Page 73 of Five to Love Him
“Oh.”
“Did you want to go all night? We’ll have to work up to that, we think, but we’d be willing to try.”
I turned my head so I could look at the one next to me. He had a cute bedhead.
“You mean I have to work up to that. You don’t look like you’d have any issue at all.”
“But it takes both you and us, Leo,” they said and kissed my forehead, my shoulder, and the palm of my left hand.
I sighed, kissing them back on their chest. They weren’t super muscular but decidedly firm. I liked that, a lot.
“If you say so. Hey, why are you dressed?”
“Oh. We’re doing some end-of-month accounting at the studio. Our boss texted about making more of his videos this morning too.” They frowned. “He wants our opinion.”
I turned on my side and ruffled the bedhead’s hair. “I think you have an opinion. I’ll never forget that you had an opinion the first time you saw him in yoga pants.”
Their frown deepened. “We were thinking of you that day. There isn’t a day we’re not thinking of you.”
“Me too,” I said. “Me too.”
***
The hive was always very good about having breakfast ready, and this morning, it was especially lavish. They had braved the thorns to pick fresh raspberries, and Gran’s old teapot that was shaped like a chicken with its mouth being the spout was steaming with fresh black tea, their preferred breakfast beverage.
They also had coffee with cashew milk ready for me, and because they used every possible opportunity to wait on me hand and foot, they were drizzling some honey on toasted bread for me, the breakfast I’d gravitated toward for the past two weeks. To top it all off, they’d cut a flower stem from one of Gran’s massive hydrangeas and put that in one of her vases I hadn’t used since her death, a round-bellied one made of glass with a pebbled texture that broke the light in interesting ways.
I sat in my customary chair, smiling happily and seeing them approach me with the one who was dressed for work. I anticipated them leaning over my shoulder to kiss me and turned to meet them.
“We have to go, Leo,” one said across from the table.
I had dug my fingers into the shirt of the one I was kissing, the one who was too smartly dressed for working at a yoga studio with that very flexible yoga boss of his. I knew he would stay home if I asked him to, but I wasn’t that selfish.
“Okay,” I said, pulling back. “I’ll miss you. Not actually because you’re also here, but hurry back all the same. And say something nice about your boss’s yoga video.”
He rolled his eyes. “We’ll try to think of something. We’d meet you at St. Auguste, but we think we should look at some beds. Or did you want to come?”
I shook my head. “Nope, I have full confidence in you. Oh, but we’re splitting the cost, okay? Of everything. Sorry, I should have said that sooner.”
They chuckled and patted my shoulders. “You’re very sweet, Leo. If we can’t decide, we’ll send you photos to cast a final vote.”
“Right,” I said, not sure what was cute about splitting the bill.
The one who had kissed me left and I heard the door just as a third one walked in, sort of smug, a book I knew all too well in hand. He sat down at the table, poured himself a cup of tea with the one who had fussed with the pot, and opened the book.
“We are looking at the soap recipes,” they announced, sounding as smug as they looked.
“I see.”
“They’re good recipes. We’ll be making Leo’s Lion Soap first.”
“Uh-huh. A lot of the equipment is in the basement. I can show you what her setup was, but I meant what I said about not really knowing anything about soapmaking.”
They nodded and held out the bowl with raspberries to me. I put a few on my ready-made honey toast and bit into it.
“We’ll learn it all. Your grandmother kept very good records of her marketing efforts. You’ll have to show us her online channels at some point and allow us access so we can prepare the relaunch.”
I nodded, the taste of berries and summer honey exploding on my tongue.
