Page 88 of Puck Daddies

Rocco plugs in the small speaker and scrolls his phone. He finds “Honey Light” and looks at me for permission. I nod. He hits play. The first measure fills the room. It’s the live version from the night we recorded here. I feel the floor under my feet the same way.

We dance. Not fancy. Just swaying behind the bar in the space we clean every night. Oliver takes my left hand and Hudson takes my right, and Rocco steps in behind me with his hands light on my waist. We move slow to a song written for this room. The candles flicker. The register is off. The tile is clean. Aunt Bea’s photo is above the office door, and if a photo could approve, that one does.

When the song ends, we don’t let go right away. We hold the small silence after the last note. Then we breathe and step back and laugh at ourselves because we are adults dancing in a closedshop. We blow out the candles, one by one. We check the locks. We take the trash out to the alley.

Before we leave, I write tomorrow’s date on the whiteboard and three words: OPEN AS ALWAYS. I add a small drawing of a bee. I tape the parade map below it because I want to remember that the city ended a route here.

We step outside. The night is quiet. The street looks normal again. The banner still hangs straight. The plaque for the roof shines in the light from the window. The honey wall glows even when no one is inside.

We walk to the car. We don’t talk much. We don’t need to. I’m proud of them. I say it anyway. “I’m proud of you,” I tell them, one by one as we reach the corner. “For the way you skate. For the way you sing. For the way you build. For the way you breathe.”

Hudson squeezes my hand. Rocco kisses my temple. Oliver bumps my shoulder and nods.

At home, we set the honey on the shelf in the kitchen. We set the wax card on the piano. We put the bee ball in a bowl by the door where keys go. We sit on the pit couch with our feet up and our heads down. We watch a replay of the parade on mute and point when we see the roof plaque and the banner in the window. We eat toast with honey and cheese because we didn’t have dinner.

When I finally crawl into bed, I still smell BRAVE on my hair. I think about the day I saw Oliver get bullied and I stepped in and pantsed the boy who did it to him. From then on, the four of us were inseparable. I think about how far I’ve come from the dark night in a stranger’s mansion to a parade ending at my door. I think about the jar of honey on the shelf and the song inthe room and the stress ball in a bowl and the hands linked in a photo.

The city made noise for the team today. They deserved it. The city also made space for a small shop with a bee painting on the wall. We earned that together. Tomorrow we open at seven and pour coffee for people who need it. Tomorrow, we place new tiles and answer scholarship emails and label more jars, and say no to a vendor who wants to sell us something we don’t need. Tomorrow we will still be here.

I turn out the light. The apartment is quiet. The bed is warm. The day is done. The next one waits. I am ready.

The End