their life. I seemed to have drawn some sort of cosmic short straw and I’d had mine broken a few too many times already. That was why I wasn’t dancing with beautiful women or letting pretty people buy me drinks or any of that. One minute I’d be having a good time and the next I’d get the feeling like the world had dropped out from under my feet and I’d know I’d caught feelings again.
Keeping my distance was not only smart, it was good for my health.
Admire from afar, that was the way to go. Gotta keep my heart safe for the next person who was going to break it.
The karaoke started up again and I did have a good time watching people sing their hearts out without managing to hit one single note. I could have gotten up to sing, but I only ended up having two drinks over the time I was there. I’d need at least three or more before I’d subject myself to this crowd, not that they were anything but supportive.
Singing with my family was one thing, but singing on my own in front of a bunch of attractive lesbians wasn’t on my agenda tonight. Things were just starting to turn a little wild and the dancing got sloppier and sexier. That was when I knew it was my time to leave. I wished I was the kind of person who could grab someone for a quick and dirty fingerbang in the bathroom, but I had fallen in love with literally everyone I’d ever had sex with.
I was cursed.
I decided against driving my truck home and called for a car instead, wondering how Bren was doing. I realized I’d missed a message from Bibliofile, asking if I’d been doing anything fun.
I went out and had some drinks by myself. Aren’t you proud of me? I left the house.
Her answer came through as I stood outside away from the smokers while I waited.
Going out isn’t always the best. I went out and regretted it. Now I’m home reading.
She sent me the link for the book, and it was one I had preordered but hadn’t read yet. Most of the time, I gravitated more toward low-conflict fluffy romances, but then there were times when all I wanted was to have my heart ripped out and mended, or to let myself have a good cry. There was nothing like letting all those emotions out over a beautiful story, wiping your eyes, sighing, and then putting the book away.
Going home to read is always the best place to be. You know we both agree on that.
It was one of the first conversations we’d had. About how we valued our reading time more than almost everything else.
The car continued to drive out of the city and toward the suburbs. Our farm was so close to the city, but it seemed a thousand miles away.
I rested my head back on the seat and exhaled. Going out was tiring. Tomorrow I was going to be dragging my ass, but I’d made Aunt Eileen happy, so that was something. I knew how much she worried about me. Too much, definitely. At least I wasn’t still hung up on Mila anymore.
I must have blinked and dozed off or something because a second later the car was pulling into the driveway and dropping me off. I made sure to thank the driver, and give the max amount of stars as well as a tip.
The exterior lights had come on, but everyone was already in bed, except for the glow of something electronic in Ember’s room that I could see.
I pulled myself upstairs to my apartment and headed immediately for the shower.
I’d been tired when I got in, but by the time I got out, I was getting a second wind for some reason. My skin tingled with energy and I wanted to do something pointless, like rearranging my furniture or reorganizing my bookshelves.
Instead I opened the book that Bren was reading and decided to start it and go until I passed out.
My alarm came far too early the next morning and all I wanted to do was lay in bed and sleep for another three hours at least. I couldn’t, though. It was another day at the marketplace, which meant I had to get all my chores done and feed everyone before we left and I got my truck from where I’d parked it.
I allowed myself to curse as much as I wanted to as I got dressed and pulled my boots on. Robotically, I went through feeding the chickens and the ducks, waving to my dad as he checked the bees, nodded at my mom in the garden, and did all the other random things you had to do every damn day to get a farm and apiary running.
My parents were doing a “meet the beekeepers” weekend, so it was up to me to manage the booth at the marketplace.
Ellie was in the kitchen when I returned from replenishing the little farm stand we had out by the mailbox with our fresh eggs. People would come by and get what eggs they wanted and leave cash. You’d think it would give people encouragement to steal, but that had only happened once. We had a security camera, but it had been broken for months. I kept forgetting to order a replacement.
Just another thing I couldn’t remember to do.
Too many things. I had too many things to juggle and I was so close to dropping a bunch of them.
I cut myself some slack by heating up frozen waffles and making scrambled eggs for breakfast and chucking some blackberries into a bowl. Archer was still at basketball camp, so I had one less mouth to feed, which was nice.
We got to the marketplace later than I wanted to, but it couldn’t be helped. I rushed around and did my best to get everything looking perfect. Bren was already here and was fiddling with her bookmarks. Her table was always pristine and perfect. True, she did it all by herself, but sometimes my siblings were more of a hindrance than a help.
Ellie was in a much better mood and asked if she could get a strawberry lemonade if she got me a matcha. I shouldn’t have said yes, but I couldn’t escape the lure of the matcha, so I sent her off along with an order from Ember for an iced half-caf coffee with a million syrups and nonsense. Ellie sweetly wrote down the order and dashed off to get it for us.
Ember was on her phone again but didn’t grumble too much when I asked her to open a new box of honey and start passing me jars.
“And can you please go fill up the water for tea?” I asked.
“Fine,” she said, which almost made me fall over.
I made sure everything else was ready and we only had a few minutes to spare, but I grabbed the QR code from Bren’s sign and sent her twenty bucks. Immediately, her phone went off and her head snapped over to me after she read the notification.
“What the hell is this?” she asked, stomping over and holding up her phone.
“It’s for the drink last night. I’m really sorry. Again.”
Bren clenched her teeth and if I could have come up with a perfect word for her current expression, it was “seething.”
She was still pissed at me.
Bren opened her mouth as if she was going to give me a tongue lashing but then she snapped her jaw shut and stormed the few feet back to her table.
My first instinct was to go to her and try and smooth things over, but Ellie came up with my matcha and that was all I could see at the moment. Bren might need some time to cool off and the doors were opening in a few seconds. There wasn’t time for us to get into it, and I also didn’t want to distract her from her business. That would only piss her off more.
So I left her alone and did my best to ignore her, which wasn’t an easy task, even with the weekend crowds that acted like they’d never seen honey before.
To be fair, our honey was exceptionally good, if I did say so myself. And then when they heard we had hot honey made with our own organic jalapenos grown on our farm? They were so happy.
One of these days, when I actually had some free time, I was going to write a Holloway Apiary cookbook with some of our favorite recipes using our honey. Mom thought it was a wonderful idea, but it required time. Most of what I made was based on my own instincts and I was very much a “measure with your heart” kind of person, so I’d have to actually sit down and figure out exact measurements.
Someday. I’d get to it someday. I also wanted to do beautiful watercolor illustrations of everything to go with the book. The logo and the labels were all done by me, using a combination of watercolors and graphic design that I’d taught myself using tutorials online. I was pretty proud of the final result and got a lot of compliments on everything, which was so rewarding. I should spend more time doing my watercolor art, but it was hard to get up the energy and find my supplies and even have the mental energy to think about what to paint.
“Yes, they do come in different sizes,” I heard Bren say over the general marketplace noise.
“Would you like some tea? It’s chamomile with our wildflower honey,” I said, holding out a tray to a group of women passing by. They stopped and took the little cups of tea, sipped and said it was good but drifted away when I tried to pitch our honey. One thing you had to get used to as a salesperson: rejection.
I handed the tray to Ellie, because she was much better at luring people toward the table and went to check our cash and make sure we had enough bags.
“Shit!” I heard someone curse and I looked up to find Bren frowning down at her finger.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah, fine. Just cut my finger.”
Immediately I reached under our table for the first aid kit. I never went anywhere without having supplies on hand.
Giving Ember a look to get off her ass, I walked over to where Bren was still frowning at her finger and dabbing at it with a napkin.
“Stop that,” I said, surprised at the sharpness in my voice. “Let me see.”
She stared at me. “It’s nothing.” Leaning away from me, I had a momentary thought that she was going to hiss at me like a feral cat with a thorn in its paw.
“Come on, don’t be a baby,” I told her. If she was going to act like a child, I was going to treat her like one. I wasn’t leaving her without getting some antiseptic spray, antibiotic cream, and a band aid on that cut. This woman wasn’t going to die of sepsis on my watch.
Bren sputtered at me, but then she gasped when I just reached out and took her hand.
Carefully, I wiped the small cut with a wipe, and she hissed.
“Sorry. It’s going to sting.”
“You could have warned me,” she grumbled.
I concentrated on cleaning the cut before squeezing a small dollop of antiseptic lotion on a band aid and then winding it around her finger, making sure it wasn’t too tight to cut off her circulation.
“There. All better,” I said, placing a kiss on top of the band aid like I would have done for my siblings. Her gasp made me realize what I’d just done.
“I’m sorry!” I said, dropping her hand and gathering up the supplies with a blush all over my face and chest and probably my entire body. I’d just kissed her boo boo. What the hell was wrong with me?
Bren just continued to stare at me, but I turned away, throwing the first aid kit back under the table and rushing to the bathroom to wash off my hands. And to throw myself in the toilet and try and flush myself away due to humiliation.