Page 6 of Honeybees and Sexy Tees
“What just happened?” he asked, lowering his butt to the bench next to me as he picked up my right hand. My fingers were spasming and I couldn’t make them stop, so he rubbed them in the rhythm he’d mastered over the last twenty years. He understood the right way to massage them so they’d stop twitching.
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head to clear it. “I felt the same way Monday when I was at Butterfly Junction. Maybe I’ve taken too much of the headache medication over the last few weeks.”
I was almost out of pills, which meant I’d taken a lot more than I had in the months prior. That was probably a solid reason to see a doctor.
“I was worried when I saw your car but couldn’t find you,” he said, still massaging my fingers.
“I wanted to call out to you, but . . .” I shrugged. “You weren’t here when I arrived, so I decided to take a walk.”
“I’m just glad you came,” he said, making eye contact with me. It was brutal to stare into his gorgeous cornflower-blue eyes and not know what he was thinking. I always used to know what he was thinking, but not recently. Not since that night last October.
We’d agreed to go on an overnight cruise of Lake Superior on his friend Milas’s new yacht. Milas planned to offer pleasure cruises around the Apostle Islands and was hoping Mathias would agree to buy in as a partner. I had gone to bed and left them to talk business but overheard a conversation not meant for my ears.
“Honey?” Mathias had asked. “We’re best friends, and she works for me. There’s nothing else to it, Milas.”
“What about the letter?” Milas asked in return. “Have you addressed with yourself, much less with her, the fact that she professed her love to you and was willing to die to keep you alive?”
“We have,” Mathias answered in a clipped tone.
“All I’m saying is, the truth is right in front of you. She hasn’t made it a secret that she loves you. Why are you still fighting the fact that you love her too?” Mathias made a sound that was a cross between a grunt and a snort while Milas laughed like a drunken sailor. “Man, try that denial again because I don’t believe it, not for a second.”
“It’s complicated, Milas. Extremely complicated. Do I have feelings for her that a best friend shouldn’t have? Maybe, but my feelings don’t matter. Honey is the only person who matters, and that means I have to stay hands off with her.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just too afraid that woman is going to . . . what? Break you? Fix you? You act like she’s your assistant, but we can all see the truth.”
“What’s the truth, Milas?” Mathias asked sarcastically.
“Honey has been your guiding light for the last twenty years and you’re too damn dense to realize it. You need that woman more than you need air. Din satans nar!”
“Do not call me a fool,” Mathias spat. “The problem is, I am not a fool! If I were a fool, I’d be in there holding that woman in my arms! Our past is complicated, Milas. More complicated than even Honey understands. We can’t always have what we want. My father is the one who taught me that.”
I shivered at the memory even in the warm sunshine. Those words haunted me for so many reasons. I couldn’t ask him about them, since I wasn’t supposed to know, but they echoed in my ears whenever we were alone together. Maybe that was why I’d held on to my position at Butterfly Junction over the winter and spring. I was hoping against all odds that something would change, and Mathias would finally admit that he loved me too. After Monday, I was no longer convinced that was possible.
“Why are we here?” I asked. “The restaurant doesn’t open for three more hours.”
“I know, but I wanted to show you something.”
“I don’t know, Mathias.”
He frowned, but his fingers kept up their massage of my hand. “I know you don’t know, honeybee. Hell, I don’t know anymore. What I do know is this: your situation has changed. Mentally and physically,” he said, holding up my hand. “If you think I haven’t noticed how this has become a problem for you, you’d be wrong. If you think what I just witnessed isn’t scaring the hell out of me right now, you’d be wrong.”
I yanked my hand from his and rested it on my lap. “My hand is nothing new. You know that.”
He lifted it off my lap again and stretched my fingers, which immediately made me cry out in pain. I held it to my chest and breathed in and out deeply until the pain subsided.
“I’m sorry, Honey.” He kept hold of my shoulders while I breathed through it. “The pain is new. It’s never hurt before, right?” I shook my head no. “Have you seen your neurologist?”
I laughed, though it was forced, and the sound carried across the orchard in a happy echo that only I knew was fake. “I don’t have a neurologist, Mathias. I haven’t seen a neurologist in years. I can barely afford the family doctor who prescribes my medication.”
His finger traced its way up the scar on my arm, eliciting a shiver from me. He was undeniably gentle with his touch, which just made me ache for more every time. “You can’t let this go. If nothing else, do it for Mor.”
I threw my head back and laughed again, his hand tightening on my wrist. “Oh, you’re going to play the mom card against me?”
He shrugged one perfectly aligned shoulder. “I didn’t get where I am today by always playing fair, Honey. When I want something, I always get it.”
“That’s the truth,” I muttered, but my mind wandered. It wandered to what it would be like if I were the one Mathias wanted. How would he get me? I shook my head to clear those thoughts.
You’re mad at him, remember?
