Page 24 of Five to Love Him

Leopold

They’re nice. I don’t need your roomie to back me up with them. They don’t have a name though, which is strange.

Tate

Primus, Secundus, Tertius, all the way down to however many they are.

Leopold

Huh. Didn’t know you knew Latin. Thought you only knew chemistry.

Tate

Oh, call them Methane, Ethane, Propane and so forth. Those are chem names.

Leopold

My lover Methane, lol. See you tonight.

Tate

Deets!

Leopold

??

“Is this your stop?” the hive on my left asked.

I put my phone away. “Yeah. Do you always do that?”

“What?”

I indicated the two others. They stood in front me, one watching some guy with headphones, the other glancing at a man across from us. He was staring, probably wondering if he was seeing double. Triple.

“Keeping watch.”

“We…aren’t used to being on the subway.”

I leaned closer while the train slowed. “Don’t you live in what was supposed to be the subway once?”

They stood after I was on my feet and holding on to the bar the other two had grouped around. I hadn’t noticed it during breakfast, but the three of them—the hive was taller than me though they were lean. The one with his hoodie up looked like a gamer, the type that was the underdog at a competition but won without breaking a sweat.

“True, but the underground is more suited to bikes and electric scooters now,” Hoodie said. “We also think you should be taking cabs more. It seems more convenient.” “And safer,” said the one who’d been sitting next to me. He was staring back at the guy across from us.

The train stopped then, and we got off, the hive keeping me between them like some fancy protection detail. Not that it was needed for my stop. Few people got off at Copsewyck Hall.

The residential areas of Newstaten were nothing like its busy center, and the hivelings around me seemed to relax while taking in the houses with all the greenery in the front yards, the smaller stores that had survived here, the dog walkers and joggers.

Grandma’s house fit right in, two stories, attic and basement. While I had stubbornly stuck to my unemployment, I’d kept the yard in order, had made sure the flowers could shoot up from their bulbs each spring and summer. I was going to have to cut the lilies down soon, and the blackberries and raspberries around the edges of the property would need to be harvested and cut back as well.

“How long have you lived here?” the hiveling with the hoodie asked when we walked in through the metal garden gate. It was creaky, another chore I needed to take care of.

“All my life. No, almost all my life. My mom died when I was just a few months old, and Gran raised me after that.”

“Your father?” one of the other two asked.

“Oh, he wasn’t really in the picture by that point. I mean, the relationship between him and my mom had sort of ended. He wanted to get to know me but didn’t want to parent, I guess you could say.” I shrugged. “He took me to Disneyland but wouldn’t change my diapers. Can’t say I blame him either. My mom was seventeen when she had me, and he was a few months younger.”