A truck honked in the yard behind me. I craned my neck around just as a lanky, copper-haired boy my age leapt from the vehicle’s bed. Recognition flickered through me first, followed by displeasure. It was the asshole I’d bumped into at the Honey Shoppe. He was clearly of some relation to the driver; they had the same red hair, the same steel eyes. A tiny woman with sleek black hair cropped to her chin slipped out from the passenger side.
Jack raised a hand in greeting. Izzy popped to her feet and went to greet them, hugging the much shorter woman. They each took a bin full of greenery from the back. When Izzy led them pastthe workshop door, she paused. “Arthur, meet Dane and Lenny Walker, our neighbors. And this is June.”
The prim, petite woman held a comically large box of greenery. She wiggled her fingers in greeting. “Good morning,” she strained.
Jack stood. “Let me help you, Junie.”
Izzy elbowed the taller Walker brother. “This lucky bastard managed to convince my best friend to marry him. Can you believe that?”
“It took some work.” Dane chuckled good-naturedly. “Still not sure I deserve her.”
“I’m sure. You don’t.”
“Hey—”
“You arebothmy favorite people,” June cut in, rolling her eyes as she passed the box to Jack. “Now quit yapping and help me bring these boxes up to the house, hmm?”
Izzy met her father’s gaze. “June wanted a look at the back fields for her bouquets.”
“I’ll go with you.” Jack looked at Eva. “You finish up here with Arthur?”
I jumped at the sound of my name.
When Eva nodded, the group filtered out of the workshop. All except the younger brother I’d recognized. Lenny’s gaze shifted between Eva and me, his pupils expanding and his nostrils slightly flaring. “This looks cozy,” he said.
I bristled, his voice instantly grating, and noted that he stood a bit too close to be polite. From where he leaned against the wall, he had a full view down Eva’s shirt, and by the flush crawling up her neck, she knew.
And she shrank.
This was none of my business. This wasn’t my town, or my family, or my home. So why did it bug the hell out of me that when the bee girl spoke, she’d lost a bit of the fire I’d seen that morning?
“Lenny,” Eva said, “what are you doing here?”
“You haven’t returned my calls.”
“We’ve been busy,” she said, quieter than I’d heard her all week.
“With what?”
Eva glanced at me, but what could I say?
“Anything,”the monster urged.
“Pancakes,” I blurted out.
“Anything but that.”
Eva snorted a laugh. It was short and breathless, and she looked as caught off-guard by it as I was, but still, a warm feeling collected in my chest.
Lenny, meanwhile, was regarding me the way one looked at a bit of shit on their shoe. “I see,” he said.
When he returned his focus to Eva, her smile fell, all her mirth doused like a candle flame squeezed into a ribbon of smoke between finger and thumb. The monster’s preternatural senses attuned to a nervous uptick in her heartbeat.
Was she afraid of him?
The very thought had me glued to my spot on the bench, despite the growing awkwardness and the distinct impression that I should not be here. There was something weird about this guy. I didn’t like the way he charged the room with static, setting all my nerves on edge.
I didn’t like the way Eva paled the longer he stared at her.
