Page 74 of Five to Love Him
“Start with the soap. It needs to rest before you can sell it, and you’ll probably want to build stock.”
“We know. We think we’ll also make lotions and moisturizing cream bars.”
I had a sudden déjà vu, likely because of that long-familiar vase and the way Gran had often eaten honeyed toast like this. And because she’d washed my hair with that lion soap for the longest time.
I said, “There have to be molds for the lion soap. It came in the shape of a roaring lion’s head. You should call it Box of Five.”
“Huh?” two of them said.
“When you take over. When you relaunch. Call it Box of Five. Put only five things in there, or…I don’t know. But call it that. It’s your box after all, and that should show, even if you can’t really tell anyone not in the know.”
Three pairs of eyes were glued to me. I had surprised them, I knew that, but I wasn’t sure how exactly they would take it. I was still positive that doing all this stuff with the soap was more for me than it was for them.
“Box of Five.” “A hive’s box.”
“Exactly. I mean, you could call it Box of Hive, but no one would understand and they’d expect honey and beeswax products, so that doesn’t really make any sense at all.”
“We like Box of Five.” “We’ll do that.” “Oh, we have ideas. A five elements box, a five spices box, and so much more.”
The kitchen hadn’t felt this warm in the longest time, and I only noticed now. I’d barely spent any time here, preferring to eat in the window seat while watching some movie like the sloppy single I was. Well, had been. For Gran and me, this kitchen used to be the heart of the house, and if she hadn’t been in here, she’d been in her office, the door to the patio open.
With the hive, life had come back to this house, to these rooms, and to this table. They looked super excited about all of it, and the fourth dashed in before long with a notebook. I watched them make a list of ideas, their hand flying over the paper. Eventually, they jogged to the office to grab a second pen and handed themself a piece of paper from the notebook to write with two hands.
Before long, they were immersed in making plans. I thought for sure they were ignoring me, but then I drank the last of my coffee, and they appeared next to me, the pot in hand, giving me the refill they knew I wanted with a bright smile on their face.
thirty-three
Xander had posted two videos within less than two hours. According to him, the morning light was too good to waste.
“Whoa, are you remodeling, hive?”
We jumped in our ergonomic chair—Xander himself preferred sitting on one of those big balls, but we were not a fan.
“Uh, we’re just taking a quick break,” we said and put our phone away. We’d spent a good chunk of the morning learning about how to get off old wallpaper and put on new one.
“Aw, no worries. Do you need a hand with anything? You know my fam is super into all the real estate stuff, and when I was a kid and studying dance, they would still drag me along and force me to do all this handyman stuff. Uncle Atkins said I needed a real trade to fall back on.” He narrowed his eyes. “He says I’m no longer allowed to order salad when I go out with them.”
“We are…sorry?”
Xander nodded while he opened his favorite aroma oil and dropped some on a ceramic lotus flower that sat on the receptionist counter behind which our desks were located.
“Yeah. It’s just salad, you know. Salad is delicious.”
We nodded. “We make salad for Leo very often. He is such a good gardener, and the chard and collard greens have been doing especially well this year.”
Xander’s eyes fixed on us in a predatory werewolf gaze. “I know. Oh, hive, I’m so freaking glad I hired you. I knew when you walked in here, smelling like the Moonlight Diner.”
“Uh, well—”
“I’ll wallpaper your walls, and you make salad for me, okay? With leftovers. I like leftovers, especially when they’re salad.”
“We don’t think—”
“I swear I won’t even look at your mate if you’re worried about that. I’ve seen the comments on my videos, and I know what people are saying.”
We didn’t because we hadn’t followed his releases, but we could imagine. “We should ask Leo first.”
“No. I mean, yeah, ask the cutie, which I mean as a totally platonic endearment. I’ll show him some tantric yoga while I’m there.” He winked at us. “You’ll reap the benefits from that for years to come. Insert cum joke here, except we aren’t that infantile, right?”
