Page 32 of Five to Love Him
“You’re my hive?”
His mouth dropped open, closed. I then realized I’d never been looked at with love in someone’s eyes. I mean, yes, my grandma had looked at me lovingly, but that was different and nothing at all like the way the hive was looking at me. He had love in his eyes. His lips flushed redder in the station’s lights, and roses bloomed in his cheeks.
“We are your hive, Leo. We would—can we kiss you?”
“What, here?”
He nodded.
“O-okay.” I didn’t think the older lady would mind. I didn’t think the kid with the headphones would notice.
The hive leaned in. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this. Watching people kiss in public as if they were about to devour one another had always felt sort of weird to me, not yucky or anything like that, just…unfamiliar.
But the hive didn’t kiss me like that. He pressed his lips to mine, firm for a moment, then gentling the contact before he pulled away and looked around, left and right. He then focused on me again.
“Thank you. For calling us that. We like it a lot. We like being your hive, Leo.” I nodded, reaching up to touch my mouth with my free hand. The hive frowned. “You didn’t like the kiss?”
“Oh! No, I did. Really. More than I thought I would. I liked when we slept together earlier. Ah, I mean, not sleeping together, but lying on the floor next to one another while we were both not awake. I liked that.”
His thumb stroked over the back of my hand. “We were awake. It’s rare for all of us to sleep. We watched over you.”
“Watched over me, all creepy-like?”
I said that in a playful tone, or thought I did, but by the hive’s expression, he didn’t see it that way. His lips pressed tight, and his jaw set, determination written all over him.
“You must tell us. If we ever scare you. If we ever creep you out. But when we watch over you, it’s because you’re a singular, and you have to sleep. You are so defenseless when you sleep and are alone. Someone could walk in on you and—” He shook his head, pressing his eyes shut. “We’ll let nothing bad happen to you, Leo. Never.”
Clearly, this was a really important point for him, so I reached out with my other hand. I liked their face, those blue eyes, and I ended up cupping their cheek.
“Okay. I trust you. Not sure why, but you seem like a trustworthy guy. Or guys? How do I talk about you? Always in the plural?” I frowned. “Do I think of you in the plural?”
He leaned into my touch and opened his mouth, but then the announcement for the next train drowned out everything.
He looked around again before he spoke, tugged my hand until I stepped back from the yellow line.
“‘We’ is preferred for us when we talk about ourselves, but we aren’t a plurality of minds. We know for most others and especially humans, they talk in singular. It’s confusing for us, but we generally try. We like that ‘they’ is preferable when talking about another unless a singular has indicated a different preference. It’s almost as if they were like us and not a singular.”
The train arrived before I could interrogate the hive further. I wanted to move forward as the whoosh of air hit me, but the hive’s grip tightened, stopping me.
I looked over my shoulder. “What? Don’t you want me to go? I have to.”
He shook his head. “Wait until the train stops, Leo. It’s dangerous. You could get hurt.”
I chuckled. The hive was serious though, I could see that. So we waited until the subway had come to a full stop and the doors opened.
Once we were inside the pleasantly empty car, I pulled him to a seat next to me. He looked around but then sat instead of standing like he had before when it had been three of him.
The subway sped up, and I looked at the hive, who was tense again, glanced over his shoulder.
“You okay?”
His attention was right back on me. “Of course. We just don’t go out much with one.”
“Oh. Okay. I do all the time.” He didn’t smile at the silly joke, and if anything, I thought he looked sad about me consisting of a unit of one only, so I got back on topic. “So using ‘I’ is you adapting, but you’ve been saying ‘we’ all this time today. Does that mean you’re comfortable around me and don’t feel the need to fit in?”
He nodded. “We are also selfish. We want you to get used to us. It’s why we would have liked to come with two.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. I should’ve let you be two. Next time, okay?”
