Unlikely You (Sapph in the City #5)

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Bren

Over the next few days, Honey tried to draw me into conversation, both in person and via messages. I ignored most of it or gave noncommittal answers, but she didn’t stop trying.

This woman was relentless. If I hadn’t agreed to go to lunch with her, I’d hate to see what she would have unleashed on me.

No one had ever pursued me this way before. Not even in a romantic way, and I didn’t think this was that. I didn’t know what Honey’s motives were, other than feeling bad about what happened at Sapph, but she couldn’t be doing all this just for that. It almost felt like she’d decided I was a project and she was going to work on me relentlessly.

If Honey attacked business the same way she attacked me, her family was going to be successful.

Trying to ignore her at the marketplace was next to impossible now. I’d feel someone’s eyes on me and glance over to find her smiling at me, her dimples popping in her cheeks. I still wanted to stick my tongue in them and now the urge was even worse. Other urges were constant. No matter what I did, I couldn’t put a lid on the fantasies of getting her naked. Of digging my fingers into her skin. Of taking her apart and seeing what she was made of at her basest level. To make her come until she cried. To literally fuck all night until we couldn’t move anymore, and I knew her inside and out.

Sex, in my past, had been a quick and casual thing. I’d known intrinsically that the kinds of desires I had weren’t always the same as other people. That some of the things I wanted weren’t the kinds of things you were supposed to discuss in polite company.

Sure, most people were fine with a few little spanks or some mild domination, but what I wanted went deeper than that and the things I wanted sometimes scared me. And then there was my other problem on top of that. So sex had never felt right for me and I’d kind of given up on pursuing it.

Honey would never be into the kinds of things I liked. Honey was the kind of woman who wanted to have a soft and sweet orgasm on a cloud. Lots of little kisses and praise. I could picture her on a white bed with too many soft pillows.

I didn’t do cute sex.

It was a moot point because I wasn’t going to be having sex of any kind with Honey Beatrix Holloway. I hated that I knew her middle name. I also hated the way my brain had started calling her “Honey Bea” and how I couldn’t seem to stop.

It was harder to ignore her when she sent me messages. Melliferal had been kind of quiet and distracted for a few days, so I guess I needed to meet my quota of human interaction and Honey was the only taker.

After much back and forth, I agreed to go to lunch with her on Tuesday at the pier. The weather was supposed to be absolutely gorgeous. Seventy-two and sunny the entire day. It was also good because I wouldn’t be forced to sit at a table across from her the whole time. There would be other distractions.

“See you on Tuesday,” she sang at me on Sunday evening when we were packing up from the marketplace. I shoved everything into the wheeled cart that I used to bring everything to my car. I thought about waving to her with only one of my fingers but I didn’t. I just did a grunt and nod, which made her smile and flutter her fingers in a little wave.

It wasn’t just Honey that I’d had to avoid the past few days. Oh no. Her family had started paying far too much attention to me. Especially the youngest one. The boy wasn’t around, so at least it was one less person, but I absolutely caught the parents talking about me in what they thought were hushed voices, but I heard every word. I did my best to ignore it, but all of the attention was getting on my nerves. I was used to being able to come here and focus completely on my business and my customers, but with all this other stuff going on, that was a challenge that I didn’t need.

And then, to make matters worse, I had a hard time keeping my thoughts on my work and almost sewed my fingers together. Twice.

Honey Holloway and her family were physically and mentally dangerous for me. What the hell was I going to do?

If anyone asked, I hadn’t changed my outfit three times before going to meet Honey at the pier. I hadn’t looked at every angle in the mirror to make sure I looked as cute as possible. Most days I barely thought about my clothes, but today I wanted to make an effort. Not because of Honey. Just…because.

Finally, I selected a crocheted crop top that I’d bought on a whim and a pair of distressed jean shorts that made my ass look good. Not that I cared about my ass looking good for Honey. It didn’t matter. The shorts were comfortable. That was all.

I pulled my hair into a ponytail and kept my makeup light, but I never left the house without doing my eyes, and I made an extra effort to make sure my eyeliner was perfect. So sharp you could slice your enemies with it.

I arrived exactly on time to the pier, right at the entrance and looked around. She wasn’t here.

Figured she’d be late.

Sighing, I looked down at my phone and waited for a “running late, sorry” message.

“Hey, I’m sorry!” a voice said, making me look up and watch her running across the street.

She was wearing a dress with flowers and bees on it. Of course. Of fucking course.

The dress hugged her every curve and had a halter top, giving a plunging look at her cleavage from the front.

Indecent. It was indecent to look like this in public. She’d start a riot.

“Jesus Christ,” I said to myself as she skipped up to me, her sandals delicate on her feet. Her toes were painted a soft buttery yellow and they had designs on them that I couldn’t make out. Bees, probably.

Her hair curled softly, hastily twisted up in a clip.

“I’m not that late, am I?” she asked, pulling her phone out of her leather crossbody bag and checking the time. “Two minutes late. That’s not bad. I got busy packing online orders and lost track of time. So. Where do you want to go?”

Honestly, I didn’t care. All the food at the pier was good. But she was buying, and this was the first and last time I’d ever have a meal with her so why not go big?

“How would you feel about lobster?”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh my god, it’s been forever since I’ve had lobster. I’m in. As long as we get to have ice cream after. I am craving a brownie sundae.” She rolled with my suggestion, walking beside me as if we were the best of friends who had done this dozens of times.

There was a line at the window to order, so we had to wait.

“What have you been up to today?” she asked, turning to face me.

“Nothing,” I said. She might have convinced me to come, but she couldn’t get me to talk. I wasn’t going to make this easy on her.

“You must work a ton when you’re not at the marketplace. You do everything yourself, right?”

Great. Now she wanted to talk shop.

“Yes, I do everything myself.” Why wasn’t this line moving faster?

“I can’t imagine. I mean, I also do most everything myself, but my parents do a lot, and my siblings sometimes help.” From what I saw, Honey was the CEO of Holloway Apiary.

“My parents bought the farm the year I started high school. All of their friends thought they were crazy, but my parents are the kinds of people who buy a falling-down farm and fix it up.”

She took her hair down from the clip and then twisted it back up again while I tried my best not to stare at any part of her body. Especially not her tits. They were off limits.

The line was still barely moving.

“My mom’s like a musical prodigy, but she hated school, so she’s always taught private music lessons and my dad worked as an elementary school music teacher for years and got burned out on it. So now they tend the bees and give classes and force us kids to do music instead.”

“That explains the singing,” I found myself saying.

Honey beamed next to me. “Sorry if it’s a lot. We kind of tend to forget that not everyone is singing all the time. It’s normal in our house. I have to remind myself not to sing when I’m out and about.”

I’d been right about her. They lived like they were in a musical. Unbelievable.

The line finally started to move, and I realized I needed to figure out what I wanted to order.

“What are you getting?” Honey asked, leaning close to me to see the menu board.

“Lobster roll. Onion rings. Soda.” Basic order, but it was what I wanted.

“Ohhh, that sounds perfect. I’m going to get the same thing.” I stopped myself from rolling my eyes.

Honey ordered for us and was all sweetness and light with the person taking the order, making him laugh. He probably thought she was flirting with him. Honey must get people hitting on her constantly. That was why you didn’t walk around being so nice all the time. People would misinterpret it.

She pulled a few dollars from her bag and stuffed them in the tip jar before we both moved to the pickup window to wait. There were several picnic tables that were covered in red paint that had been warmed by the sun and covered in ketchup stains and stray french fries.

I sat down and Honey took the spot right next to me.

“What a gorgeous day.” She tilted her head up and basked in the sun. As if she wasn’t a fallen ray of sun herself.

Pulling my sunglasses out of my bag, I put them on and made a sound of agreement.

“You think you’re going to annoy me or make me stop talking if you respond like that, but that’s okay. I’ll keep talking until you tell me to shut up.”

I opened my mouth to tell her to shut up, but the words stuck in my throat. I wanted to be mean to this woman, but I couldn’t. How could anyone be mean to someone so lovely with bees on her dress? Honey was the kind of person who always tipped, who helped elderly people across the street, who didn’t lie on her taxes and looked forward to jury duty. Golden goodness. I bet her siblings hated her.

She let out a little sigh and leaned back with her elbows on the top of the picnic table.

“So, Bren, what do you do for fun?”

Did I want to answer her? No. Did I answer her? Yes.

“Not much.”

That wasn’t even a lie. What did I do for fun? Come up with new marketing strategies. Do research on SEO. And when all that was done, I read. Reading was probably the only thing I did. Reading, playing with Arson, eating sweets in bed, baths. That was about it.

She nodded as if I’d actually said something. “I know how that is. I feel like I don’t have much time for anything fun. I read a lot though. In case you ever need a book recommendation.”

We definitely didn’t read the same kind of books. I could only picture Honey reading the most achingly sweet and fluffy romances where the characters just stared at each other and every single touch was fraught with tension. Nothing wrong with that, but sometimes I just wanted to read a book about women getting railed. Or railing other sapphics. As long as someone was getting railed and it was described in excruciating detail multiple times.

Honey would probably be totally scandalized by some of the stuff I’d read, no doubt.

“Have you been to Between the Sheets? It’s a romance bookstore. Actually, it’s not that far away. You should go, if you haven’t.”

Now I had to say something.

“I know. They’re one of my vendors.”

Instead of flinching away from my tone, she just acted like I’d told her something wonderful.

“Oh no way! That’s so cool. I’ll have to pay attention better next time I go in. I usually get totally lost in the books and forget they have other things.”

This woman definitely hadn’t gone behind the little curtain to see the more adult items at Between the Sheets. Absolutely not. She’d probably faint.

Our order still wasn’t up, so she just kept talking about the book she was reading and I almost opened my mouth and told her I’d read the same one, but that would be participating in the conversation and I wasn’t going to do that, so I kept my jaw clenched shut.

After what seemed like an eternity, our order was finally at the window.

“I’ll get it,” I told her, grabbing for the tray.

“Thanks,” she said, reaching for napkins. “Where do you want to sit?”

There were several other picnic tables right on the water with umbrellas to protect them from the sun. I nodded toward one that had just been vacated.

“That looks good.”

We both sat down on opposite sides, Honey demurely tucking her dress under before sitting down.

She handed me some napkins and I tucked them under the tray so they wouldn’t blow away with the soft ocean breeze.

I had to admit, if only to myself, that it was nice to be outside. My mind wouldn’t stop running through all the things I should be doing with my time right now instead of having lunch with Honey Holloway, though.

Speaking of Honey, she let out a happy little sigh and picked up her lobster roll after she’d gotten some ketchup for her onion rings. Gross.

“You can’t beat this view, even if the food was awful,” she said, gazing out at the bay. She did have a point, but I wasn’t going to let her know that.

I let myself watch her a little as she ate, her manners clean and neat. No loud sounds or chewing to even annoy me.

“Mmm, this is perfect,” she said when she was halfway through her roll.

It really was. The lobster was fresh and sweet and had just the right ratio of meat to buttered bun.

A few kids ran by and Honey laughed at their antics.

“My brother is at basketball camp right now and I’m expecting he’s going to make that his entire personality for the rest of the summer. I’m not looking forward to how many things he’s going to break by bouncing a ball in the house.” She huffed out a breath that sounded like fondness.

“Arrow, right?” I asked. Shit. Now I was engaging in conversation.

Honey gave me a dimpled grin. “Archer. Close, though.”

I wanted to make fun of their names, but that was just a little too mean.

“And the one always on her phone is Ember, and Ellie is the youngest. Ellowen.” Jesus, her parents had really done a number on them with the names.

“No siblings for you?”

“None,” I said, hoping my tone made it clear that was a topic that was off limits.

“I can’t imagine. My siblings are growing up and I don’t know what I’m going to do when they go off and do their own thing. It’s going to be awful.” She sounded more like a parent than a sibling, but from what I had observed, that was a role she had filled. Or that she’d had to fill.

“You’re going to stay with your parents?” I couldn’t think of a worse hell on this earth.

“For now. They need me.” She shrugged as if that was an answer.

“They’re adults, though. If your siblings are older, then why do you have to stay?”

For the first time, I saw some of her sunniness drop. How interesting.

“Why do you care?”

Sneaky little thing. She’d deflected beautifully.

“I don’t,” I threw back at her.

“Well, Bren, this is the longest conversation we’ve had so I’m calling it a win. And I’m eating lobster. That’s a double win.”

Fucking hell. She’d done it.

“You’re dangerous,” I blurted out and it made her laugh. Instead of having one of those high kinds of laughs that stabbed your eardrums, her laugh was low and dark and made me want to wrap it up and put it in my pocket so I could take it home with me.

“No one’s ever called me dangerous before. I like it.” I bet no one had called her that before.

We finished our lobster rolls in silence, but I couldn’t help grimacing when she dipped her onion rings in ketchup.

She noticed and deliberately licked some ketchup from her finger. Then I wasn’t thinking about the disgusting condiment. I was thinking about a whole lot of other things.

Honey made a sound in her throat that was something like a laugh. As if she knew exactly what she was doing.

Dangerous. I was right on the money.