Unlikely You (Sapph in the City #5)

Chapter 25

Chapter Twenty-Five

Bren

“Do I look okay?” I asked Arson. I’d run around the second I got home to clean my apartment and Honey was going to be here any minute, but I couldn’t decide what to wear. I’d ripped through several outfits and finally slid on some black jeans and dark red T-shirt that had some ruffles on the sleeves. Not typically my kind of thing, but I thought that Honey might think they were sweet.

Normally I didn’t wear shoes in the house, so I didn’t put any on, but slid my feet into a pair of fuzzy socks. Not sexy, exactly, but maybe she wasn’t coming here for that. Just because we had sexual chemistry didn’t mean that we were going to immediately fall into bed together.

Besides, we had to talk about sex before anyway. I wanted to do whatever this was with her in the right way and telling her about my true desires was the right thing to do. She also needed to know about my other big secret so I could set her expectations.

That part made my hands shake and sweat a little and my stomach roll uncomfortably.

Honey sent me a message when she arrived, and I ran downstairs to let her in.

“Hey,” she said, smiling as I opened the door before she threw herself at me. I managed to catch her.

“God, I’ve been desperate to touch you all day,” she said in my ear as I held her and breathed her in. I hadn’t even gotten to see her outfit, but it didn’t matter.

She was here.

Honey and I eventually unwrapped our limbs from each other and walked up the stairs. I took her bag from her and put it on my shoulder before taking her hand.

“Wow, Bren. You’re sweeping me off my feet.”

“Don’t trip,” I told her, and she laughed as I unlocked my door and did the little routine to make sure Arson didn’t make a run for it.

Honey greeted her and made sure my kitty got enough love. I set her bag down by the door and she slid out of her shoes.

She had the softest looking sweater on that I wanted to pet before I pulled it off her and got her naked.

No. Naked later. Maybe. Talk and food first.

“So, what did you want to order?” I asked her pulling up the app on my phone.

She put both hands on her stomach. “I’m literally starving, so I’m not picky. Whatever’s fastest.” We both heard her belly rumble and she blushed.

“Sorry!”

“No problem at all. How about some Italian subs?” She nodded and I asked her what she wanted and put in the order, as well as for some drinks and a box of their assorted cookies. I really needed to go grocery shopping. I would have done it today, but I hadn’t had time when I’d come back from the marketplace.

Honey scooped up Arson and carried her to the couch, sitting down with a sigh.

“The food should be here in about twenty minutes,” I told her.

“Great. Ahhh, that feels good.” She leaned back on the couch and closed her eyes.

“Sitting down is so nice after standing all day. God, I sound like I’m a thousand years old.” She laughed as I joined her.

“I know what you mean.” I had to hold back my own sigh of relief. My couch was small, but incredibly comfortable.

“How was your day?” she asked, moving her fingers under Arson’s chin like she preferred.

“I mean, you were there.”

She nodded. “I know, but we were both so busy that I barely got to talk to you.”

That was true, I supposed.

So I told her about my day. I talked about the customers I’d had and the people who seemed like customers and the other things she might have missed. In turn she told me about hers and things went back to being easy between us. In some way we were also colleagues.

“I hate spending so much time on someone and then they don’t even buy anything,” I said.

“I know! I sometimes want to ask them what their goal is. Why are they wasting my time?”

The food arrived and Honey had a gleam in her eye as I handed her order over.

“I know we should get plates, but would you care if I just went for it?” she asked.

“Not at all.” I’d been planning on doing the same thing.

Honey shoved a massive bite of her sub in her mouth as Arson watched both of us from the floor, her tail swishing in agitation that we would dare eat without offering her some or giving her at least a sniff.

“You wouldn’t want any of this,” I told her, my mouth almost full.

“That’s not entirely true,” Honey pointed out. “She would probably like the ham part.”

I shook my head. “Nope. She definitely doesn’t like ham. I’ve tried that before.”

Arson didn’t like anything besides two flavors of wet food and one brand of dry. I’d had a lot of trial and error when I’d first rescued her to find food she wouldn’t reject.

“You know I found her by a burned-out house.” I told Honey the story of rescuing Arson and she told me about her pets and a few of her favorite ducks and chickens.

“How do you work on the farm and then do the marketplace? It sounds exhausting.” I couldn’t imagine. All of the work I did Monday through Wednesday was tiring, but it wasn’t like the manual labor of being on a farm.

“Well, that’s why I say many hands make light work. My parents do a lot.”

I guess they must.

“And your siblings?”

Honey let out a sigh. “They do what they can. I just…I feel like it was me and my parents building the farm when they first bought it and the three of us agreed that we were building this for them. So that they could have something to take pride in, a place to work if they needed it. I have no idea if that makes any sense.” Honey finished her sub and tore open the bag of kettle cooked chips.

“It does make sense.” Not to me, really, because my family had never been like that. But I could see Honey feeling that way.

“You never talk about your family at all,” she said, examining a chip and then popping it into her mouth.

“You noticed that, huh,” I said, setting down the remains of my sandwich, no longer interested in eating.

“Yes. Is there a reason?”

“There is.” I’d thought we were going to discuss sex tonight, but I guess we were talking about this first.

“My parents kicked me out the second they could. We’d never been a family. Not like you are with your parents and your siblings. Just three people who shared a home for a while. Honestly, they never should have had me. They weren’t suited to being parents. They cared more about their own activities and having fun than things like making sure I got to school on time or got good grades or anything. I was just as happy to leave as they were to get rid of me.”

I hadn’t said any of this to someone before. Not even the people I’d been sort of friends with in high school had known. I wasn’t the kind of person who invited people over and when people asked where my parents were, I made up work trips or sick relatives or whatever I had to so I could cover up the fact that they just didn’t give a shit.

“Oh, Bren,” Honey said, reaching out and squeezing my arm. “Can I please give you a hug?”

I wanted to tell her no, but I didn’t. Instead I nodded and let myself be gathered into her arms as she held me and stroked my hair and made soothing noises. When had I started crying?

“Oh, my Bren,” Honey said, squeezing me. “They didn’t deserve you. They didn’t deserve you.”

She didn’t deserve me. She deserved much better.

This night had taken a turn and I didn’t like it. Talking about my shitty parents just made me feel awful and gross and like I wanted to climb into bed and sleep for a week.

“I’m sorry.” I’d cried and snotted all over Honey’s beautiful sweater.

“Oh this is nothing. At least it’s human.” She reached for a tissue from the nearby box and wiped my face like I was a child.

“I don’t want to cry about them,” I told her while tears continued to drip from my eyes and make my cheeks damp and salty.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

She wiped my nose. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still be sorry, Bren. Have a cookie.” She handed one to me and I started eating it, not even tasting what flavor it was.

“I didn’t know bringing that up was a bad idea. I’m sorry about that,” Honey said.

Finishing the cookie, I dusted my hands off. “You didn’t know. It’s…it’s whatever. Can we please talk about something else?”

She agreed, and Arson jumped into her lap.

“You wanna talk about my butt?” she asked, wiggling her eyebrows. The shift was so unexpected that I burst out laughing.

“Yes please, let’s talk about your butt.”