8. Eden

8

EDEN

"You just ran away?" Eva stares at me, wide-eyed, in my kitchen, where I'm draped over a stool.

I drag my hands down my face with a groan, glad I could call my sister in my hour of need.

Eva pours herself the last of the coffee and adds ice from the tray in the freezer. She leans against the counter. "So, you talked about bees, you filled coolers and buckets with bee gunk, and?—"

"It's honeycomb. And propolis. We've been through this." I glance through my fingers at my sister's irritated scowl and wince.

"Anyway… You filled these coolers, he got some honey on his face, you licked him, and you ran away?"

I don't know what came over me. Heat stroke? Delayed inebriation? I turned around and Nate Donovan looked unbelievably sexy in his tight t-shirt and that fucking toolbelt, and he had honey on his face. "I licked my thumb… but I was making eyes."

"Hmm." She slurps her iced coffee. "I don't get it, though. Why run away? You already boned."

I shake my head. "Do you remember Eila driving me to urgent care afterward when I got a fever and had weird discharge?" Eva snorts. I growl. "I yelled at him a lot after that. Well, his voicemail. But now he's my client, and it's inappropriate for me to lick anything or think about him that way."

Eva crunches the ice from her coffee. "And?"

I flail my hands around. "And he seems kind of vulnerable and hotly responsible now, but who even knows if that was a sham? Like which Nate is the real one, you know?"

I'm spared having to sort through any more of my feelings about Nate because my mother breezes into the room in what I believe to be Esther's bathrobe. "Morning, roomie! Oh, dear. You didn't make coffee?"

Mom frowns at the empty coffeemaker on the counter and mugs resting in the sink. I don't have an opportunity to defend myself—and I swear I would—because Mom snaps her attention to Eva. "Baby daughter! Come give your mama a hug." Mom pats Eva on the back stiffly, like she doesn't quite know how hugs work. "What brings you by our humble abode today?" I don't miss how Mom emphasizes the word humble .

She flits toward me, taking a seat expectantly, and I realize she's waiting to be served coffee. Should I make more?

"Did I hear you mention something about being mean to a man, Eden darling?" she asks. "You know that's no way to get one to stick around."

Sometimes I think the things my mother says have to be a test. Like she can't really believe she's an expert on getting men to stick around when she had five daughters from four different members of the test pool.

Eva attempts to defend me. "Eden was telling me about an ex who she now has to see at work."

"At your bee work? I still can't believe that's a real job. You'll have to show me. I mean, I can plant flowers! Why have I been busting my bum on the casino circuit when I could be a bee lady?"

I tap my fingers on my lap. "You might be a natural at it. Maybe I got it from you."

Mom nods enthusiastically. "Yes, this is the ticket. Roomies. Business partners. What will you do today when you start work?"

I glance at the clock. "Um, this has been my lunch break."

Seeing and smelling no food in the kitchen, Mom frowns and stands back up. "Give me five minutes to change, and you can put me to work. I'll earn my keep, right? Always do."

Eva makes a face as Mom skips upstairs, perhaps to change. Maybe to read a magazine and wait for someone to cook her a meal.

I grunt and turn to my sister. "Thank you for bringing me a sandwich and listening to my horror story."

Evie cringes. "It's literally the least I can do after I dumped Mom on you."

I wave a hand. "It could have happened to any of us. None of us are any good at setting boundaries with her."

"Esther is." Eva grabs her purse and pats her pockets for her phone. "I'll take her car to her and ask for lessons in boundary setting."

"Love you," I call after her.

When she's gone, I drag the cooler into the mudroom toward the chest freezer. At least I had the sense to grab the cooler when I ran from Nate. It's not a terribly big deal that I left the bucket. I was going to melt all that stuff anyway. I really ought to go back and keep pulling honeycomb from the wall, but I don't think I can see Nate at least for another hundred years or so.

By the time I'm ready to go outside and check on the two colonies of quarantined bees, Mom shocks the hell out of me by showing up in the kitchen in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and decent shoes. "I'm ready," she says. "Fly me to the bees!" She snorts. "It's a Sinatra joke. Get it?"

I humor her with a smile and gesture toward the yard. "The hives along the hillside are my permanent bees. There are a bunch of colonies there, but they should be in good shape. Today we need to check on the new girls." I point toward the temporary hives by the front left edge of the property, near Eila's hops crop. Bees buzz happily among the late-season cones. Hops are wind-pollinated, but the oils on the plants themselves help protect bees from mites.

Mom practically skips to the boxes. "It smells so good. Are those your sister's plants? What are they?" Mom smooshes her face into a hops cone and inhales. I bite my lip, fighting my urge to answer every one of her questions, because all us Storm girls agreed we can't have Mom interfering with anything we rely on for income.

It's one thing for me to give her a tour of the yard with my bees. But I know I shouldn't risk Mom damaging Eila's microfarm project. She's got contracts with local breweries depending on this crop of hers.

It's hard for me to draw hard lines with Mom. She isn't some evil villain. She has her moments, like when I turned ten and she surprised us with tickets to Kennywood. Mom rode the carousel with us, held our backpacks while we rode the bumper cars, and even convinced Esther to put her arms up on the Thunderbolt.

"Why don't we check on the new bees?" I say, holding out a veil for my mother.

"Don't you need one of these?"

I shake my head. "The bees are calm today."

Mom drops the veil in the grass. "If you don't need it, then I'm good, too. You must have gotten your bee-charming from me, right?"

I suppress a groan. "I'm going to open the lid and make sure everyone is healthy. If there are no signs of disease and if everyone is working on a new brood comb, I'll build another permanent hive for this crew."

I pull my hive tool from my shorts pocket and lift the lid. "Hey, girls," I whisper. "I'm just checking in. Everyone doing okay in here? Oh, look!" I press a hand to my chest. "Mom, they're making so many baby bees already."

I'll never know what Mom thinks of baby bees, because as soon as I invite her to see them, she starts screaming. "It's in my hair!"

"Mom, you need to step away from the—do not do that."

Mom kicks her legs. "They're crawling up my pants! I can feel them!" Mom flaps her arms. I try to guide her to the road, away from the bees. But I'm too late.

With a thud, Mom kicks over the temporary cardboard hive. The bees burst free, scattering. I've never actually seen this sort of bee behavior, and I reach for the discarded bee veil in the grass since I'm not sure how they'll act. I quietly panic, wondering if I should chase my mother down the street where she took off, or if I should try to save the colony.

Mom seems to have found a neighbor to share in her horror. I can see them gesturing and pointing, and I hear them both yelling about "murder hornets." I sigh and squat next to the box, trying to pick it up. I search among the cracked and bent bits of honeycomb, looking for the queen. My heart sinks as I see that she's gone. She left the babies behind, again, and fled with her swarm of attendants.

This whole disaster reeks of massive failure, an inexplicable loss, and I nearly choke when I hear the chirp of a police cruiser. It pulls over by Mom and the neighbor—is that Ms. Grishom? Did they really call the police about bees?

I'm dejectedly plucking honeycomb from the asphalt when a shadow settles over me, and my stomach sinks. My bee permit isn't exactly kosher at the moment. These poor bees. Will I have to get rid of them? Will they spray them? Not everyone gets the importance of their existence.

I try taking a deep breath, choking a bit on the wetness in my throat. I sniff away the tears, but it's no use. I'm a puffy red mess, I'm sure of it.

The shadow moves, and a bandana wiggles next to my ear, the scent of sawdust reaching my nostrils.

I whip around, my wet eyes drifting up a pair of dirty jeans, a toolbelt, white tee, to the calming, sympathetic smile of the man I least expected to be here.

"Need a hand?"