by Vivian Lux
"Ah, what now?" Bee asked, turning back to him.
"Your store. Honey Bee's? Are you the honey or the bee?"
"Ah, well." Bee looked down, avoiding Jackson's gaze. I allowed myself a little flush of victory. But when she looked back up again, her eyes were shining. A little grin tugged at the corner of her mouth. "It's what my grandmother used to call me," she said, a chastened wistfulness in her voice. "Her little honeybee. Because of my name, of course. But also 'cause I love sweets so much." She gestured to her lush curves. "Obviously."
"Honey Bee," Jackson echoed, musing. "That's really cute."
"Perfect for a store like that," I added.
A beautiful, gratifying blush spread across her cheeks. Her eyes darted between from me to Jackson and then back to me again. I didn't like how often she was glancing at him. I wanted her to look at me and me only.
I bent forward, just a little. Just a test. Bee. I wonder if she'd taste as sweet as her shop smelled?
She licked her lips. I leaned in closer.
I was about to find out.
Then all at once there was a sudden buzzing sound. She stiffened in alarm. "Oh shit! My buns!" she gasped. And turned and grabbed ahold of the fence.
"Hey, you can use our door!" I called her, but she had already scaled the fence and leaped to the other side, scrambling up the back stairs and into the kitchen in the back of her store. Leaving me standing there with a dumbstruck look on my face, and the lingering scent of honey in the air.
CHAPTER SIX
Jackson
"Well, she hates us," Finn announced as he walked back in the door. "So much for seeing where things go."
I shrugged. "She hates you, maybe."
"You think so?" He arched a skeptical eyebrow. "I wasn't the one she was shouting at."
"Nah, she was just blowing off steam. She had a crappy night." I glanced at him and saw his face flicker when he realized she'd told me more about herself than she'd told him. "But you..."
"What the hell did I do?"
I turned away from my knife sharpening a little too quickly and had to reach out a steadying hand on the counter. I'd been awake for twenty hours straight at this point and everything had taken on some kind of underwater unreality. "Didn't you hear her when she said she could take care of the trash herself?"
Finn narrowed his eyes. "She needed help."
"But she didn't want help."
"Sure she did. You're just not used to actually, you know, being anything other than a self-absorbed dick." He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes for a moment. "Sorry," he exhaled. "I'm fucking fried."
"Me too," I agreed. "We're not going to get anything done like this. Why don't we lock up?”
Finn's face twitched for a moment. I waited, keeping my mouth shut as he wrestled with the need to sleep versus the need to keep plowing on with our work. He still needed to find a front-end staff.
As for me back here, of the full staff I needed, I had exactly two sous chefs. There was Kyle, the new general manager who came in twice a week to work on food development with me. We'd met with the local vineyards almost first thing, and our wine list was fleshed out almost to completion, which was at least one thing we could tick off the list. It was a bit harder than what I was used to, but I was determined to use the local stuff. I mean after all, since we were surrounded by vineyards - or so I'd heard anyway - it seemed stupid as hell to stock the French and Italian shit.
But that was just one piece of a very large, very intricate puzzle and sometimes I wondered if it would end up looking like the picture on the box.
"Yeah," Finn finally said, holding back a yawn. "We come back fresh at noon. How's that?"
"Four hours of sleep?" I scoffed. "Man, you are lazy."
He snorted and started heading towards the front. "Where'd you park?" he called back to me.
"On the street across the way." I hit the lights and started following him out the door.
Outside, the light of day seemed almost blinding. So I didn't see that Finn had stopped short until I almost plowed into him.
"What the fuck?" I said, stumbling over to the side. "You can't just stop in the middle of the sidewalk like that."
"Do you see that?" Finn asked.
I looked where he was pointing. "See wha—?"
And then I noticed it. It was faint and almost unreadable, and she'd clearly tried scrubbing it away. But the words were still legible across the front of Bee's store.
"Go home?" Finn read. "What the fuck?"
"I have no idea."
"Who would do that?" he demanded.
"Again, I have no idea."
"That's fucked, look at that, they ruined her window decal!" I could hear the anger in his voice, making it catch in the back of his throat.
"Now I know why she said it'd been a crappy night," I observed. My own anger was a low hum in the back of my brain. Quickly I turned in a circle. "No one else on the block got hit."
"Just her?"
"Seems like it."
"What the hell?" Finn asked.
I shook my head. "Somebody's got it out for our neighbor girl?"
"Who?"
"Finn, we just met her like an hour ago. We know nothing about her."
"I know, but..." He was starting to pace.
"Finn, you can't solve this problem for her," I said, as gently as I could.
"Yeah but..." He stopped. I could practically see smoke coming out of his ears. "You have to think, if this person is targeting the only shop that's open on the block, maybe," he paused. "Maybe we're going to get targeted when we open? So, don't you think..."
My lip twitched. I couldn't help it. He was hell bent on making this his problem.
And me?
Maybe I didn't mind making it mine too. "We should ask her about it," I said, then went up to her window. "Shit," I said as I peered into the store. "She's not in there."
"Yeah she had a delivery truck in the back," Finn noted, glancing around the corner. "It's gone now."
"She does her own deliveries too?" I was liking this girl more than I expected.
Finn nodded, a dumbstruck sort of grin on his face. "Seems that way." I couldn't help but notice how he wasn't moving towards his car.
Then again, neither was I.
"Are you going to—?"
"You don't have to stay," he said quickly.
"Bullshit," I declared. "You're not being the only hero here."
He glared at me. I crossed my arms and smiled back at him. "We haven't slept in nearly a day," he reminded me.
"Won't take long," I said.
He blinked. "Fine," he finally sighed. "I'll go get the bucket and soap."
I nodded and rolled up my sleeves.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bee
The very first time I was awoken by the sound of a bugle, I nearly fell out of bed.
But now, it'd become so commonplace, that I just opened my eyes and sighed, staring at the ceiling.
Blackout curtains weren't enough to filter out the blazing afternoon light. It was warm for May, and the sun was strong. And the sound of Mitzie Jenkins playing Taps out in the middle of my road pierced my ears even as a shaft of sunlight pierced my eyeballs.
"Fuck," I said aloud, feeling that little giddy thrill that I still got from being allowed to swear. But it wasn't enough to keep my temper from flaring.
It felt like I'd finished my morning baking and run out to do the delivery yesterday, after Nick, my stoner driver called out sick. Hell, it felt like a week ago with how deeply I'd finally slept once I decided to keep the Closed sign up and come home and pass out.
But really, all that had happened only this morning. Working nights and sleeping days was playing havoc with my sense of time.
PRRAAAT PUH PRAAAT PRAT... What Mrs. Jenkins lacked in bugle skills, she made up with in bugle enthusiasm. Burying my head in my pillow couldn't drown out the horrible sounds she was making. It sounded like she was murdering a sheep on my lawn.
So much for sleep.
I sighed, and yanked my t-shirt over my head, and shuffled downstairs. I grabbed my hoodie from the rack and wrapped it around myself as I walked out onto my front porch. "Mrs. Jenkins!" I called, waving.
There in the middle of the street stood my imperious neighbor. She was dressed head to toe in purple, looking like some kind of fortuneteller with her long wavy gray hair caught underneath a wrapped purple turban. This afternoon's caftan of choice was swirled with deep purple and red, and sported long trailing sleeves that fell away from her wrists elegantly as she lifted the bugle back up to her lips.
"Mrs. Jenkins?" I called again.
She spotted me, and lifted one finger. Then, closing her eyes she played her mournful notes one more time. Taps was the only song she was good at, and the sorrowful strain echoed down the street. She paused and lifted her chin before closing her eyes and letting out a deep sigh.
I realized all at once that I was standing at attention without even really meaning to, keeping silent until she finally turned around and marched back into her house.
Ever since I moved back here, to what the locals fondly, or rather not so fondly at all referred to as, "The Ass End," of town, I'd come to realize that not only had I purchased property in Reckless Falls, I'd also purchased free entertainment in the form of my neighbors. Mitzi Jenkins, with her weekly bugle performances in honor of the husband she was rumored to have had murdered, was only one of the daily sources of entertainment. You could be amused, or you could be annoyed, but you would never be bored back here in the strip that ran behind Main Street. This was where the good citizens of Reckless Falls hid away their crazy people, the ones who weren't so picturesque and tourist friendly.
"Hey Bee!" Mrs. Callahan called out from her porch.
I turned and waved, happy to know that someone knew me here. I'd only lived here a few months. The ink on my divorce papers was barely dry.
She was sitting out in her nightgown as always, and today it was hiked up a little too high on her thighs. "Nice day, eh?" she said, squinting her face to the sun. "Too bad they ain't opened the beach yet. It's almost warm enough to swim."
I shook my head. "Mrs. Callahan, it's sixty-five degrees."
"Baby girl, I'm always hot." As if to illustrate this point, she fanned herself, shaking her nightgown alarmingly.
I found myself grinning like crazy, imagining myself introducing her to my prim and proper mother. I'd never seen my mother without her lipstick and her pearls, not even when she was sick. Mrs. Callahan didn't give a shit.
I was trying not to give a shit either.
"When are you coming by my shop?" I called.
"Oh baby, remember I told you? Doctor says I need to watch my sugar."
My face must have fallen a bit, because she quickly added, "Don't worry though. That box you brought by? I brought it over to my church group. They went crazy for 'em." She leaned forward, beckoning me closer. "Your cupcakes are so much better than Carla Claymore's, but you didn't hear me say that, ya hear?" She looked around wildly, as if expecting to see eavesdropping ninjas sent by the owner of the Sweet Shoppe melting back into the trees. "Hers were always too..." she dropped her voice to a whisper. "Dry."
I nodded, biting back a smile since she was so serious. "The secret is pudding," I declared. Then I grinned. "Now that I've told you though, I'll have to swear you to secrecy."
She leaned back and dramatically pressed her hand to her ample bosom. "Hand to my heart and may the Lord Jesus strike me down," she declared. "Your secret's safe with me."
"Good," I grinned, then bit back a yawn. Then I remembered that Zach wasn't around to tell me how much he hated "staring at my molars," and yawned hugely, not bothering to cover it with my hand. It was these little rebellions — the swearing, the yawning, the living in a house with a less than desirable view — that made me feel the most free
And I liked it back here. It felt realer than anything in my life so far.
I sat down on my porch rail and looked up and down the street. Five o'clock in the afternoon was the middle of the night for me, and I wasn't often fully awake at this hour. It was strange, moving through daylight like this, seeing the hustle and bustle that I was usually not privy to.
The Ass End was well named, since we faced the backs of all the shops. The townies lived back here, the people who didn't own the shops, but worked them. The waitresses, the shop girls, the bus boys, the tour boat operators and the jack-of-all-tradesmen who picked up seasonal, cyclical work when they could.
And also, the newly divorced shop owners who needed to save every penny to pour back into their fledgling shop and their newfound independence.
Like me.
We lived back here in the grand Victorian houses broken up into five or six separate apartments, and in the tiny little bungalows with dirt patch yards and five or six busted up kids' bikes on the porch. We hid back here and Main Street turned its back on us, showing us the ugliness it would never dare show the tourists. From back here we had a good view of the backs of everything, the dumpsters filled with food waste and the folding chairs set up by sore-footed bartenders who ran out back for a quick smoke.
Every so often, a resident of the street would turn off Main Street and come down ours, kicking up a cloud of dust once they pulled into their unpaved driveway. Aside from the kids playing, there weren't too many people out and about — besides the now gently snoring Mrs. Callahan — so when I spied the black clad figure at the end of the street, I smiled and waved.
Charlie lived two doors down from me, with her mother and her adorable little toddler. She moved like she was exhausted, but as got closer to home, her tired face broke out into a wide smile when she spied her little boy, toddling across the postage stamp sized lawn in front of her house and out to greet her.
"How are you?" I called, waving to Charlie's mother, whose name I didn't know. She was out on the porch, smoking a cigarette and watching her grandson. Here they were, coming together at the end of their day, but mine had barely even begun. This was my morning, when everyone else was winding down. I'd moved in four months ago, but unless I was awake during this time, I rarely saw anyone. Aside from Mrs. Callahan, the last conversation I'd had was with Finn and Jackson yesterday.
The thought of them made me sit up straighter.
Little flashes of sensation flickered across my mind as I went over that conversation once more in my head. Jackson, gorgeous in a dangerous sort of way, but rude as hell too. Finn, handsome in an All-American sort of way, but pushy and controlling. I didn't like them. That was for sure. But I kept thinking about them too. Meeting them had left me rattled.
No wonder I'd come home instead of cleaning off the rest of the graffiti.
"Goddammit," I said aloud, suddenly remembering.
"Huh?" Mrs. Callahan snorted awake. "Who's that?"
My cheeks colored. "Sorry, Mrs. Callahan," I called, ears burning. "I just remembered something I forgot to do.” Well that was really stupid, Zach's voice chided in my ear. Leaving your shop all marked up with graffiti like that, for all the customers to see. You're really bad at this, Bee.
A frantic anxiety settled into my chest, sending my heart racing. I turned to head back in.
"Hey, Bee!" Mrs. Callahan called. "You going to be bringing around any more of those honey buns of yours?"
I stopped and took a deep breath, then turned and gave her my winningest smile. "Of course. I'll get you another box this Sunday."
"The girls'll love it," she agreed, hoisting herself to her feet and shuffling slowly to her front door. "You be careful going out in the dead of the night like you do. I'll be prayin' for you."
"Thank you, Mrs. Callahan," I said.
"A girl alone like you."
"I don't mind being alone," I interrupted. "I can take care of myself."
She fixed me with a beady glance that felt like it tore right through me. "Oh, I don't doubt that at all, baby girl. But ain't it nice to let s
omeone else take care of you?"
I thought of Zach for a moment, before I pushed him from my brain. I lifted my chin and shrugged. "I wouldn't know."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Finn
Enraged, I hung up the phone. I tried to shove the hanging plastic sheet out of my way, but it slid down my arms, raising static electricity that had it clinging to my clothes. "Goddammit, when the fuck am I getting a door?" I shouted to no one in particular. I wrestled myself free and stood out in the middle of the open space and shouted to be heard over the noise of the workmen's hammers. "Kyle!"
Our brand new general manager slid off the stool where he'd been perched double checking a shipment of cutlery. "Yeah boss?" he called, coming over to me.
"I just got off the phone with Jasper Hill Winery," I said, trying to keep from raising my voice. "They said they delivered a shipment last Thursday."
Kyle widened his eyes a fraction. I knew he was a recent Culinary Institute grad, but still. He had no business looking so young. And with those kicked-puppy-dog eyes, he looked even younger. The kid was going to need to toughen up fast before this industry chewed him up and spit him out. "They said that?"
"They did," I said carefully. "And the signature on the delivery slip is yours?"
"Oh right!" His face broke out in a smile. "Yeah, I remember now."
"Why do I have no record of this new inventory?" I seethed.
He cocked his head to the side. "You should. I put it on your desk. Remember I told you?"
"No," I gritted. "And you should never just put it on my desk. You should have entered it into the system yourself to keep something like this from happening."
He cocked his head even further, so his head was almost at a forty-five-degree angle to the ground. "But boss," he said, with his brow furrowed so deeply he reminded me of a Shar-pei. "You told me not to do that."
Now it was my turn to wrinkle my brow. "I did?"
He nodded. "Last week. You said no one was to touch the computer except you."
"I did?" I had absolutely no recollection of this. "Well that wasn't very smart of me."