6. 6
6
Honey
I was so engrossed with the video streaming on my phone, I didn’t hear the jingle of the bell with the threat of a new customer. If I had, I would’ve had time to quickly turn my phone off and shove it under the counter.
But I didn’t.
My eyes were glued to the screen, which played a brindle bull trying its best to twist its broad body into all sorts of angles. No matter how many times I’d watched the rider over the years, my heart still beat in my throat and my stomach was a tangle of nauseated knots. Eight seconds felt like a lifetime. And the rider was uncharacteristically clumsy. Distracted. His body, which would usually have the talent of reading the bull’s next move, was flopping about like the dummy Beau used on the fresh broke yearlings sometimes. There was no style in the ride, he was simply hanging on for dear life.
‘Please don’t tell me you’re doing what I think you’re doing.’
I gave a frightened cry, my phone flying from my hands like a hot potato. Duke gave a startled woof from where he’d been snoring at my feet under the desk. I glared at my best friend as she made her way back to the customer side—the correct side—of the counter with a smug grin.
‘Ellie-May, you can’t do that!’
She leant on the bench, one made from a heavy slab of jarrah I’d found on the farm and lacquered, her chin cupped in her hand. ‘And you can’t be watching your ex’s rides when he’s just waltzed back into town! I ask this because I love you, what the hell are you doing?’
I usually hated how rumours spread like a bushfire in Gumtree Valley, but when the fast-talking mouths had taken the news of Colton Hayes’s return to the library and sent Ellie-May rushing to find me sobbing in The Honey Pot yesterday, I’d never been so thankful. By the time Colton would’ve been on the outskirts of town, Ellie-May was wrapping me up in her arms and rocking me like a mother would with her sobbing child.
My best friend’s hazel eyes drilling into me made me realise I hadn’t yet given her an answer. Or an excuse, more like. Even when Colton had left me as a broken-hearted mess, I’d continued watching his rides. I didn’t know why I couldn’t let go. I’d managed to keep my guilty pleasure a secret from Beau, knowing what it would do to him if he ever found out. Ellie-May was the only one who knew about the Elite Bull Riding app hidden on my phone.
‘It’s the New York event,’ I muttered, dropping down from my stool and making my way back to the new release display I’d been setting up before being tempted back to my phone—again. ‘Everyone in Gumtree Valley would have watched it.’
Ellie-May pursed her lips. ‘Everyone else in this town doesn’t share the history with Colton that you do. You should be the only person in this place not watching it. You know Beau is already competing with a ghost. Don’t make it harder on him.’
Shame washed over me and I clutched the book of an indie author I’d helped with their manuscript appraisals a little tighter before placing it on the shelf. ‘You’re right.’
‘Oh, Honey.’ Slightly plump arms, decorated with tattoos, wrapped around my waist. ‘Why can’t you let him go? After everything he did?’ She gently turned me in her arms and gave my shoulders a squeeze. ‘Beau is good to you. Remember that.’
I stared at my childhood best friend, grateful to have someone willing to smack some sense into me every now and then. I closed my eyes and sighed. ‘You’re right.’
I resumed stacking the books, Ellie-May’s jewellery-adorned hands diving into the box to help. She came to the store on her hour lunch break from the library every day. Sometimes we would go to Tailgates, the local pub, for lunch. Other times, we chose to swoon over the book we were reading in The Queen Bees Book Club while stuffing our faces with reheated meals from home. Apart from Granny and Poppy, I’d never been so grateful to have someone in my life as much as Ellie-May.
As a six-year-old, she hadn’t judged me when she’d asked me to play. I’d been sitting all alone on the playground, the new kid from the suburbs. Word in the small town had quickly spread about why I’d come to live with my grandparents, which meant misunderstanding parents had kept their children away from me. Because my six-year-old self had clearly learnt to cook drugs like my parents, and I’d had grand plans of corrupting each of my classmates.
Ellie-May’s parents hadn’t been like those parents though. In fact, they too were looked at a little strangely, as they’d lived in an old motorhome in someone’s paddock and wore tie-dyed clothes. So when a gap-toothed girl with jet black hair down to her waist had stuck her chubby little hand down to me and smiled, I hadn’t been able to believe it.
Naturally, Ellie-May and I had changed over the twenty years of our friendship. Her more than myself. For one, her long hair, which I’d always envied, was now chopped at the shoulders and styled in a half-up, half-down messy bun. I’d cried as I’d sat in her kitchen, watching her mum lop the silky black tendrils with scissors. Ellie-May had grinned like a lunatic. Then there was her skin, now decorated with all sorts of tattoos. Most of them she’d gotten on her visits to see me at university. I’d held her hand for each one.
In return, she’d comforted me as the tattoo artist had inked a set of angel wings over my heart.
‘Ooh! The new Sarah J. Mass!’ Ellie-May’s blue eyes scanned the blurb of the book she held in her hands with an intensity only a bookworm possessed. ‘Yet another one of her books guaranteed to send Bookstagram into meltdown.’
I grinned, picking up the now empty box and moving behind the counter to grab my phone. ‘I was thinking we could make it the club’s next read.’
‘Heck yeah! It’s about time we had some romantasy to swoon over again.’
Ellie-May petted Duke while I snapped a photo of the new display for The Honey Pot’s Instagram page.
New releases now in at The Honey Pot! Bee sure to buzz in and get yourself a new read!
Then The Queen Bees’ Book Club page.
Next week we’ll be delving into a world of romance and fae with Sarah J. Maas’ new book! Bee sure to have your copy ready!
‘Any word from Kimberley yet?’ asked Ellie-May.
I sighed and shook my head, pocketing my phone, which was already pinging with notifications. ‘No, nothing yet.’
Kimberley Sparks was a New York Times bestseller of steamy romance novels. In a town like Gumtree Valley, where wives weren’t wined and dined by their farming husbands, the genre had always been The Honey Pot’s top seller. Of course, no one knew Mrs Bickering was the biggest contributor though. Kimberley was currently touring Australia for her newest book release and despite us asking if she would include Gumtree Valley in her travels when she first announced the tour, we were yet to get a response.
Ellie-May groaned. ‘There’s only a few more stops on her tour. I doubt she’ll come now. Our messages would’ve been caught up with the ones from all her crazy fans.’
‘ Or her team would’ve googled Gumtree Valley and wondered why they would come to a dusty old town in the middle of nowhere when Kimberley’s books are based in glittering high-rise apartments on coastline cities.’
‘Or that.’ Ellie-May twirled her nose ring, something she’d adopted when deep in thought since getting it done for her sixteenth birthday. ‘Maybe we should try message her again? Ooh! What if we go to one of her events?’
I laughed and shook my head. ‘If I message her again, we’ll be the crazy fans.’
Ellie-May threw her head back with a guttural groan. ‘I need a drink!’
‘Tailgates for lunch? Maddie had to go home, something about her brother coming home from school vomiting, but it’s not like shutting up for an hour will kill business.’
‘It’s like you read my mind!’
After slipping my bag across my body and telling Duke I’d be back soon with a loving pat, I flipped the sign on the door to read Out making honey! Bee back soon! and locked it behind me. The hot air wrapped around us like a heavy blanket as we walked, the verandahs of the shopfronts along the footpath doing nothing to defend against the humidity. In the distance, the sky had turned an obsidian black and excitement filled me with the potential of watching another storm at home later.
The town of Gumtree Valley was always dead in the middle of the day, especially in summer when the temperature soared high. Four-wheel drives and sedans covered in orange dust cruised down the main street in dribs and drabs, most of them farmers’ wives running town errands for the farm; getting supplies from the agricultural store, collecting the mail from the post office, completing any required permits from the shire office.
So when Ellie-May and I stepped into the air-conditioned tavern, I wasn’t at all surprised to find we were the only ones, apart from a few regulars sitting at the bar watching TAB playing on the flatscreen TVs.
‘Hey, girls.’ The barmaid, the daughter of the publican who I also knew as one of Maddie’s friends, beamed at us from wiping out glasses behind the bar. I’d been told by my colleague that Daisy’s over protective parents had only just allowed her to start working here.
‘Hey, Daisy.’ I grimaced at the feeling of my shirt and jeans sticking to my skin. I couldn’t go to the toilet, fearful of never getting the denim back up. Luckily, the coffee I’d taken a gamble on had vacated the premises hours ago. I doubted the caffeine did anything for me, as it was shooting out my backside within an hour of my first sip. ‘A lemon, lime and bitters, please.’
‘I’ll have a beer,’ chimed Ellie-May.
The young girl chuckled while punching in our order on the till. ‘You’re probably the only librarian I know that drinks beer. What are we eating?’
‘The chicken Caesar salad for me, please. If I eat anything remotely warm, I think I might melt.’ I waved at my face, wondering if my make-up was sliding from my face like a melting snowman.
My best friend gave an unladylike snort. ‘Steak and chips with mushroom sauce, please.’
I whipped out my bank card. Ellie-May paid last time. Once the transaction was accepted, we made our way to the booths, which sat alongside the wall, decorated in old number plates. Some were from interstate, some international. My favourite was a novelty plate from Wyoming, letters and numbers stamped into a background of galloping horses. I sighed blissfully when the vent in the roof blew icy cold air directly onto my head. Granny always said I was lucky to have such thick hair, but during the summer when it felt like my head couldn’t breathe, I struggled to be grateful.
Daisy soon brought over our drinks and Ellie-May and I each took greedy sips.
My phone began ringing in my handbag slung across the back of my chair and I twisted to reach it, only to decline the call. I didn’t know when I would be ready to speak to him. I didn’t know how to put into words how much it stung that he didn’t tell me about Colton coming home. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t warn me. Was it a vicious retaliation from me taking so long to contact him when Clyde had his accident?
I was beginning to wish I ordered a beer too.
‘Beau?’
‘Uh huh.’ I hoped my tone came across as nonchalant.
Ellie-May rolled her eyes and rested her elbows on the table, causing it to wobble slightly. ‘So you’re still frosting him out because he didn’t tell you about Colton?’
‘I just need time to work out how I’m going to approach the situation.’
‘Oh pah- lease !’ She shook her head. ‘You’re sticking your head in the sand. When are you going to break up with him?’
My already hot face heated further. ‘I—I’m not.’
‘Why? You’re not happy with him. You’re only going to hurt him even more if you keep stringing him along. You can deny it all you want, and it’s something I’ll never understand after what he did to you, but you never got over Colton.’ One of her eyebrows was raised to the edge of her choppy bangs.
I felt like I was sitting in the nude with how exposed I felt. ‘Colton and I share a lot of history. Of course his return was going to … stir up old feelings.’ I fiddled with the coaster advertising one of the town’s businesses. ‘The older I am with the PCOS, the harder it might be for me to have children.’
‘I know.’ My best friend’s tone was soft but her face remined disapproving. ‘But are you sure that’s all it’s about? Are you dating Beau to feel closer to Colton?’
‘What? No! That would be an idiotic idea on my behalf!’
‘Mm, well from what I remember, Colton could make a sensible girl do idiotic things.’ Ellie-May was smirking, her tattooed eyebrow remaining quirked.
My cheeks flared to the point I swore I’d burst into flames. Memories flashed through my mind, ones thick with teenage love and hormones; skinny dipping in the local dam, riding Misty over to Double Q Ranch in the dark night hours, his hand gripping mine tightly as we snuck into his room, him silencing my giggles with impatient kisses.
‘I was a teenager back then.’ I eyed my best friend evenly. ‘A lot happened. I had to grow up fast.’
Ellie-May’s mouth twisted, her hands moving to hold mine on the table. I knew she’d be thinking about the tattoo over my heart, one which seemed to burn each time the topic was broached. ‘I know, and I’m sorry. I don’t mean to come across as unsupportive and insensitive. I’d just hate for you to bring a baby into a loveless relationship when all you’ve wanted your entire life is to have the family you never had. You’re my best friend and I like Beau. I just want the both of you to be happy.’
‘We are . We’re just going through a rough patch.’
But my lie tasted bitter in my mouth and I was glad our food arrived, leaving no room for conversation.