Chapter 3 Bella
Bella
Oregonians had a special relationship with dreary weather. Whereas most people saw cold drizzle and low-hanging clouds as an excuse to stay inside and snuggle, the real Pacific Northwesterners just threw on their latest purchase from REI and went about their day.
Minus an umbrella, of course.
According to Nessa, Oregonians “didn’t do” umbrellas.
I might not have been in Rose City long enough to claim to be a local, but I had kayaked on the Willamette once without flipping, switched to oat milk with minimal peer pressure, and could now identify at least three different types of moss.
Take that, Plant App.
The ultimate rite of passage, though, was braving the elements for the weekly farmers market, which was how I ended up spending a drizzly Wednesday morning arranging jars of honey beneath my pop-up tent like a freaking pioneer woman.
“Alright, boss bitch,” Xan said, nodding toward the neat rows of amber jars laid out on the table. “Do you want these according to size or flavor?”
I stood back and put my hands on my hips, weighing the options.
“Size feels logical,” I murmured. “But flavor is more intuitive. Though, if we organize by flavor within size, that creates a hybrid system, which is fine, except hybrid systems can get messy . . .”
Xan watched me with the patience of someone who’d seen me reorganize my fridge by color-coded categories. Twice.
“So . . . alphabetizing then?” they asked.
“No,” I replied much too quickly. “Because what if someone sees marionberry next to mesquite and assumes they’re complementary flavors?”
“Society would crumble, bees would unionize, and dogs would walk themselves?”
I huffed out a laugh despite myself. “I’m being serious.”
“I know,” they said, voice gentling as they ran a hand through their shaggy bob. “And that’s why I love you. But I promise that nobody is out here performing flavored honey calculus. You’re doing great.”
I let out a slow breath, forcing my shoulders down.
“You’re right.” I clicked the pen in my pocket out of habit, silently counting each click until my breathing evened out. “And thank you.”
They smiled. “That’s what I’m here for. At least until one, when I need to clock in for my shift at Smutty Buddies.”
Damn, how do they do it all?
Most days, I was lucky if my brain allowed me to do one task from start to finish without spiraling into seven unrelated ones. Meanwhile, Xan juggled their MFA program with part-time work at Nessa’s romance bookstore and an online side hustle selling handmade acrylic nail sets.
On top of that, they also had that effortlessly cool vibe that most people envied, me included. Their pink bucket hat had been carefully selected to match their latest nailset—pink-and-white gingham with 3D fruits on each nail—making them look like the patron saint of queer cottagecore.
“Okay,” I said decisively. Well, decisively for me, at least. “Let’s go with size. Minis in front, half-pints next, and pints in the back. Honey sticks on the right, soap to the left.”
The honey sticks were crowd favorites. The soap, tiny hexagon bars with embossed bees, were my pride and joy. They were also my first foray into skincare products, though I had high aspirations to keep experimenting with more—lotions, lip balms, and beyond.
Soap was just a gateway craft.
I adjusted one of the pint jars a centimeter to the left. Then a half centimeter back to the right.
“Looks perfect,” Xan said.
“It’s not crooked?”
“Nope.”
“You’re not just saying that to make me stop?”
Xan placed a gentle hand on my shoulder. “It’s honey, Bella. Not the floor plan for a sex club.”
“Oooo, what did I just walk into?”
Dani appeared at the edge of the tent like a goth woodland creature, her tiny frame swallowed by an oversized black jacket.
Coach Brooks Bailey-Ward, better known by the rest of the internet as “Coach Daddy,” towered over her. He bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, attempting to soothe the baby strapped to his chest in a gray carrier.
Xan grinned. “We were discussing honey display strategies.”
“And sex clubs,” I muttered.
“Ah, yes.” Dani nodded sagely. “The two go hand in hand.”
Brooks blinked, then lifted one brow with the weary caution of a man who knew better than to ask follow-up questions. “And on that note,” he said slowly. “I’ll go get us some coffee.”
“You don’t like coffee,” Dani mused, adjusting little Bailey’s beanie that made her look like a teddy bear.
“Then I’ll get you some coffee.”
Before he could fully escape, Dani grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and tugged him down for one of those wet, cinematic kisses, sandwiching the baby between them.
Her black-lacquered nails scraped lightly along his beard, and he made a low noise in his throat that was not safe for farmers markets.
NSFFM.
“Have fun, coach,” she murmured when she released him, her dark lipstick still perfectly intact. “Don’t let anybody upsell you on artisanal pickles again.”
“No promises, kitten.”
He turned and wandered off into the crowd like a man who needed a cold shower.
“Jesus,” Xan said, fanning themselves dramatically. “Y’all are like walking, talking, domestic porn.”
Dani shrugged, looking entirely unbothered. “Honestly, I thought it was just the pregnancy hormones when we first got together, but here we are, a year later, and we still want to tear each other’s clothes off ninety percent of the time.”
“That must be inconvenient,” I deadpanned. “Considering you work together.”
She grinned wickedly. “Oh, sweetie. You have no idea.”
Dani’s words lingered in the air like steam from a kettle, warm and a little dizzying. I tried to imagine what it must feel like to want someone so intensely your whole body vibrated.
The memory of a certain stormy-eyed brunet flashed across my brain, and I blinked it away just as fast.
For days now, I’d done everything in my power not to think about the longest, most torturous truck ride of my life, and more specifically about how well the driver of said truck had filled out that ridiculous sweater.
Nobody should look that good in a Christmas sweater.
But it wasn’t just the glitter and pom-poms. It was the way his hands, calloused and capable, had gripped the wheel and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled—tiny sunbursts that should not have been as attractive as they were, but my hormones disagreed loudly.
I had never given much thought to the idea of licking a man’s wrinkles before, and yet for some reason, the idea of tasting, savoring every inch of Bennett King like he was a double scoop of chocolate-peppermint swirl didn’t immediately disgust me.
Quite the contrary, it made my mouth water.
Oof, that’s definitely NSFFM.
Dani flipped a bluish braid over her shoulder. “I love the new logo, Belles. Comb Sweet Comb has a great ring to it.”
I smiled, grateful for the subject change. It was hard to believe that just a little over a year ago, I’d shown up on my brother’s doorstep with nothing but a duffel bag and the gnawing certainty that everyone my age had a roadmap except me.
I was a twenty-three-year-old college dropout with three bee hives, thousands of hobbies, and zero direction.
Just like Dad said.
I sucked in a breath and shook my head, physically nudging the thought away. I had spent too many years in therapy to keep letting his words get to me, the ones he’d carved into me in a thousand subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—ways.
Too scattered. Too sensitive. Too difficult.
His greatest hits had echoed through my childhood long after the divorce, lingering like background noise I didn’t know how to turn off. But I’d finally learned to distinguish his voice from mine—and discovered, much to my surprise, that mine carried farther. Louder.
I had launched my own business, one small but mighty and entirely mine. Better yet, people liked what I made. They came back for second jars and asked about upcoming products. Just last week, one of my regular customers asked about wholesale pricing so she could stock my soaps in her shop.
Me. The girl who’d once had a panic attack at the grocery store because the cereal aisle had been too loud.
I’d gone back to school, too, and not just because my brother had wanted me to. It was only two classes for now, because that was all my brain could reasonably handle without dissolving into putty, but still—it was something.
Maybe I wasn’t directionless. Maybe I had just finally found the right direction for the first time.
And maybe, to quote Lizzo, that felt “good as hell.”
“By the way,” Dani said, picking up a jar of my winter spice seasonal blend. “Have you heard anything from the funeral fucker?”
I shook my head. “Not since he sent an ‘apology picture’ of his penis.”
Xan sat forward in their chair, leaning their elbows on the table. “Eww,” they spat at the same time as Dani grumbled, “Men.”
“I know.” I huffed. “Apparently, I only attract the weirdos.”
“Aw, hon, it’s not your fault men are trash,” Xan consoled. “Straight dating is like thrift shopping. You sift through a lot of questionable stuff before you find something not covered in stains.”
“Metaphorical stains,” Dani quickly added. “Like crypto trading or owning podcast equipment.”
I dropped my face into my hands. “What’s the point of even trying?”
“Because you’re brave,” Dani defended immediately. “And curious.”
“And you want someone to crack you in half,” Xan added around a wink.
A drizzle of shoppers wandered past the tent, but neither of my friends looked away from me. The attention made my cheeks warm in that itchy, uncomfortable way, like a sweater that didn’t quite fit.
“I’m serious. I don’t know if I’m cut out for this. The whole meeting-people, trusting-people, kissing-people thing.”
Xan’s brows softened. “Bella—”