Two, my skin crawled. I became aware of the second thing as I wandered through the Macouns and the Empires, the Honeycrisps and the Sansas. And when I moved into the late-summer peaches . . . that’s when I felt it.
First came a low, droning hum, almost like feedback from a very low bass speaker. I called out to Leo, who I could now see moving a few rows away. My call changed the hum to something more recognizable, a familiar sound that bumped into the corner of my brain. Something familiar enough to make my skin pebble.
And then I saw them.
Bees.
Everywhere.
The droning hum was a collective buzz, which announced itself to my brain in a wave of awful, realization crashing across my body in a cold sweat and an absolute sheer terror. I wanted to run. I wanted to freeze. I wanted to—
“Roxie?” a surprised voice asked, and I saw Leo underneath a peach tree, oblivious to the million-bee chorus announcing that I was here and ripe for the picking. To those who are about to die, we salute you.
“Oh!” was all I could manage—and then the internal screaming began. One buzzed my ear, one buzzed by my nose, and several bopped around my head. Their bee noses must be drunk on the fear coming off me in waves. My eyes flashed to his, and he saw I was surrounded.
But . . .
I came to this orchard to get my guy.
Or at least tell him I’d like to be his girl.
I took a step.
I took another step.
The bees went with me, a cloud of nightmares hovering just inches from me, talking among themselves about how best to torture me. I had a sudden vision of the flying monkeys carrying away Dorothy, her legs kicking in the air. I only hoped that when the bees carried me off, someone would make sure my mother got my chef’s knives.
Steeling myself, I tried to speak. “Hi. Leo.” My voice was cracked and shaky, bordering on panic. “I wanted to talk to you . . . oh! I wanted to tell you . . . shit, that was close! . . . I, I’d like to—”
“Jesus, Roxie,” Leo said, marveling at the sight of me standing in a bee cloud, trying to carry on a normal conversation. “Just breathe, okay?”
“Yeah, trying to do that, not working so well,” I said shakily. “Anyway, I’m here because I wanted to tell you that . . . Motherfucker!” I got stung. So much for the theory that if you ignore them they’ll ignore you. Fucking rogue bee. “Ow!” Annnd there’s another sting. One landed on my shoulder, another landed on my ear, and though I held it together through all of that, when one had the balls to land on my nose, that was it.
I ran. But instead of running away, I ran toward Leo and his shocked face, which finally had the sense to show some healthy bee fear, and the two of us ran through the orchard, high-step running through the tall grass, swiping at our heads and windmilling our arms.
“Left, go left!” he shouted, and I followed, swatting as I went, feeling stings on the back of my calf and my elbow.
In a haze of screaming and twitching, slapping and jumping, we burst out of the orchard and into a clearing. And just beyond that? Water.
We plunged into a deep, cold pond, splashing out into the center where we could submerge, the stings instantly cooling. I grabbed for his hand underwater, and we took turns popping above to grab a breath and see how SwarmWatch was going.
Eventually the bees got bored and headed back to the orchard, to continue gorging themselves on fallen fruit. Leo coaxed me back up to the surface, and we treaded water in the middle of the pond, in the middle of Maxwell Farm. My hair was plastered to my face and a bee sting was swelling up in my eyebrow. I was covered in pond algae, twigs, and sticks, and I was hoping like hell that whatever kept wrapping around my ankle was my shoelace.
“What the hell, Rox—”
I wrapped both arms around him, kissed him until we both went under, and then kissed him again as soon as we popped back up.
“I love you—I love you so much! I want you, I want everything. I want small town and home grown. I want this—without the bees preferably, but if the bees come with this life, then I’ll take the fucking bees. I just want to be your Sugar Snap.”
Leo silently treaded water, one arm still holding me close, not pushing me away but not pulling me closer.
I ached to be closer. I ached to just be with him.
“I want to live here—not just for the summer. I want fall and winter and spring, and hayrides and hoedowns and being bent over a rain barrel on the Fourth of July. I love you, Leo—and—I want it all.”
I grinned, no fear left. It felt so good to tell him this, to tell him everything.
“I want to start a food truck, and cooking classes, and get to know Polly, if you’re okay with that, because I think she’s amazing and I think you’re amazing. And—Jesus Christ, I hope that’s my shoelace!” I pulled my leg up to the surface, slapping at it underneath, splashing Leo in the surprised face.
But the surprise became hopeful. And the hopeful became happy. And the happy became heated. But before the heated could escalate, concern crowded in.
“You sure about this, Sugar Snap?” Butterflies! “Because it’s not just me I have to consider. If you want me, you have to want us both. I can’t have someone temporary in my life. It’s all in, or . . .”
The late afternoon sun shone down, casting a golden light on the landscape, the water, the algae in his beard.
I wrapped my leg around his and pulled him closer with a smile. “I’m all in, Farmer Boy.”
Epilogue