He glances down at me from the corner of his eye. “What else do you want to know?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. What’s it like? Are the bees treating you well? Have you named them all yet?”
He chuckles. “I don’t name the bees, Iris.”
I gasp. “Missed opportunity.”
“They wouldn’t remember their names.”
I squint at him. “That’s a cop-out.”
“It’s practical,” he counters.
I tilt my head, watching him tuck another book into place. “You’re telling me that in six months, you haven’t even gotten attached to one? Not even, like, a particularly fat and clumsy one?”
Garrik’s hands still for the tiniest fraction of a second.
Then, so soft I almost miss it: “There’s one.”
I whirl on him. “Aha! What’s their name?”
He sighs, placing the next book just a little slower than necessary, clearly stalling. “It’s not a name.”
“Garrik.” I grab onto his arm—his massive, ridiculous arm—and shake it. “Tell me.”
He exhales through his nose, like he’s bracing himself. “I call her Little Wing.”
I blink. That’s…adorable.
“…Little Wing,” I repeat. “That’s?—”
“Don’t.”
I stop short. “What do you think I'm going to say?”
He shrugs. “Well…cute or something.”
“That's because it is,” I laugh. “Is that so wrong?”
He groans. “Not sure if I'm ready to go from ‘big strong warrior' to ‘quaint beekeeper.”
“Oh,” I say. “Garrik…”
“Yes?”
“For what it's worth, I've never thought of you as a big strong warrior.”
He snorts and we both fall into a comfortable silence once again. Once my cart is tidied up—necessary books put away and others prepared to go back to storage—I shrug my shoulders.
“Work day's over,” I say.
“It is.”
“So do you have someplace to be or do you want to grab a drink?”
Garrik hesitates—just for a second, just long enough for me to notice.
I tilt my head. “Oh no, you have someplace to be, don’t you?”
