Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Honey
Annoying Bren was my new favorite thing. She’d get all growly and speechless and glare-y and it made her so hot that I couldn’t even swallow or feel my toes. The side effects were totally worth it.
I wasn’t going to try and give it to her today, though. Keeping her on her toes was more fun. She’d be vigilantly waiting for me to do something and I wasn’t going to do anything.
Ellie had been the one to suggest that I try and have her give Bren the money. Apparently she’d been watching our interactions and had worked out that something was up. I told her that I owed Bren and didn’t know how to get it back to her. She’d told me to give her twenty dollars and I had, curious to see what would happen. And then she marched right up to Bren and had attempted to give her the cash. I couldn’t help but stare as Ellie talked to Bren and Bren spoke back. The noise in the marketplace was too loud for me to hear exactly what they were saying, but Ellie had skipped back over with the twenty still in her hand.
“She wouldn’t take it,” she’d said, slapping the bill back into my hand and picking up the tray of honey sticks to hand out.
My sister was ridiculous, and Bren hadn’t been swayed by her adorableness, but that didn’t surprise me.
I’d get her in a way she wasn’t expecting. I just had to figure out what that way was first.
Your advice to leave the ball in the other person’s court was sound, but I’m ignoring it. Sorry not sorry. I sent to Biblio that afternoon.
You’re ignoring my advice? How dare you. I’m blocking you. I knew she wasn’t serious. She threatened to block me at least once a week usually.
I just think that my way is better. I responded.
You can’t see me but I’m rolling my eyes right now.
I wish I could see her. I wish I could know her face. Her eyes. Her smile. The ache that I’d developed along with my crush on her had gotten worse and worse over the past few weeks. Sometimes I wanted to beg her to show me even part of her face. Just a small section. A blurry shot of the back of her head. One of her toes, anything. The not knowing kept me up at night. Wondering about her shape, her dimensions. Her corners and curves and edges.
But I didn’t ask. I didn’t ask because I knew what she would say. That had been our deal right in the beginning. No details. I understood her reasons. They still hurt in ways that I hadn’t expected.
Let me know how your way turns out. But you’ll probably just lie and tell me it went well. I’d never know.
She would know because one thing I didn’t do with Biblio was lie to her. Ever. I might hold back, but I’d never lied to her from the beginning.
I’d never lie to you. You know all my most embarrassing favorite fanfics.
It was true. I’d shared the worst of the worst with her. The ones that I would rather throw myself into a hive of angry bees without a suit than ever admit to reading.
Mine are so much more embarrassing than yours, and you know that.
That was true. But then I’d read those fics and had been surprised by more than a few of them. You really could never tell where a story was going to go from your initial impression or the synopsis. One minute you were reading a story about two random cartoon characters that were in a few episodes of a kid’s show from fifteen years ago and the next minute you were crying at some of the most gorgeous prose you’d ever seen with your eyeballs.
I looked up from my phone and saw Bren throwing a glare at me.
You okay? I mouthed and that made her glare intensify before she looked away. This woman knew how to hold a grudge. She also looked so hot when she glared. Made me all tingly and hot and distracted.
“Honey?” Ellie asked.
“What?” My voice was so loud that a few people walking by turned around. “Sorry,” I said to no one in particular.
Bren Hendrix was messing with my brain and my ability to do my job.
“You were staring at Bren,” Ellie said, bouncing on her toes.
“No I wasn’t.”
Ellie just smirked at me. “Yes you were. She’s pretty.”
Bren wasn’t pretty . She was too much for such a flimsy word. She was gorgeous, she was devastating, she was overwhelming. Not pretty.
I made a noncommittal noise and turned my attention to asking passersby if they wanted tea. My parents were wandering around the marketplace far from the booth with honey samples, but I’d lost track of them. Who knew if they were going to get anyone to the table. Ember must have made up with at least one of her friends because she’d gone off to meet someone at the pier for a few hours. Hopefully they had smoothed things over for now and Ember wouldn’t come back upset or crying.
The energy was high, but I couldn’t stop glancing over to watch Bren at work.
I was hopeless. Completely hopeless.
That night I didn’t get much of a break because we were behind on online orders (again), and there was fresh honey that Dad had harvested that needed to go into clean jars, so that was our family project for the evening.
Once I was finally done with everything, I dragged myself into the bathtub with some bath salts and my waterproof ereader. My book was exciting, so it was keeping me awake, but the second I put my pajamas on, I was ready to pass out.
I checked my phone one last time to find a link from Bibliofile for a sapphic romance that was on sale. I immediately one-clicked the book.
You’re always looking out for me.
I still hadn’t come up with a good plan to get Bren the twenty dollars, but I’d run through a lot of ideas. I’d bounced some of them off Ellie, but she wasn’t very helpful. She just told me to be brave and ask her to get lunch.
There was no way Bren would agree to get lunch with me.
Still, I could ask, right? She’d say no and I’d try something else. The day must have used up all my fucks because as I was covering the table with the blankets to close up shop for the night, I stopped right in the middle of what I was doing and walked over to Bren’s table.
She stared at me with raised eyebrows.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked in the least helpful voice.
“I’d like to buy you lunch. Next week.” There it was. I’d said the words out loud.
If possible, her eyebrows went even higher and were in danger of merging with her natural hairline.
“Are you fucking serious?” There were no more customers around that might get offended by her language, thankfully.
“Yup.”
She shook her head slowly back and forth as if she didn’t know what to make of me.
“Please? Just let me buy you lunch and then I’ll leave you alone. Pretend that we don’t know each other.”
Her eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. “We don’t know each other.”
“That’s fair.” I waited for a moment. “One lunch, Bren. Please.”
I liked the way her name felt on my tongue. There was a softness and a weight to it. An intimacy that tasted good.
Her shoulders tensed, climbing up toward her ears before dropping back down.
“If I let you buy me lunch, you’ll leave me alone?”
No, but she didn’t know that.
“Uh huh.” I nodded.
She let out the world’s longest sigh.
“Fine.”
“Do you want my number? Or you can just DM the Holloway Apiary social accounts. I’m the one who usually goes through them.”
“No,” she said, grabbing one of her business cards and scrawling something on the back. She held it out to me, and I took it.
I’d expected a username for a secure messaging app or something, but she’d given me her phone number. Or a phone number. My mouth dropped open in shock.
“It’s not a fake number,” she said. “You can check it.” Her chin jutted out defensively.
“I trust you,” I said, and she snorted.
“If you abuse that, I will block your number.”
Tucking the card into my shorts, I nodded. “Understood.”
Sensing it was time to make my getaway, I scurried back to the table to find my family waiting for me. Mom and Dad were smiling at each other, Ellie looked like she was bursting to ask me a million questions, and even Ember was staring at me instead of her phone.
My face went fifteen different shades of red and I couldn’t look anyone in the eye.
I held up one finger. “Not a word. Not a single word.”
Grabbing my bag with as much dignity as I could manage, I checked the table one last time before I headed for the door that led to the parking garage that was attached to the marketplace. My family trailed me, talking in hushed voices that weren’t all that hushed.
The second everyone was in the van with the doors closed, they all started talking at me at once.
“I asked her to lunch!” I said above the commotion. “I just asked her to lunch! That’s it! Not a date. It’s not anything. She barely agreed to it. That’s it.”
My parents shared a fond look and Ellie buzzed in the seat in front of me. I knew she was going to seek me out later and grill me until I told her, but she’d do it when it was just the two of us.
“You should go for it,” Ember said as she started out the window. The sky was gloomy, and rain was expected tonight. I hoped it would storm. I loved sleeping when it rained. The sounds always lulled me into the deepest sleep.
I took the card Bren had given me out of my pocket and stared at the number she’d written down in her sprawling handwriting.
Deciding to go for it, I typed out a quick message.
Testing, testing, 1 2 3. This is Honey Holloway. Over.
The message was obnoxious, and I could just picture how it would make her eyes narrow to read it. Getting a reaction out of Bren was my new favorite hobby. I couldn’t wait until I had her attention for an entire meal.
Her response didn’t come until we’d arrived back home, and I’d gone into the kitchen to start dinner to avoid any further questions about the Bren situation.
I know who you are. You told me your middle name, remember?
Right. I’d babbled it that night at Sapph.
Do you have a middle name? Is Bren your full first name?
She was totally going to block me and refuse to go to lunch if I wasn’t careful.
My full first name is Brenna. I hate it. Her response was surprising. I’d expected her to tell me to fuck off.
“Are you talking to Bren?” Ellie whispered as she sidled up to me.
I looked around, but my parents were checking the bees and the animals and shutting the farm down for the night.
Ember was in the living room on her phone.
“Yes,” I whispered back. “Where should we go for lunch?”
Ellie thought about that for a few moments. “If it’s sunny out, you should go to the pier and get something you can eat outside. If it’s raining, you should go someplace nice with good burgers and onion rings. No one can get mad or be unhappy if you have onion rings.”
Choking back a laugh, I tried to focus on the tomatoes I was slicing for the salad. “That’s really good advice, thanks.”
“I’m gonna go say goodnight to the ducks,” she said and was out the door before I could remind her to put her shoes on.
Brenna doesn’t really suit you anyway I sent back to Bren.
I know. That’s why I don’t use it. Her message was defensive, and I could tell there was a history of strife around her first name.
You can call yourself whatever you want. But I like Bren. It worked for her.
Okay fine. My middle name is Rachel. I didn’t want to use that either. Wow. She was remarkably willing to converse via messages. Interesting.
I bet more people have made fun of my name than of yours I responded. Over the years I’d heard every single joke about my name, as well as people not believing that people would legally name their daughter Honey. But with so many unusual names becoming popular, Honey wasn’t so strange anymore.
I bet. What was that like?
Did she just ask me a question? I dropped the knife I’d been using to slice the tomatoes, but it just clattered onto the counter.
“Crap,” I said under my breath.
“Sooo,” Ember’s voice said behind me as she jumped up on the kitchen island. “What’s the deal with you and Bren?”
I sighed and stared at the slices of eggplant that I’d breaded earlier.
“There is no deal with Bren,” I said, keeping my voice even as I slid the tray of eggplant into the oven and set the timer.
“Uh huh. Sure.” She was baiting me, but I wasn’t going for it. Instead I stirred the sauce and filled a pot with water for the pasta.
Ember’s legs made thunking noises as she swung them, and the sound was getting on my nerves.
“Do you have to do that while I’m trying to concentrate?”
Ember snickered. “You’re concentrating a little too hard on dinner. You’ve made this a million times.” It was true. I could make most meals in my sleep. Some days I’d been so tired that it felt like I had.
“I’m trying not to burn the eggplant. You’re welcome.”
“I love how I’m supposed to tell you everything going on in my life, but then you have something interesting happening finally and we’re not allowed to ask about it. How is that fair?”
I exhaled a slow breath.
“Life isn’t fair,” I said, pointing at her with my pasta tongs, but she just grinned at me.
“You like her. It’s been obvious forever. But she likes you too.”
I dropped the tongs and held back a curse. Picking them up, I went to the sink to wash them off.
“She does?” I asked. “She doesn’t act like it. She glares at me all the time and every time I’ve tried to talk to her, she’s been mad.”
Ember nodded. “Yeah, that’s how I know she likes you.”
“I’m not following.”
Ember huffed as if I was being difficult. “She’s mad at herself for liking you. I know you think I’m always on my phone, but I do pay attention. Bren looks at you, a lot, and you don’t see the look on her face when she knows you can’t see her.”
My fingers gripped the tongs. “Are you sure?”
She nodded and hopped off the counter as her phone buzzed with a new message. She read it and smiled before glancing up at me.
“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Well.
Bren got quiet later that night and I assumed I’d pestered her enough for one day.
Guess what? I was right and you were wrong. I didn’t give up and now I’m going to get them to accept my apology. So there.
I grinned as I sent the message to Bibliofile. If there was someone I could gloat to about my success, it was her.
But HAVE they accepted your apology? Officially?
Way to rain on my victory parade, Biblio. Sometimes her realistic outlook was too intense for me.
Fine. No. But I’m getting there. I’ve made progress. Lunch with Bren was a huge step. I was still shocked that she’d agreed to it, and then had given me her number so we could hash out the details. I had no doubt that if I was too much for her, that she’d block my number without even thinking twice.
What was it with me having crushes on skittish people? Was I sending out a beacon for them or something?
Just be careful. I don’t want you to get your hopes up and then get them crushed. I might not have shared my real name with Biblio, but she knew that I had a tendency to think the best would happen and not prepare for the worst in case it happened and then I was devastated if it did anyway.
I didn’t have my head completely in the clouds, though. Reality was always breathing down my neck. Hell, I was far more grounded in reality than just about anyone in my home with the exception of Ellie, who had had to deal with more than one kid should at her age.
Yes, I was grounded by the numbers on the balance sheets I kept, but I also had faith in people. That they were basically good, on the whole, and could surprise you with their goodness. And I always trusted my instincts about people and there was something about Bren.
I’m not going to get crushed. It’s not that big a deal. Hadn’t I told my family the same thing? This lunch with Bren shouldn’t be a huge thing, but every time I tried to imagine sitting across from her at a table or going to one of the food trucks on the pier, my stomach started doing backflips and front flips and all kinds of other gymnastic movements.
Well, tell me how it goes.
I would.
That night I was filled with so much restless energy that I couldn’t sleep until I’d tiptoed downstairs, slipped on my work boots and headed out to the hives.
I’d brought a blanket to throw over my shoulders to ward off the cold, but I still shivered a little. I’d done this walk so many times that I knew how to avoid triggering the automatic outside lights.
Like the humans inside the house, the bees were tucked in for the night in their hives, but that didn’t matter.
Sighing, I sat down on a soft patch of grass. Hopefully no spiders were going to crawl on me. I slapped at a mosquito and listened to the quiet, the sounds of the wind in the trees broken only by the soft rhythm of the peepers in the nearby pond.
A firefly flew lazily by as I tried to get comfortable.
“So, I asked Bren to go to lunch. And she agreed. And then she gave me her number, if you can believe that.” When I’d first started talking to the bees, I’d wondered if I needed to say anything special, but I hadn’t been able to figure out what that was so over the years I’d just talked to them like I’d speak to anyone else. I thought they appreciated my familiarity and friendliness.
I informed them about Bren (I’d told them about her many times already, so they had already heard her name), and poured out all my worries and anxieties and hopes.
“I just…I know that she’s not going to wake up one morning and realize she’s in love with me. And my track record with falling in love? Not great. At this point, I would settle to be her friend. If anyone needs a friend, it’s someone like Bren.”
My words were met with just the barest hint of a buzz.
“If all I can have is friendship? I’ll take it. I’ll probably develop a new crush anyway.” When I was younger, I’d had a new one every single week and they’d all been devastating. The bees had heard all about them and I’d cried more times than I wanted to count about this girl or that one. The second one crush would end, I’d wake up with another one.
I didn’t want to be this fickle person. I didn’t want my heart to be this way, but I couldn’t stop it—and I’d tried. Every crush was like a storm in my body, an unstoppable force that I was almost powerless against.
One minute the other person would be just someone I knew and the next minute they’d be someone I couldn’t breathe without.
“I don’t like being like this,” I said. “I want to…I want to be the kind of person who falls for someone and it’s real. It’s…solid. Mine always feel so tumultuous and wild and they’re not even fun. I don’t enjoy it that much.” That was for sure. I dreaded each new crush. If there were some kind of crush vaccine, I would have taken it. Or at least some sort of crush blocker that I could have until I was ready to fall in love with a good person. Someone who wouldn’t love me less than I loved them.
I was tired of loving more. Loving too much.
“I’ve decided to try something new. Friends. Friends with Bren. And then there’s Bibliofile, who I don’t have a chance in hell with because who knows if she’s even single or if we’re compatible outside of the internet.” Probably not. It would be just my luck to fall for someone so completely unattainable and unavailable.
“Do you have any advice for me?”
I waited, but there was nothing. Something rustled out in the grass and I prayed it wasn’t a skunk because then I’d be in big trouble. Freezing where I was, I waited for whatever it was to move off and decided it was time to head back inside. My ass was almost frozen to the ground.
“Thanks for listening. Love you.” I always thanked the bees for everything they did for me.
Wincing as I shook out my stiff legs, I did my best to walk quietly back to my apartment and upstairs to my warm bed.