Honey Doesn’t Grow on Trees

HELEN

Without waiting for an answer, I jumped up and sprinted down the hall.

“Helen, stop,” Sam yelled behind me.

But I didn’t stop or listen, I ran straight to my room and slammed the door.

Locking it behind me, I could already hear Sam stomping down the hall. I threw my weight against the door for good measure.

“Don’t come near me, Sam. Stay the fuck away.”

“Helen, let me in!” He was there now, pounding on the door.

“No! You’re some kind of monster.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Helen?”

“You’re covered in fur. I saw it.”

“I swear to you, ~I’m not~ covered in fur.”

“You were growling.”

“Yeah, because you were riding my dick through my pants.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s not how I mean…” I stopped short because I knew how crazy I sounded.

“You sound crazy,” Sam said, as if reading my mind.

We both stood there on opposite sides of my bedroom door.

Waves of panic flowed up and down my body, and I swear I could hear Sam panting on the other side.

That dog-faced man growling in the bar earlier—and now Sam.

Yeah, I was tipsy, sure, but Coke has a lot of caffeine. So I ~was~ alert.

Maybe too alert? Too paranoid? Too sensitive after everything that had happened today?

“Helen, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but I swear to you, I’m not a monster. I’m just your new stepbrother, standing in the hall feeling like an idiot.”

Sam’s voice, tired and apologetic, cut through to my heart.

Of course he wasn’t a monster.

He’s been a good guy, taking care of me all day, guiding my dumb city-slicker ass through the woods.

“Okay, Sam. I’m gonna open the door now. And you better not be some sort of fucking werewolf out there.”

Hearing that, Sam let out a hearty laugh.

“If I was a werewolf, I would’ve huffed and puffed and blown the door down by now.”

I laughed also and slowly opened the door.

And there he was, regular old Sam, in a rumpled Canadian tux, with a tired, relieved look on his face.

“Come here, sis,” he said, holding out his arms. “Let’s never fight again.”

I went straight into his arms and hugged him tight.

“I’m sorry about all that. It’s just been a long, weird day.”

“It’s okay. You’re a city girl, not used to all this country excitement. Hunters, woods, werewolves.” He chuckled.

Hugging him, I noticed Sam’s smell for the first time, and wondered how I could’ve missed it earlier. He smelled like honey and…a mix of pine needles and smoke?

I looked up at him, “Sam, why do you smell like honey?”

Sam smirked. “What? You didn’t know? Me and dad make honey.” He spread his arms wide, gesturing to the house. “How do you think we pay for this empire?”

I laughed. “Yeah, mom and Jack left that note before, about going to pick up honey. But I didn’t know you guys made it yourselves.”

“Yeah, we have a honey farm. It’s in a clearing about a mile behind the house. I could take you there tomorrow, if you’d like.”

“Yeah, I would really like that.”

“Then it’s a date.”

“No!” I snapped. “Not a date. Whatever happened between us downstairs,” I said, “that ~cannot~ happen again.”

“Okay, ~sis~. Whatever you say.” Sam raised his hands up in surrender. “I’m way too tired to argue with you about this.”

“Good. Then don’t.”

***

When I woke up, the sun was shining in through the window and I could smell my own woodsy BO trapped beneath the blankets.

~I am going to need a loooong shower.~

And not just because I was covered in dried sweat and forest muck.

I had to cleanse myself.

After a night spent making out with my stepbrother, I felt totally grimy.

I was well-prepared, with a cosmetic case full of cleanser, toner, vanishing cream, make-up remover wipes, and Q-tips.

In the bathroom, I laid all the bottles along the edge of the sink while letting the shower run hot. Then I grabbed my exfoliating sponge and my favorite coconut milk shampoo and got to work.

Yeah, maybe I was a girly girl who loved her showers too much, but I didn’t care.

More often than not, it was the only place I really got to be alone. And over time, I’d found that I did my best thinking washing shampoo out of my hair.

That morning, though, I lathered my luscious curves with extra care, as if cleaning my body would help clean out my mind. But no matter how many times the water ran clear over arms and breasts, my thoughts spun sideways and stayed confused.

I kept catching myself in a daze, slowly circling the sponge around my nipples and thinking about Sam.

Yeah, he was my stepbrother, but he was also a super-fine piece of a man.

Feeling the softness of my skin, my mind naturally skipped to the hardness of Sam’s jaw and the rough but neat beard lining it.

But thinking of the stubble reminded me of the fur.

~I swear I felt fur.~

The roughness of it, the prickliness.

I began to feel crazy, like I couldn’t trust my own memory.

Later, I made myself a small breakfast while Sam showered—just a bowl of cereal and some orange juice—and tried to sketch some images from last night.

I thought that maybe this would help clear my head, but seeing these images—hairy faces and rabid jaws—made me feel crazier than ever.

Hearing Sam step out of the shower, I tore the piece of paper from my sketchpad and threw it into the trash.

I’d spent all morning trying to think my way through this, and I couldn’t devote any more time to such nonsense.

Besides, it was time to shuck off my bathrobe and get dressed for the day.

Back in my room, I spread my clothes out across the bed. Although I obviously couldn’t bring everything with me, I still had plenty of outfit options.

~But what does one wear to a honey farm anyway?~

I wanted to look cute, but I didn’t want any of my cute stuff to get dirty.

And then I stopped dead in my tracks.

~Who the hell cares what I look like? Was I trying to look cute for Sam?~

~Eww. Why?~

I wondered why, this morning, I suddenly cared so much about what he thought.

“Helen, hurry up!” I heard Sam calling from the living room.

Well, screw him. Today, I was just going to ~do me~.

I pulled on the same Wrangler jeans as yesterday, except this time I paired them with a yellow top that had “Ball Buster” scrawled across the chest.

I figured that was going to be the attitude I’d need to keep him at bay.

***

Sam and Jack’s honey farm was a lot more beautiful than I’d expected.

~And when I come to think of it, I guess I didn’t really know what to expect because who spends much time thinking about where honey comes from?~

But the farm was actually really cool. When I first laid eyes on it, I gasped in surprise.

“It’s so cute,” I yelped.

In the middle of the field, laid out in neat little rows, were about fifty boxes.

“That’s where the hives are,” Sam said.

“It looks like a mini summer camp,” I said.

He and Jack had even painted the boxes in cute colors—baby blue and pink and yellow.

All around, I heard a low buzzing, and stray honeybees darted left and right through my vision.

As we walked through, Sam pointed out the different trees and bushes and flowers that grew on the property: blackberry, clover, eucalyptus, and sage.

“That’s how we get the different flavors of honey,” he told me.

Hearing Sam explain all the ins and outs of beekeeping, I was really impressed. He clearly knew what he was doing.

“Come on, let’s go put on the bee suits and I’ll show you what the hive looks like.”

“I don’t know, Sam. I’m kinda scared.”

“Don’t be. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

We got the bulky white suits out of the storage shed. Wearing it, I felt like I was about to clean up a nuclear spill. Plus…the cut was really not flattering on me.

But Sam didn’t seem to care—he was too excited to show me where the honey was made.

As we got closer to the boxes, the buzzing grew more intense.

Sam went first, holding a weird contraption that blew smoke into the hive.

“This’ll really piss ’em off, but it gets them to clear out.”

And, sure enough, after he pumped some smoke into the box, a cloud of bees burst forth and spun around our heads.

And honestly, I wasn’t scared. I had my suit, and I trusted Sam—and being in the middle of that was actually kind of exhilarating.

I watched as Sam pulled out one of the trays from the box. Stuck along the sides was a whole ton of wax.

“This is it,” Sam said. “This is the good stuff.”

He took the tray, and we walked back over to the side where there weren’t so many bees. He picked a stick up off the ground and pierced the wax, globbing up a thick wad of fresh honey.

“Take off your helmet and try some.”

The honey looked too yummy to refuse, so I slipped off my protective headgear.

“Oh my God, this is ~so good~.”

“I bet you’ve never had fresh honey before.”

“Nope, not like this,” I said, licking the end of the stick.

And right then, I felt a pinch on the back of my neck.

“OW! Shit! I think I got stung,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

Sam got up to see. “One of those little guys must’ve gotten stuck under your helmet and then crawled in under there.”

The pain at the back of my neck began to grow.

“Ow, ow, ow! Sam! It really hurts now.”

“That’s because the bee leaves the stinger and it keeps pumping poison,” he said. “Here, let me get it out.”

“And I think I’m getting dizzy…,” I said, hyperventilating.

“Wait, are you allergic?” Sam sounded really concerned.

“I don’t know,” I gasped. “I’ve never been stung by a bee before.”

My face got hot suddenly.

It felt like my windpipe was getting smaller and smaller.

~What’s going on?!~

~I can’t breathe!~