Page 108 of Lovebug
One thing is for sure. This date is a far cry from Monday night Italian food at the Quality Inn. Wait. This is a date, right? He hands me a stemless wineglass and pours the chilled white wine inside. Yeah, it’s a date.
“My buddy James who you met?” he says as he pours. “He brought a few bottles of this back for me from a snowshoeing trip he took there this past winter.”
“James is into snowshoeing?”
“Snowshoeing, racecar driving, scuba diving… he’s an adventure-seeking kinda guy.”
“Oh wow, and he works at Adventure Bar!”
“HeownsAdventure Bar,” Wally gently corrects.
“Oh, wow. I had no idea. How about you? Are you an ‘adventure-seeking guy’ too?”
“Not so much anymore. Lately, I’m working on being a happiness-seeking kind of guy. A… simplicity-seeking kind of guy. Cheers.” He lifts his own glass in my direction.
“Cheers,” I respond with a smile. We clink our glasses together. I keep my eyes on him while we each take a long sip. That’s not the first time he’s alluded to having made big changes in his life lately. That’s the thing with this guy. He alludes to a lot, but he explains very little.
Tonight, that’s going to change.
If he keeps his promise to spill all his secrets, that is.
“You bring your hive?” he asks.
“Yup! I leaned the pieces up against your bench outside.”
“Perfect. I’ll get everything assembled for you in the morning. I placed the bee order with my guy about an hour ago. He says they’ll arrive mid-afternoon tomorrow.”
“Wow, thank you. Are you sure that this okay, though? It feels a bit early to be ‘moving in together.’ Hahaha. That was a joke. You could tell it was a joke, right? I know we’re not moving in together, but blending bees is sort of intimate, isn’t it? And will the arboretum really be okay with my hive taking up residence on-site?”
“Mabel Again?”
There he goes again with that nickname.
“Yeah?”
“I sort ofam‘the arboretum,’ yeah?”
“Ha, yeah. I guess you are.”
“And I say it’s fine.”
I give a quick, silent nod, my lips feeling sort of tight.
“Well, that’s as good a transition as any.” He chuckles. “Want to head outside with our wine to talk? Food needs to simmer for a few more minutes still, and the air is really nice tonight.”
“Sounds great.”
As he ushers me toward the back door of his small home, I finally take a moment to observe my surroundings. “Wow. This isn’t what I was expecting. Your home, I mean.”
“Oh, no? How so?”
“Well, for one thing, this is no shack.” I take in the knotty wooden floors, the braided throw rugs, the sleek cabinets, and stone counters.
“What, did you think I was living in squalor?Sleeping on a dirt floor, eating tuna out of a tin can?”
“I didn’t consider your sleeping arrangements or eating habits, but sort of, yeah. I thought you were living in a tool shed.” I wince.
“A tool shed!” he exclaims. “Amongstthe tools?”
