Page 31 of Five to Love Him
“We will accompany you.”
We said that firmly. It was not a point we were willing to negotiate, not after watching over Leo in his sleep and realizing how precious he was.
He did the human thing, looking from face to face. “With one person. No, wait. You are one person—one personality? You know what I mean. One unit of hive. You can come with one of you if you want to come at all.”
“Wouldn’t two be easier?” we asked. We had done very few things with just one ever since we had escaped from the human who had used us. Whenever we did, we were on edge.
“I don’t need bodyguards.”
“But company? Two make very good company. And maybe you can get used to us not being singulars that way?” We imbued our voice with hopefulness, with pleading.
Leo made the joints in his fingers crack, then those in his neck. We flinched.
“Sorry. But let’s go with one of you, okay? Especially considering there should be none of you.” He looked at us, one of us, as if he wanted to make sure we got it.
We loved when Leo looked at us, we realized. A hive was difficult to miss, and supernaturals generally liked us. But we were rarely seen, were rarely understood. We thought that perhaps the gleaming showed us the person who had it in them to understand and know us. The gleaming itself had faded slightly like we knew it would over time, though never fully.
In this moment, we wondered if perhaps, perhaps we should tell Leo, of how we had been betrayed and sold out to the human, of how he had hurt us. We wondered if he would see us the same way after we did. We were not weighted down with childhood naiveté and knew the only way to know was through telling him, but we were afraid. We were afraid so much our hand trembled. We balled it into a fist to stop it and leaned forward to hug Leo close.
“Oh, okay. Group hug. That’s nice.”
“We’re not a group,” we whispered into his ear while enjoying the warm, sleepy scent of him.
“I know. But, like, that’s the human way to describe this. Do you want me to call it a hive hug?”
We squeezed tighter, just a little, and smiled against his hair.
“Yes. Yes, we would like that very much.”
“Okay. Cool. Hive hug then. But there’s still only one of you coming along to class with me and to whatever the head-principal-master of Freak High has planned for me.”
“We will not let him do anything to you,” we said. “Is that school really called Freak High?”
“Nah. We’re not supposed to call it that, but the actual students—the ones that are underage and attend regular classes—call it that, so it’s fine. Just don’t tell on me.”
“We never would. We’ll keep all your secrets, Leo,” we said, and when he turned in our hug—in our hive hug—to find our lips, we gave him the sweet kiss that he wanted.
fifteen
Here I was, heading toward school with the guy I was…dating? I looked at the single unit of hive who was walking next to me, the late afternoon light slanting just so to bring out the lines of his profile. He was holding my hand, something that had happened almost as soon as we’d left the house. I’d always thought holding someone’s hand was going to be awkward but it wasn’t, not with the hive.
“So what do I tell people you are? My date? My mate? Someone I might hang out with more in the future?”
The hive was looking all around us as we turned left and went down the stairs to the subway, but he stopped and focused on me before he answered.
“Is that very important?” He sounded actually clueless.
“Yeah? I think. I mean, for people. Like, when I bring you somewhere, I’d introduce you…do I use an alias for that?”
“Where are you thinking of bringing us?” He smiled like he wanted to say, wherever it is, please take me.
I felt my face heat even as we resumed walking, our footfalls echoing on the stairs. “I…uh. Places. If we end up…going somewhere. Oh, Tate’s place!” I’d never actually been to Tate and Ezra’s place, but we did have plans to remedy that. Or we had plans to make plans at least. “And there are always school events—assuming I temp there for more than a week and they have…whatever schools have. Parties. Dances. Meetings of secret societies.”
On the subway level, we stopped at the tracks, the hive standing close to me. There were two other people, an older lady with a shopping bag that had yellow tulips on it, and someone younger with big headphones and a gym bag slung over their shoulder. I only noticed because the hive looked at them before returning his attention to me.
“Tate knows who we are and who we are to you, and so does his secret boyfriend. People at school will understand when they see us together. But you could always tell everyone else that we are your hive. We think we would like that.”
That was only marginally helpful, but the thing was, the hiveling looked very excited about the prospect. His smile was bright, and while he waited for my answer, he shuffled an inch closer to me.
