Page 25 of Five to Love Him
“We’re sorry.” All of them echoed it.
“You know, if he’d been in my life more, his heart attack so soon after Grandma’s cancer might’ve really done a number on me.” The lump in my throat stopped me from explaining how it was fine, how I was fine. I hated grief and the incredibly long shelf life it had even after the fact.
The hive seemed to sense it and pressed closer to me, one of them rubbing my shoulder gently. “We’re sorry.”
I nodded and pulled my keys from my bag, focused on breathing. Fuck grief. I hated grief. I loved being by my lonesome with no one around to trigger it, just another benefit of being chronically unemployed and avoiding being social. The good old days, apparently.
The door swung open, and I headed inside, taking off my shoes by the door. Gran had been strict about that, and the three hivelings followed suit without having to be told.
They went to explore then, one of them roaming into the kitchen on the left, the other following me to the living room on the right where I dropped my bag in the old basket next to the rocking chair. The third went for the built-in bookshelf across from the bay window.
When Gran was alive, there had been an old couch in the center of the living room as well as an old TV, but I had thrown that out, had added pillows and floor cushions to and around the bay window, and had installed a ceiling screen above the bookshelves—a bloody piece of work, that, because I wasn’t actually that great a handyman.
“That’s you!” The hiveling at the shelf had found a photo of me and Gran at my elementary school’s sports day. My smile was gap-toothed, Gran’s wide, her sunglasses pushed up on her head.
“Yeah. Me and my gran.”
He nodded. “You were really cute,” the one still standing next to me said. “Oh, you have a vegetable garden?”
“How do you—wait, you are seeing that from the kitchen?”
He nodded. “Yes. Can we go outside, have a look? We’ve always wanted a vegetable garden of our own, but we are not good with plants. We don’t understand why we can’t keep them alive. It should be so easy.”
I chuckled. “There’s no sunlight in the underground.”
“Not there. Before.” The one with the picture put it back on its shelf, and the one next to me turned and looked out the bay windows instead. “We’ll be here in ten minutes. Can people not see inside from here?”
He reached out to touch the window glass, expression wistful.
“Used to. I stuck this reflective foil stuff to it.” I pulled the curtain aside to reveal the belt that operated the shutters. “And we can let these down. It actually makes for a great movie spot.”
The one who’d picked up the photo was close all of a sudden, so close I could have rested my head on his shoulder if I’d just leaned over. I smelled soap, and that warm scent of sunlight on skin.
“We took your garden clogs. Your tomatoes are ripe, and so are your bell peppers and zucchini. We should cook for you, Leo. You should have told us we can cook for you.”
“But you already bought me breakfast.” I looked at the hive’s eyes, a dark blue, rich and striking against his pale skin.
“May we hold you? We’d like to hold you,” said the other, his head close to my right shoulder.
I bit my lip. My palms were damp. I’d never dared anything like this because it had scared me, opening up to someone else and allowing them to be this close.
And yet, here I was with several someones, saying, “Sure.”
twelve
We took Leo in our arms, thinking, Precious, the most precious thing we have ever held. We must be careful, must be mindful. We do not want to bring him hurt or pain.
We had not planned to kiss Leo, but when we hugged him close, he lifted his head as if searching for us, and we looked down, and it just happened.
It was an awkward kiss, nothing that had intent behind it, and we could tell Leo was new to this. We realized from his question about how this would work, that he was new to being held like we could.
We didn’t want to overwhelm him, and so we offered him touch, simple soothing and comforting touch. Leo reacted to it like a wilting flower might to rain, and we cooed into the crook of his neck, resting our lips there while pressing kisses to his cheeks and forehead.
Back in the garden—lush and orderly in its wildness—we picked a few things, put the produce in the wicker basket we’d found in the kitchen just by the door. Down the street, we quickened our step. The two had taken the time to wash their faces after what had happened at the market. The two remembered…we thought sometimes humans were right when they talked about muscle memory, and maybe, the two remembered the things that had been done to us on a deeper level than we cared to admit.
At the same time, the snacks we had picked up—two bags of them—felt light unlike such memories that lived between skin, ran in the blood, slept in the bones.
“Leo, we have you,” we told him while finishing picking the vegetables, then heading back inside through the kitchen door and opening the front door for us. We had looked around for watchful eyes, had put on a hat and sunglasses, and we were confident no one had seen us. Even if, saying two of us had left the house through the garden and fetched something for a movie was still a convenient excuse.
