Page 35 of Five to Love Him
“Sure, sure,” the human head said while the chimeric one mumbled, “Need a whipping.”
He pulled out his phone and stepped a few feet away. We focused our attention on Leo.
“Do you want to stay here? Or we can take you home. Our place isn’t far, and you can rest there.”
Leo took a deep breath and shook his head. “Nah, just…I don’t know. You just picked me up like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“Well, we are a little stronger than is normal for a human,” we said. “And it was you. They would’ve run right into you.”
He adjusted his bag. “You’re super strong. Five times as strong as a human?”
“Oh. We’re not sure our strength has anything to do with our size, luckily.” We looked over our shoulder at Leo’s instructor. “I hope he doesn’t think we’re tiny with just three here. You called us your hive, and we want you to be able to be proud of us when you do that.”
Back at the house, we checked one last time that everything was in order. From what we’d seen of the business, we were sure we could revive it even if we’d have to learn everything about soap and candle making. And we needed to know what the business expenses were and how it was doing financially to be very certain, but we were optimistic. And we wanted Leo to be able to hold on to this legacy, no matter what.
Then we got ready to head to the Dazzle and start our shift there. We’d have liked to stay, but then again, the Dazzle was closer to St. Auguste than Leo’s house was, which meant that even behind the bar, we would be closer to Leo. With that in mind, being early for our shift would be fine.
“Hey, listen,” Leo said, commanding all our attention as he took our hand and started heading toward his classroom. “And I apologize, but I’m not sure how else to phrase this. In this case, size doesn’t matter to me.” His face was turning a charming shade of darkest pink, but he was not alone. We could feel the color rise to our cheeks as well.
“In what case does size matter to you?” we asked before we could think it through. “By which we mean—sorry, Leo. We don’t mean to be forward like that.”
He looked away from us, a shy smile on his lips. “No, that’s okay. It’s not like I would really know about what you’re asking, but, uhm. We can explore. Not now. But we can explore. Doing more than just kissing. Can I just ask—I really have to know. Can I ask you something, and can you promise you’ll answer truthfully?”
“We promise.” We said that from all our mouths, even if Leo could only hear it from three.
“Okay then. About ten years ago, did you fish a kid from a frozen lake? I mean, you are many, and you have superstrength, which is cool by the way. Cooler if you let me know you’ll be picking me up next time around.”
“We didn’t save anyone from a lake, ever. Why are you asking? And we can’t really ask for your permission to pick you up if you’re in danger, but in all other instances, we promise that we will.”
“Right. Cool. This is the classroom, and the thing about the lake is, that was me. I fell into a lake. Someone saved me. Thought it might have been you somehow, because weird coincidences exist, right?”
Our mouths fell open, and on the stairs to the subway from Leo’s house, we stumbled and almost fell.
“You drowned?”
“I didn’t. I’m here, undrowned. Was just weird.”
“May we hug you right now?”
Leo looked over our shoulder. “One hive hug, but just because Instructor Arick is still on the phone.”
We closed our arms around him. We would have never known if he had… We would never have known him or that we had missed the chance to meet our gleaming one.
We said, “If we had met you then, we would have stayed by your side and protected you.” We would have never met that human, we would have never been locked away, apart from ourself. We would have never been hurt. We would have been there for Leo during the rawest of his grief, everything to give and no darkness in our past. “We’re so sorry.”
“What for? I’m here. You’re getting weirdly emotional about this, hive. I’m really okay. Barely swallowed any water at all, and they gave me a blanket after.”
We sniffled as we waited for the subway and wiped our face to find that we’d been crying. At least we were doing that where Leo couldn’t see it. He was comforting us now when we should be taking care of him.
We pulled out of the hive hug as the subway arrived and we got on. “We’ll get you something to drink and a snack. Let’s go ahead.”
Leo was confused, we could see that, but then we split up, going to the cafeteria with one and flanking him with two.
“You’re not going to wait outside, are you?” he asked even as we headed into the classroom.
There, Tate was waving at Leo. Sitting next to Tate, though with a gloomier expression, was the oceanic, Ezra, a stoic look on his face and two hands wrapped protectively around a plastic container in front of him as if he were guarding it.
“Of course we’ll be with you,” we said. Secretly, we meant more than just this class. We meant forever. And one day, we would tell Leo, and if we were lucky, he’d welcome our words.
