Page 55 of Honey Undone (The Hornets Nest #5)

JENSEN

“ W ould you like to dance?” I asked Adeline, my hand extended to her. She peered up from her seat and nodded gently, allowing me to pull her onto the dance floor in a soft circle.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you can ballroom dance too,” she giggled as I spun her out and back in against my chest. My hand raked down her spine as I moved us around to the music, the smell of her shampoo tickled my nose and made me hum with need.

“Three years of it,” I said, “I can outdance half the team.”

“Only half?” Adeline teased.

“You want to know a secret?” I asked her, leaning closer and lowering my voice as Silas and Drew swayed close by. She watched me, waiting for me to continue. “Mrs. Shore made Silas, Arlo and Nicholas all take lessons.”

“Arlo King can do the waltz?” She gasped and looked around for him as her fingers dug into the open buttons on my dress shirt.

“And the foxtrot,” I added just to hear the strangled giggle that left her.

She almost slipped from my grip with a wiggle but I caught her gently, the fabric tangling between my fingers.

“Get it together before you ruin this dress,” I teased her and she turned back to look at me with mischief in her eyes.

“I bought it to be ruined, Jensen.” She challenged.

“I’ll remember that,” I said, bracing her and dipping her low to steal a kiss from her collarbone and then the top of her breast. I could tell something had been bugging her all day but I wasn’t sure how to approach it without ruining the evening.

The words she had said that morning in the gym played on repeat in the back of my mind, I think I love you too .

My heart had been racing uncomfortably in my chest ever since.

“Do you think Arlo will dance with me?” She broke through the wall of thoughts and my grip tightened on her subconsciously. “Whoa possessive, I was only joking.” Her face scrunched together in the cutest way as I stared down at her. “What’s wrong?” She asked.

“Nothing, sorry…” I shook free of the crippling anxiety, a feeling I wasn’t used to having… There was just so much going on outside of my control and it all suddenly revolved around losing the one thing I never expected to need.

Adeline’s grip on my heart was tightening.

“You haven’t lied to me once since I met you, Jensen. Why are you lying to me right now?” She poked my chest as I spun her out of my arms and back in. The music slowly died down and I could hear Silas chatting away on the mic but my main focus was the confused stare on Adeline’s face.

“Tonight’s perfect,” I controlled the tone in my voice but I could see that she wasn’t satisfied with the answer. “You’re perfect.”

“Flattery is not honesty,” she said. “Is it because of this morning?”

Yes .

“No,” I shook my head.

“Are you scared?” She asked me.

“Terrified,” I answered, and the hazel in her eyes darkened.

“Of what?” She asked gently. “This? Us ?”

“The end,” I said, giving her the honesty she requested. “I’ve never had my heart broken, Adeline Sarah. I don’t want to know what it feels like, but the dread is setting in that I’m going to find out no matter how tightly I hold on to you.”

She stared at me for a moment, her jaw tightening.

“Jensen,” she chewed her lip, aiming to say more but out of the corner of my eye I saw something soaring through the air, my hand lifted and caught something soft and lacy without a second thought.

“Nice catch, Jenny!” Cael whistled from the other side of the lawn.

I held up the garter on my ring finger and stared down at her.

“It’s really hard to be mad at you for saying stupid shit when you immediately do something hot.” She groaned and pressed her forehead against my chest.

Adeline spun around on the dance floor with Dean, her smile bright as the fabric of her long blue dress whipped around her bare feet.

The party was dying down but most of the team was still hanging out drinking and dancing.

I couldn’t help myself when I pulled my phone out and took a few photos of them, tucking them away for later.

“Here,” Van handed me a beer as he lowered into his seat. His dress shirt was unbuttoned to the middle and his hair was sweaty from dancing all night.

“Where’s Zo?” I asked, looking around.

“She fell asleep an hour ago, it might have been the two nights of going hard in a row. She’s not used to it anymore.” Van laughed, lifting his own bottle to his mouth. “Addy had fun this weekend?”

“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “We talked about it…”

“Cali?” Van asked, leaning forward on his elbows to look at me but my eyes were still on her. Singing loudly in Dean’s face as the music shifted into a song I didn’t recognize but loved the way it dripped from her pretty mouth.

“It’s her dream, Mitchell. But…” the words refused to come out.

“You’re sad?” Van finished.

“I don’t get sad,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t think I've ever been sad in my entire life and now… every time I look at her I’m happy and at the exact same time... I’m so fucking sad, man.”

Van set his beer down, his head tilted up to watch Adeline just a few feet from me.

“I get it. That conversation was hard for me and Zoey. It’s been fight after fight.

She’s so scared that if she goes to law school and leaves me in Harbor that something bad will happen.

She keeps replaying this scenario that I'll fall out of love with her because I don’t see her every day or something. ”

“I don’t think there's a universe that exists that you and Zo aren’t together,” I said.

“That’s what I tell her, but she’s scared and fear blankets all reasonable thoughts. All I can do is keep reminding her that she’s only going to New York. I'm finishing school next year. The second that graduation is over I’m in the truck, on my way to her.” Van huffed.

“How long have you two been together?” I asked him, turning away from Adeline finally.

“Twelve years this October." He said without having to think about it. It was so nice to see him at peace with everything. Van Mitchell had always been a lifeline in the Nest because of his consistent calm nature. “She’s mine and a little distance isn’t going to break down twelve years of knowing that she is, in my soul.”

“How did you know?” I questioned, “Like… that she was the one?”

Van ran a hand through his dark hair and thought about it.

“Believe it or not, Zoey was loud in high school,” he laughed.

“Our Zo? No never. She’s as quiet as a mouse,” I teased, lifting the beer to my lips.

“Ella was quiet, but more intelligent than most of the students. She was quick, athletic and it wasn’t that she wasn’t friendly or nice.

It was that she didn’t have time to entertain people that didn’t give that same energy back.

Zoey did, she went to bat for El more times than I can count.

” Van explained, though I wasn’t sure what that had to do with knowing Zoey was the one.

I needed help with my own girlfriend, not a history lesson.

“I never really needed that, most people didn’t mess with a guy that was six foot five in junior year but there was one time,” Van laughed.

“Last week of the baseball season, some guys were trashing me for being one of the low-income kids. I guess having no mom and a blue-collar dad is something to be ashamed of.”

I remembered being shocked to hear that when Van was accepted to Harbor’s ball program, his dad and sisters moved with him.

He had tons of family back home but they were his people and they did it without question.

His dad was funny, we didn’t see him much because he worked a lot but when we did he was always the life of the party.

“Kids are mean.” I added .

“Yeah well, Zoey was so pissed that I didn’t stand up for myself that we got in a fight and she went home from the game without speaking to me.

In the morning, all three of those assholes woke up to find their expensive cars covered in spray paint, exposing some pretty nasty gossip about them.

To this day I can’t prove she did it, but that night we were studying for our math final and I knew I loved her when I saw that bright orange paint caked beneath her fingernails. ”

“She had missed some?” I asked with a smile.

“Her pinky nail,” Van hummed. “Zoey showed me that day how much she loved me and I promised to myself that I’d always be that for her.”

“You guys are cute,” I grumbled. “Doesn’t help me much though.”

“You’re talking about Adeline aren’t you?” Van asked quietly.

“I don’t have anything to compare it to,” I admitted, smiling softly as her laughter filled the space from Dean dipping her low suddenly.

“Love?” Van asked, his heavy brows pulling together in question.

“I’ve never slowed down long enough with a girl to figure it out,” I sighed. “Try everything once,” I groaned the stupid saying that used to come out of my mouth at house parties, drunk off vodka and just looking for a new girl to fuck.

“How did you know baseball was your favorite?” Van asked and I looked at him, confused. “You played just about every sport in the book. How did you know baseball was the one you wanted to stick with?”

“It felt like home,” I whispered and felt all the splintering pieces of my heart click back into place as I shifted my gaze back to her. My Belle ame.

“Fuck I’m so good at this,” Van snorted under his breath, drunk as he’d ever been.

“Shut up,” I grumbled, slapping him in the chest.

“If she’s home Jenny.” He tapped his empty bottle against mine, the clink loud and echoey. “Then it doesn’t matter. Here, California. You’ll be okay.”

“You think?” I asked him as he rose from the table, leaning over completely to place a drunken, messy kiss to my cheek. I shoved him off and watched his long body stumble backward.

“I know.” Van winked and disappeared to harass someone else.