Unlikely You (Sapph in the City #5)

Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Bren

Did…did she just kiss my finger? I couldn’t believe that was a thing that had actually happened until her eyes went wide, her face turned a shade of red I’d never seen on a human face before and she literally ran away.

The whole situation was bizarre. She’d just…bullied her way in and tended my (very minor) wound as if that was a thing we did. As if we weren’t pretty much strangers. As if I wasn’t still annoyed at her for the whole drink thing at Sapph from last night.

It was my own fault for cutting myself while using the scissors. I’d been unable to get my mind to relax last night and as a result, had only slept for a few hours. My patience was already on thin ice, as well as my attention. I hadn’t been careful, and I’d paid the price for it. At least the cut was minor. It would heal in a few days.

Honey had treated it as if it was serious. I’d watched her in shock as she’d bent over my hand and had tended to me with both competence and efficiency. Something told me she’d handled a few wounds before from her siblings. For a moment, I imagined her patching up a skinned knee with that little kiss.

My finger tingled. Definitely from the antiseptic spray. Definitely just that.

When was the last time someone had touched me like that? I had absolutely no idea. As a general rule, people didn’t touch me. I tried to recall a single time my parents had hugged me and couldn’t. Friends? Not really. Sexual partners were more for quickies and less for holding and comforting. I’d never needed all of that.

Still, I flexed my finger with the bandage and tried to shake myself out of whatever trance that Honey had put me into when she’d barged into my space.

“Ohhh, these are so cute!” a voice said. Looking up, I saw three girls who were in their late teens admiring my book sleeves. Time to go back to work.

I was reluctant to peel off the band aid when I got home that night. It had been easy to avoid Honey the rest of the day because she avoided me . That was a first. I could almost feel her doing her best not to give me any kind of attention. She was working so hard so not notice me that it gave me a chance to study her. Give myself a chance to appreciate her body and the way she moved. The way she gave each person her full attention, as if they were the most important person in the world. Something about those eyes and her smile that just… Sunshine. She was human sunshine and you wanted to bask beneath her rays.

Not me, but someone else. Anyone else. I didn’t want to linger in her light. I was just forced to be blinded by her every now and then.

Shaking my head at myself, I peeled off the band aid and got into the shower. The hot water made the cut twinge a little bit, but it wasn’t a big deal. So minor. I’d had harsher menstrual cramps.

Arson stood outside the shower curtain and cried, like she sometimes did when I bathed. I reassured her that I was okay and I wasn’t going to die.

With the band aid thing, I’d completely forgotten about what she’d done that morning. How dare she just send me money? I hadn’t accepted it yet. I wanted to send it right back to her, but then she might try and do something else to get the money to me. The easiest way to put an end to it was to accept the money and then…I didn’t know yet. Maybe I’d buy some honey or something.

I finished up in the shower and carefully brushed out my dark hair. It had always been wispy and straight. My mother had always complained about it not curling or always hanging in my face, as if it was my fault for my hair texture. I avoided my reflection as I rubbed moisturizer into my skin and brushed my teeth before heading to my room. I grabbed my phone to see if there were any messages from Melliferal, but there weren’t. She’d been scarce today.

I looked up the Holloway Apiary online while Arson situated herself in my lap and looked for something that was twenty dollars. I was a sucker for a good tote bag and theirs were just about the right price with shipping. Perfect.

I added it to my cart, put in my information, and clicked the buy link before I could second guess myself.

Honey would know it was my order seeing as how my name was on it. I guess she’d know my address now, but that didn’t matter so much, as long as she knew I was giving the money back.

There. Now she’d have to drop it.

Monday I accidentally slept in and got myself all off my schedule. It was a sewing and printing day, so while I gulped down coffee and begged my brain to wake up, I got the printers going and started cutting and pinning fabric. I paused for breakfast only to quiet my stomach and give me enough energy for the rest of the day. I threw a bunch of ingredients, protein powder, and some strawberries and frozen bananas in the blender and made myself a gorgeous smoothie that I sucked down so fast I got a headache.

“Get it together,” I told myself and went back to pinning and printing and then sewing, the rumble of the machine a comforting heartbeat. My alarms told me when to switch projects and when to eat and even when to drink water.

I kept my mind as busy as my hands so I wouldn’t have time to think about things like what Honey Holloway was doing today. Had anyone told her about my order? Something told me she might be the one who packed them up and shipped them out. I hope she was. I wanted her to see.

Melliferal was still quiet, but when I took an afternoon break to do my wrist stretches, I saw a new email from Melliferal.

Biblio,

I feel as if we haven’t talked for a thousand years, but it hasn’t even been a day. Anyway, I’ve been busy and I kept thinking about writing you something but then I didn’t know what to say. So here I am, rambling away on my keyboard when I should be doing a million other things. I tried to do something nice for someone after messing up and they don’t seem to want to accept either my apology or my attempted reparations. For some reason, this won’t stop bothering me. Has something like that ever happened to you? Normally I have endless patience and give the people around me all kinds of grace, but this person? Just makes me want to yell and stamp my feet and say “what the hell is WRONG with you?”

That doesn’t make any sense, I know, but sometimes I just need to type these things out to get them out of my brain. You just happen to be the one who gets to read all of it. You don’t have to, you know, but it’s nice to think that someone out there in the world is listening to me.

You don’t have to answer this. I should just delete it. I really should. Instead I’m still rambling just to hear the sounds of my keyboard and because I feel like you’re out there listening. Okay, I’m going to stop before this gets too sappy. Please forgive me for all of this.

-Melliferal

I found myself touched and amused by the email. She was having a day and that meant it was my responsibility to get her out of it as best I could. The two of us had done this routine enough times before that I immediately went looking in my phone for saved jokes and memes and videos that I kept for situations just like this. Every time I saw something I thought would make her smile (or at least tell me that it made her smile), I saved it and now I had a whole file full of them.

I picked a bunch of them, maybe even some I’d sent before that I knew she liked and sent them rapid fire in private messages.

Thought you’d need a little something. I read your email. I’m not one for apologizing (usually), which just proves you’re a far nicer person than I am. I don’t really have any advice, but I guess the person has kind of told you without telling you that they want space. Give it to them. And then maybe they’ll come around. Maybe. Or they won’t. Either way, you’ve apologized and tried to make it right and the ball is in their court now. I know you like to try and fix everything, but you can’t. You’re one person, Mel. You can’t fix the world, no matter how much you want to.

I’d written far too much, but I sent the message before I could second guess myself. She’d rambled and thought that was embarrassing so it was only fair that I did the same. Besides, the things I told Melliferal didn’t feel so embarrassing. That was the beauty of an online friendship. She was my friend, but I didn’t know what her face looked like when she was upset with me or disappointed or any other negative thing. I didn’t have to listen to the tone of her voice and figure out if she was pissed at me. It was all of the positives without any of the uncomfortable negatives. The perfect kind of friendship, in my opinion. I had absolutely no desire to change anything about it. Years from now I hoped that Melliferal and I would still be sending messages back and forth. We’d have a million inside jokes and silly phrases and stories to share. She’d always be there. My friend until the end.

Over the next few days I lost myself in packaging up online orders, replenishing the stock at the local stores, searching for new fabrics both online and in person, playing with Arson, and doing my best not to think about Honey Holloway.

I kept checking my email to see if my order had shipped, but I hadn’t gotten a confirmation yet. That didn’t surprise me. I was betting that they didn’t do shipping very often. It was rough being a small business, which I knew all too well. At least she had help. If I had an assistant for even a few hours a week, I’d get so much more done. Once I hit certain revenue targets, my plans were to hire someone to come and handle shipping for me one day a week. It would free up so much time and energy and I’d love to hire someone young who was looking for some extra cash. A college student, maybe. But I had certain numbers to hit this quarter and next to have the money in my budget for that. I had to be so, so careful with every single penny. Every cent was precious and needed to be accounted for. Mistakes couldn’t happen.

I brooded about my finances instead of thinking about Honey and how she’d kissed my finger. The scene kept replaying in my mind on a loop. As if it was a video that was stuck on Repeat. I couldn’t get over how casually she’d done it. From never touching me at all to kissing my injured finger.

Logically I knew I was blowing it up in my mind to be something bigger than what it was, but I couldn’t help myself. The majority of my days were spent alone, so I had a tendency to ruminate on things a little too much. To break myself out of it, I did my best to take breaks and force myself to interact with other humans. I walked to get coffee, chatted with Holiday and Larison at Between the Sheets, and hit the library. I also visited the farmers’ market and made a summer vegetable lasagna and did everything to stop thinking about Honey.

None of it was working and by the time Thursday rolled around, I was dreading seeing her. She’d probably gotten over it and maybe didn’t even remember what had happened last week, but it sat in the back of my mind and haunted me, like an annoying ghost.

I arrived earlier than I ever had, which did mean I had time to get a bagel sandwich from one of the vendors. I sat in the chair behind my table and devoured an everything bagel with roasted garlic and chive cream cheese that made my eyes roll back in my head. If I had to get here early, at least I had this.

I finished the latte I’d brought with me and started setting up my table. Did it need something? Should I move the bookmarks? Every week I considered changing something. Editing my table until anyone walking by had to investigate.

“I think this is yours,” a voice said, and I’d been so focused on my table that I hadn’t heard anyone approach me.

I jumped and turned to find Honey standing there holding a padded envelope out to me.

“What?” I said, momentarily stunned that she was speaking to me. Her cheeks were just the lightest shade of pink, which made her so pretty I wanted to scream.

“Your order. Did you think I wasn’t going to notice?” She gently shook the envelope at me. “You just always have to have the last word, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said immediately and then she smirked. She freaking smirked at me.

“I’m going to pay you back one way or another. You think you’ve won, but you haven’t.”

The woman who’d kissed my finger and ran away was gone. In her place was this brazen beauty who was making it hard to draw a complete breath or form a coherent thought.

“I’m going to pay you back for that drink, whether you want me to or not.”

She placed the package on my table, being careful not to disturb anything, and went to go harangue her siblings for not doing what she asked them to do.

What the hell?

Making sure she was busy before I reached for it, I grabbed the envelope and opened it. Inside was the tote bag I’d ordered. There was also a shipping label on the front of the envelope with my address on it.

Annoyed again, I shoved the package into my bag and did my best to get myself together. Honey had singlehandedly destroyed my bagel buzz and now it was going to be a challenge to get through the rest of the day.

Honey was ignoring me again, but this time it was obvious she wanted me to know she was ignoring me. Smiling and laughing and tossing her hair and being even brighter than she usually was, which was saying something. She might as well be glowing. I practically needed sunglasses to look in her direction without burning out my retinas.

No matter how much I didn’t want to look at her, I couldn’t stop. She drew my attention more than she ever had before and it was a struggle to remember what the hell I was actually doing. I kept losing my train of thought or drifting off or forgetting what I wanted to say. It was a miracle that I didn’t mess up anyone’s transactions.

Honey had been a distraction before. Now she was something else. Like a giant flashing billboard that I couldn’t ignore.

No matter what I did, I couldn’t ignore her.

But she didn’t talk to me or even look at me. I was putting everything away and covering up my table for the day when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Gritting my teeth to find a customer or someone else to annoy me, I was shocked when I found the youngest Holloway girl standing there and smiling at me, her blonde curls wild around her head, as if she’d just escaped from a windstorm.

“Hi. This is for you.” She held out a crisp twenty-dollar bill.

My mouth dropped open.

“It’s from Honey,” she said, shaking the bill at me. “She told me to give it to you.”

Oh she was shameless. Using an adorable child to try and settle this between us. Honey Holloway was more devious than I would have thought. I might have to reevaluate my initial impressions of this woman.

“You can take it back to her,” I said. “She doesn’t have to pay me. Tell her she can forget about it. I plan to.”

I expected my rejection to make the girl cry or something, but she just said, “okay!” and skipped off to inform Honey. If I wasn’t careful, she was going to sneak that twenty dollars into my pocket or something. I was almost curious to see what lengths she’d go to get me the money. How far would she go?

I wanted to find out.

Hey, you read that Agatha All Along fic that I sent you the link for? It updated and I’m scared to open it.

If Melliferal hadn’t started the fic, I might threaten to never speak to her again. She needed to read it so we could suffer together. Online, anyway.

Yes, I started it and I had to stop because I couldn’t handle the emotional damage. Someday I’m going to take a week off and go somewhere and do nothing but read books and refuse to talk to anyone.

That sounded like heaven, honestly.

If you do it, tell me when and I’ll do the same thing. We’ll be alone, together.

It sounded amazing. Shutting off all my messages except for hers. I’d rent a cozy cabin near a mountain. Or on a mountain. Somewhere there had to be a mountain. But there also had to be decent wi-fi. I’d plan out every single hour with what book I was going to read, what snacks I would bring. I’d pack all my coziest clothes and meal plan and pack everything up to bring with me. I’d create the perfect playlist too, themed to go with each one of my books or fanfics, of course.

It would be amazing. If only I could take the time off now, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I didn’t have any full days off scheduled for at least a month. Summers were too busy with the marketplace. I had to make the most of the tourist season and bank more revenue for when things got quieter in the winter and I switched my attention to holiday shopping for my online store.

I had to think strategically every single day.

That sounds almost perfect. I wish we could make it happen, but at least on my side, it’s going to be a while.

She sounded just as swamped as I was. Not that I knew what she did. That was one of the rules, so neither of us knew what job the other had. But I could at least assume she didn’t work some kind of corporate job, or something that had odd shifts, like a nurse. I wasn’t sure if she’d gone to college. She’d never talked about it. Not that it mattered. Our jobs weren’t the reason we were friends.

I know what you mean.

I spent the next fifteen minutes looking up remote cabins up north and dreaming of my reading retreat.

I arrived at the marketplace prepared for Honey’s antics the next day and spent at least ten minutes going through my stuff and making sure she hadn’t hidden the twenty dollars somewhere. So far, nothing.

The Holloways arrived with their usual fanfare. Singing their way to the table, not even caring that everyone was staring at them.

There was a kind of unselfconsciousness about them that I was a little in awe and terrified of at the same time. What was it like to walk around like that and not care if you had that many eyes on you? To be so intent on your own enjoyment that it didn’t matter where you were. You just had to sing.

They were living in a musical and everyone else was in reality.

“Good morning,” Honey chirped to me as she uncovered their display. Of course it was covered by several sheets with bees on them.

I grunted back at her. Had to keep up with tradition.

Honey let out a little snorting noise that made me look up to find she was smiling.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said, still grinning like she had a secret.

“Stop trying to give me twenty dollars,” I said low enough that only she could hear me as her parents continued to sing and encourage the other two, who were a little less enthusiastic. The oldest teen girl was mouthing words but clearly no sound was coming out of her mouth. I supported her rebellion.

Honey laughed and I stared at her dimples. I wanted to lick my tongue into them. Fuck.

She leaned closer. “Never.”

I let out a disgusted sound that made her laugh under her breath.

This was ridiculous.