“Those fairy lights need to go up high,” Agnes says, tapping something in my box with a bony finger just as the first crack of thunder rumbles in the sky—luckily, the rain seems to be holding off. “She won’t see them if they’re below eye level.” She clomps down the steps and then begins barking directions, and the magic of small-town life comes alive.
Pops arranges flowers—badly. I can’t even tell if they’re alive, but they sit in soda bottles and vases along the porch. Betty sets up so many candles, I make a mental note to grab a fire extinguisher before she lights them, and Chief offers unhelpful commentary while I begin to string lights.
“This seems like a lot,” I say, stretching to hook the lights over a beam.
“It’s not enough,” Agnes insists. “This is a homecoming fourteen years in the making. A reunion. The energy needs to be right, or the whole thing falls apart.”
“The energy,” I repeat flatly.
“Don’t mock what you don’t understand, boy.” She points a gnarled finger at me. “I’ve been reading auras a long time, and I’m telling you—this porch needs more warmth, or Clover’s going to take one look at it and think you put in no effort whatsoever.”
“I’ve already hung over ten strands of lights,” I remind her. “I’m not trying to mock anything, but what Clover needs from me is an apology and an explanation.”
She crosses her arms. “That’s true, but sometimes words are just empty promises. Sometimes in life, you have to go the extra mile to get to the happily ever after.”
“Clover’s a storyteller, Valen, so tell her a story.” Chief stands and hands me a small shoebox full of photos.
Dozens of them. Some clearly from Clover’s early childhood—faded images of a smiling baby with light brown hair and wide eyes. Some more recent—Clover with her friends, with the townspeople, and tucked in the corner, carefully preserved, a single photo that makes my heart stop.
Two little kids. A boy and a girl. The girl is holding a honeybee in the palm of her hand, laughing at something while the boy stares down at her as though she’s his own personal sun he’s lucky enough to orbit.
“Where did she get this?”
“FBI agent,” Chief says softly. “He left her with some pieces of her past, thinking it would help her remember who she was before she became Clover. He said this photo was on a camera they found near the location of her parents’ crash.”
Someone captured the very first time I ever laid eyes on Clover.
My vision blurs as I stare at it, and finally, I can see the Prince Valor she’s always claimed me to be.
Now I simply have to prove it.
By the time we’re finished, the inn’s porch is something straight out of a movie. The fairy lights dip low, casting a soft golden glow. Photos hang from fishing line, creating a timeline of her life and our love.
Even the candles and mismatched vases seem to work here, and Agnes insists it all creates visual interest that Clover won’t be able to look away from.
Above the door is a hand-painted sign that Pops pulled from the basement. The letters aren’t straight, but are painted with obvious care, and it tugs at something deep in my soul because it feels like it’s for me too.
“It needs something,” Agnes says, studying the sign critically. “It’s too generic. Anyone could be coming home. It should be personal.”
My gaze catches on the photo of our first meeting again. I’ve been drawn to it since I first saw it. It’s something I want to have blown up and hung on the wall of our family room.
If she accepts my apology.
“Do you have a marker?” I ask.
Pops produces one from somewhere in his bottomless overalls, and I reach up to the sign. I’m not an artist, but some things don’t require skill.
I draw a large honeybee in the corner. Simple lines, definitely lopsided, but unmistakable. Next to it, I add a tiny honeycomb.
Agnes peers up at it with a soft sound of approval. “Perfect.”
“That’s real sweet,” Betty says, her voice thick with emotion. “You know, the town’s still fighting about what to put on the new welcome sign. Been arguing for months. But that right there…” She points to my little honeybee. “That says something.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “It says I can’t draw.”
“It says home,” Agnes corrects without her usual sass. “It says this is where you bee-long. That’s what Happiness is all about, right?”
Objectively, that little bee is terrible, but it’s ours—just like our story.
