Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Honey
I wanted to help Bren. Well, I wanted to be near Bren, at least. I knew she had her system and I didn’t want to mess with it or annoy her if I did something wrong. Bren was the kind of woman who was particular about the way she did things, I had noticed.
Once I managed to get my family moving in the right direction, I stepped beside Bren, who was packing up her book sleeves.
“Can I help? Or should I not distract you?” I asked.
She looked up and it took a moment for her eyes to focus.
“If you grab that box, you can put all the bookmarks in it.” I reached for the box she indicated and did as she asked, making sure I didn’t just dump them in.
“That goes in the bin right there.” Bren managed to continue her task while directing me and we got everything packed away in her bins and on her rolling cart in no time. It was amazing how she’d made everything fit perfectly with no unused space. Efficient and compact. Not like my family, cramming everything into the van and hoping nothing broke. Granted, her items did tend to stack more easily, and she didn’t have to deal with any glass jars.
Bren did one last check and faced me.
“I could, um, help you?” She sounded so unsure. It was adorable.
“I’m good, thanks. Many hands, light work, and all that.” Many hands made more work sometimes, but we didn’t need Bren. There were plenty of us. She was all on her own.
“Okay, sure,” she said, passing the handle of her cart back and forth in her hands. “I’ll, um, see you next week, I guess?”
“Unless I see you sooner,” I said, and her eyes went wide, almost in fear. She really was fun to mess with.
“You never know where I might pop up, Bren. Or you could always come by the farm. We do tours and you’ll get a free sample of honey. You can even name a bee and get a little certificate saying that you’re an amateur beekeeper.”
Bren just stared at me as if I’d spoken in another language.
“Do you…do you think that’s something I’d be into?” she asked.
Absolutely not, which was why I’d said it. I adored watching her reactions.
“No? You don’t want to get your picture taken wearing a full beekeeping outfit? You’d look so cute.”
Bren wouldn’t look cute in it. She’d look hot as fuck, but I couldn’t tell her that. I also was never going to tell her I’d had several erotic dreams of her stripping out of the suit or wearing the hat with the veil down and nothing else. My mind came up with strange fantasies sometimes.
“I think I’ll pass,” she said, tapping one finger on the cart handle. She obviously wanted to go, but I didn’t want to let her. I wanted to beg her to go somewhere with me. Anywhere we could be alone, and I could sit and gorge myself on her face and her voice and her expressions.
“Fine. Your loss,” I said, pretending a nonchalance that I very much didn’t feel.
“Okay, uh, bye,” she said, her eyes flicking around as she started to back toward the door.
“Bye, Bren,” I said, giving her a goofy little wave that she didn’t return.
“Honey and Bren, sitting in a tree…” Ellie sang.
“Wow, are kids still saying that one?” I asked.
Ellie grinned up at me as I pulled the elastic out of her hair and redid her ponytail for her.
“I am. You’re gonna kiss her,” Ellie said, looking up at me and smiling, showing me the gaps where she had missing teeth that had yet to grow back in. My adorable little Jack-o-lantern. She didn’t believe in the tooth fairy anymore, but we still snuck little things under her pillow and took away the baby teeth which my mom kept in a little silver box, along with the rest of ours. I was torn between thinking it was sweet and creepy at the same time.
“Am I? When’s that going to happen?” I asked her.
“Soon,” she said, with all the confidence of one so young.
“Well, could you give me a heads up so I make sure my teeth are brushed beforehand?”
Ellie giggled and I kissed the top of her head. I didn’t have to lean down far. Someday, she would be taller than me and I was dreading that day already.
Eventually we got packed up and made our way back home. Bren hadn’t sent any messages to me and I had the feeling she was a little taken aback about me asking her to come to the farm. In a normal interaction with someone, it would have been a very natural thing to ask to move a friendship forward.
But Bren was different. She was clearly someone who hadn’t gotten a lot of practice being a friend. Or maybe she’d had friends and had bad experiences. I hated to think it was the second option. While it was true that she was a little prickly and hard to get to know, she was worth it, and that was the truth.
To break the ice a little, I went out and put on a full beekeeping outfit. We rarely wore the full suits anymore, since we were so comfortable with handling the bees and knowing their behavior.
I pulled the veil down and then asked Ellie to take a picture of me posing.
She demanded that we take multiple shots in different poses.
“Are you going to be a professional photographer?” I asked her when she’d finally handed the phone back to me.
She shrugged. “Maybe. Can I be a vet and a photographer?”
I looked into her eyes. “You can be whatever you want to be, Ellie Belly. Never, ever forget that. You can be a photographer veterinarian president model teacher if you decide.”
Ellie grinned at me. “I don’t think I want to be president though.”
Laughing, I scrolled through the pictures she’d taken. “I don’t blame you. I don’t want to be president either.”
I found one of the cutest pictures and sent it off to Bren. If that didn’t thaw her, I didn’t know what would.
Well it looks great on you, but you’d make anything look good.
I almost let out a little excited squeal.
“What did she say?” Ellie asked, grabbing my arm to try and see my phone screen.
“She thinks I look good.”
Ellie giggled and clapped. “I told you you’re gonna kiss her.”
That one comment from Bren had me buzzing the rest of the night. I couldn’t help going back to look at it.
She hadn’t backpedaled either! That was progress. We were making progress together.
With all the conversing with Bren, I realized I hadn’t spoken much with Bibliofile. I’d sent her a few messages here and there, but my main focus had been Bren and that wasn’t fair to Biblio, so I sent her a message apologizing about being MIA.
No worries. I’ve been busy myself. Believe it or not, I’m actually going to brave other people and go to a book club. I got talked into it and the book is actually really good. Are you proud of me?
I actually was. That was something completely out of her normal comfort zone.
You can’t see me, but I’m doing a little dance in your honor right now. Will there be snacks?
She told me there would be and I gave her all kinds of encouragement.
You know what? You’ve inspired me. I’m signing up for my local book club too.
Between the Sheets had a monthly book club and while buying the book was part of it, I didn’t mind supporting the business at all. I’d been on the fence, but I went to the website and signed up also placing an order for the book that I’d pick up in the store tomorrow. That was an excellent reason to stop by Between the Sheets and see if they had anything new. Maybe I could even convince Ember to come with me. She did like to read, and it would be nice to have some sister time with her.
I went downstairs and found my parents snuggled up and watching an old black-and-white movie. Archer was still outside, the sound of the basketball bouncing on the driveway in competition with the peepers. At least he was doing that and wasn’t gaming for twelve hours a day. Ellie was on the couch with Mom and Dad, and I assumed Ember was in her room, so I went upstairs to find her.
“Em? It’s me,” I told her when I knocked on the door.
“Yeah?” she said, the one word full of teenage irritation that I would dare disturb her.
Gently, I opened the door and poked my head in.
“Hey, I have to drop by the bookstore tomorrow and wanted to know if you’d come with me? I’ll buy you lunch.” I wasn’t above luring her with free food.
Ember looked up from her phone and thought about it for a few seconds before shrugging. “Sure.”
“You good?” I asked.
“Uh huh,” she said, her voice tight. Oh no. Something was up.
“Okay, well you can tell me about it tomorrow.”
I left before she could argue with me.
“Yay, I’m so glad you’re doing book club,” Delaney said when I picked up my book the next day after browsing the store and grabbing two new releases and one older book I loved that had recently come out with a special edition with sprayed edges that I had to have.
“I’ve been trying to do more social things lately,” I said, remembering what Aunt Eileen had told me. She’d still been checking in on me and making sure I was going out and having fun. Book club was only a few hours and nothing at the farm was going to fall apart if I went. I’d probably have a better time than when I’d gone to Sapph. That hadn’t been a terrible time, but at least with book club there was a much smaller chance that I’d cause Bren Hendrix to spill a drink. She was definitely not a book club kind of person. All those people? No way.
Too bad, because it might actually be a good way to pitch her products. They were on prominent display and it made me proud seeing them. I almost wanted to go up to anyone else in the shop and steer them over to the Wild Prose shelves and say how good the book sleeves were and shove bookmarks and stickers into their hands. I’d managed to stop myself, which was good.
Ember had come with me and she’d stepped away from me when I’d come into the bookshop and had gone immediately to the young adult section to browse. That was fine with me. I’d told her I’d buy her three books of her choice in addition to lunch. I was really laying the bribery on thick today. I felt guilty for being so close to Ellie and for not doing as much for my other two siblings. They knew I loved them, but I needed to make sure I held onto them as they went through their tumultuous teen years. I wouldn’t let them suffer in silence if there was something I could do.
Ember was my first project. She seemed to have made up with her friends, but there was absolutely something else bothering her and I was going to get to the bottom of it, even if that took bribery.
Delaney was one of the loveliest people I’d ever met, and I said that as someone who tried to lead every interaction with kindness myself. She absolutely had me beat. There was a purity of her spirit, as if even if something bad happened to her, it would just slide right off and she’d continue to glow.
We were deep in conversation about a book we were anticipating the release of when her phone went off in quick succession.
“I’m so sorry about that,” she said, checking it.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
Delaney gave me a tight smile and typed out a quick response before putting her phone away.
“My boyfriend. He’s just checking up on me. He’s a total sweetheart.” I wouldn’t say I was an expert at reading people, but I knew enough to know that Delaney was lying through her teeth. Everyone knew about her boyfriend because she was always talking about him. You had to find the truth in the things she didn’t say and in the way she told the stories about him.
Delaney was clearly a woman who believed in the fairytale. Hell, she worked in a romance bookstore because of how much she adored books about love and romance. She also ran a small screen-printing business when she wasn’t working at the bookstore and they also sold her shirts and tote bags.
But Delaney couldn’t paint a rosy picture about her relationship, no matter how hard she tried. It made me sad for her, to be honest. She tried so hard to make everyone believe she was living in a romantic novel, but he was no prince. From what I’d gleaned, he was stringing her along and would probably say things like “why do we need labels?” if she asked him if she was his girlfriend. Funny, because they literally lived together, but I guess that didn’t matter to him.
He worked sporadically and seemed to have a lot of issues finding a steady job. Delaney defended him, of course, but a few times I wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to.
It wasn’t my place to tell her that her boyfriend wasn’t worthy of her, though. And even if I did? She wasn’t going to believe me and then I’d have hurt her for nothing.
So I just nodded and waited for a moment to change the subject.
Ember interrupted us, which was a welcome distraction.
“Find some books?” I asked as she held out a stack of at least five books, four of them hardbacks.
This was going to be an expensive day.
“I can’t decide,” Ember said, biting her lip.
“Oh, I can absolutely help,” Delaney said, ushering Ember over to one of the seating areas and motioning for her to set the books down. I stood back as Delaney talked with Ember and I watched my sister talk back, her face and hands animated. It was good to see. When Ember came back to me, she had three books this time.
“Okay. I think these ones. Delaney said she’d put the others aside for me if I decide I want them. One is the second in the series and I need to read the first one.”
“Sounds good.” We both went to pay, and I tried not to wince at the total. We were supporting a small business. Books brought us joy. I was bonding with my sister.
“See you on Wednesday!” Delaney called as we were leaving.
“Can’t wait!” I called back.