Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 137131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Wait, what? You? You haven’t had time to read a business report?” Patton rubs his eyes in disbelief.
“Did I fucking stutter? You heard me,” Archer throws back.
“Man, are you feeling okay?” Patton presses his hand against Archer’s forehead before Archer jerks away. “You got a fever or something? Replaced by an AI clone to simulate what it would be like if you were nice?”
“Fuck off, Pat.”
“I’m serious. It must be bad for you to stop working. Is Colt sick? Where is he? Like, what the hell else could break your focus?” Patton looks at me with a knowing smile. “He’s a workaholic freak. This just isn’t him.”
“Prick,” Archer spits.
“Your favorite prick, yes. Well, second favorite.” He looks pointedly at Archer’s crotch as Archer curses him roundly. I press a hand against my mouth as I watch, trying not to giggle.
“You didn’t have to come all this way to talk, you know. You could’ve sent an email.”
“Is that how brothers talk? Like we’re stuck in 2004?” Patton tilts his head. “You weren’t answering my calls. What was I supposed to do?”
Archer scratches the back of his head. “Leave me the hell alone?”
“Too easy, big bro. And turning in your homework late, you don’t get rewarded.”
“If you must know, I’ve been busy here,” Archer says, gesturing at the box we’re constructing and all the other bees flying around. “They take up a lot of time.”
“Right, right.” Patton laughs. “The sacred bees. I forgot you wanted this place to have culty vibes.”
“The honey’s really rare,” I cut in, feeling like I should help. Patton clearly doesn’t know Archer and I are—together. Which is already a complicated label. “I don’t know if you’ve looked into it, but it might give you guys some unique opportunities.”
“Opportunities, huh?” Patton snorts, looking like he’s just been handed a big one. “I think I can imagine what sort of opportunities you guys have been getting up to. When’s the wedding?”
“Patton, enough. I’ll get back to you as soon as I have that report read, and it’ll happen a lot quicker without you standing here, running your mouth,” Archer says, pointing to the front of the cabin sternly. “Leave.”
“Ah-ah. It’s cool, Arch, I get it. You had good reason for playing hooky from work. So many things you could get up to here in this beautiful place,” Patton muses. “So many… opportunities. With honey, too. I wonder how it tastes when you lick it off someone’s skin?”
“Patton.” His blue eyes flare like gas flames.
“It’s amazing stuff, if you’d stop being so buttoned down and—”
Archer takes a swing.
Patton ducks so smoothly I almost gasp, not even taking his hands out of his pockets. It’s rare to see Archer so flustered, and I watch as he glowers at his brother.
“Why are you still here spreading misery, you fuck?” Archer growls.
“Because. I wanted to see you, dear brother.”
“You have proof of life. Now get your ass moving.”
Patton winks at me. “Have you seen his ugly side? If not, I’m doing you a favor. Run while you can.”
“Patton, I will beat your ass.”
Laughter spills out of me as I brush my unruly hair back from my face. “It was nice to meet one of his brothers, Patton.”
“Wow, she remembers my name. None of the Mr. Rory crap most people go with. I like her,” Patton says, chuckling at how Archer grits his teeth audibly. “By the way, Arch, you better clear some space in your very busy calendar for Mom. Because when she finds out you’re dating a beekeeper, you won’t live it down.”
I’m actually worried.
Archer looks like he’s about to blow a blood vessel in his head.
So with another smile and a wave—Patton is almost offensively charming and so different from Archer it’s weird how similar they look—the younger brother leaves.
“Sorry you had to suffer his crap.” Archer grabs his shirt and mops his red face with it. “Pat never learned how to pick up on subtlety. Or a brick to the face.”
“Lucky he has you,” I tease, “seeing as you’re so good at subtl—I mean, bricks to the face.”
He smiles, but his gaze lingers on Patton walking away, and I know he’s thinking about what his brother said.
Dating.
Holy Mother of God, he said dating.
And I’m not sure if we’ll ever live it down, if he even decides to acknowledge the insane truth at all.
16
THE BEE’S KNEES (ARCHER)
Ihave no clue how to get out of this.
Much less how this came to be.
I’ve only known Winnie Emberly for roughly a month. We’ve been—I don’t fucking know what to call it because ‘fuck buddies’ doesn’t feel accurate—for less time than that.
But here we are now, sitting in my vehicle outside Mom’s place, just a few days after Patton’s contrived ambush.
She twists her hands idly in her lap, a hint she’s as nervous as I am. More, probably, because at least I know my mother and what to expect.