Page 16 of Five to Love Him

I checked the clock again. “Ten. Moonlight Diner.”

“Yes, very well. I want to advise you to wear a suit, but perhaps that’s a bit much. Unless you want to make a very good impression of course.”

“I threw out all my suits the day I dropped out of college, and I wouldn’t wear one to a breakfast date. Hey, about that secretary thing—”

“Yes, we can talk about that before class. We’ll still do the cake after class of course. Please invite the hive. They will probably want to be around a lot. Oh, this will be so exciting! Can I do anything at all to help with making the breakfast date a success? I will inform Hawthorne of course, tell them you are now in the employ of St. Auguste and a hive’s chosen one. They will be as delighted as we all are. I must tell Instructor Arick. But is there anything you need right now?”

I groaned. “Warm fucking feet and a night of uninterrupted sleep.”

Headprincipal Farrow hummed. “I will order you those heated soles and nice warm socks they pair with. Just don’t do any hiking. Especially no pilgrimages. Those are quite dangerous, especially if you stray off the path.”

“Sure?”

“Until tonight, Headmaster’s Secretary! And rest that bitch face for when you sit outside my office, hmm? I cannot wait for the students to be scared of you!”

“…sure.”

He hung up. Headprincipal Master Farrow was the weirdest creep out there, and I sure as fuck didn’t want to run into him on any hypothetical pilgrimage I wasn’t going to take if hell froze over and turned into a forest of naked demon ice sculptures. No thank you.

***

I’d just managed to relax again, had pulled the sheets up to my chin and snuggled Bruno to my chest when my damn phone rang again. Tate was calling, so I picked up.

“Hey.”

“Leo! Are you okay?”

I groaned. “I’d be better if people stopped calling me this early, but yeah.”

I heard him exhale a whoosh of air. “I’m glad. I mean, Ez said you would be, that no one would mess with a hive in love. Or something. Did you go to the Moonlight?”

“No. I went home. I’m meeting the guy—the guys at the Moonlight for breakfast, but I was planning on getting adequate sleep before that.”

“Right, sorry, but I’m about to be in class for most of the morning, and I wanted to make sure you’re okay. Are you going to be at St. Auguste tonight like usual?”

“Yeah.” Although at this point, I really contemplated skipping the class for one night. That might ruin Farrow’s plans for hiring me, and I considered that an added bonus.

“Okay, good. You can tell me everything then. This is a little odd, but people elope and get married in Vegas all the time. It’s like that, right?”

“The fuck?”

“But it is. Is the guy—the hive. Are they—or is he nice?”

“I don’t fucking know. You know him as well as I do.”

“Ez says hivelings are all super caring and fuss over their people. He said something about how lucky you are and how happy he is you’re taken now. I told you Ez is nice like that.”

More like Tate’s roommate was glad I most definitely wasn’t going to get into his way while he was traversing the path to a relationship with Tate at a snail’s pace.

“I still haven’t wrapped my brain around any of this, but I’m not the getting married in Vegas type of guy, okay?”

“Uh, okay. I mean, if I can back you up, I will. And I’ll make Ez back you too, although he was pretty firm about not getting on the hive’s wrong side, whatever that is.”

“Sure. Hey, you said you have a class to teach?”

“Three of them. Text me after breakfast! And congrats.”

“Yeah, I guess. Bye, Tate.”