Page 25 of True Honey (The Hornets Nest #4)

COURTNEY

“ M orning, thank you for calling the Harbor Stadium, you’re speaking to Drew. How can I help you?” The hours blurred as people called nonstop, all of them angry about the rising cost of season tickets.

Susanna had warned me that it was one of the busiest times of the year, we didn’t deal with the customers, but transferring nine out of every ten calls upstairs felt tedious and it made the day drag on.

I had a shift at Hilly’s later that night and my feet were already killing me but now that I was putting an extra paycheck into my account at the end of the month kept me standing.

That and the hollow, devastated look on Silas’ face when he’d sent me home.

He hadn’t spoken to me since.

No doubt trying to figure out how to get rid of me without causing a mess but as soon as I had enough for first and last month's rent I would get August and I out of his hair.

I pushed myself out of bed that morning on the pretense that I had to take August to school and nothing else.

If my brain had its way I would have never left.

My bones felt like lead and I was so cold that I moved a little slower, like there was ice coating all my muscles. I just needed one more week of work.

I’d just add it to the long list of mistakes I’d made over the last fifteen years.

I talked to August about his dad and received the expected answer.

He didn’t want to speak to him and had sent his last four calls to voicemail.

Moments like that made it harder and harder not to bad-mouth Bradley in front of our son.

But it wasn’t up to me to decide how August felt about his father, all I could do was stand by and reassure him when things inevitably went wrong between the two of them again.

“Yes sir, one moment please.” I said through the receiver and transferred the angry customer upstairs to sales.

I hung up the phone and before I could even take a breath it rang again.

The same conversation happened about a hundred times in the next two hours.

‘No sir there's nothing I can do, you can speak with sales.’ ‘This is the front office, you’re looking for a sales representative.’ ‘Please give me one moment to find you someone who can help.’

It felt endless.

The next caller was a particularly snippy woman with a shrill tone in her voice and a preconceived notion that I was an idiot.

“I don’t want to spend my afternoon being handed off between a bunch of morons on the phone, you’re going to tell me right now why my season ticket price went up nearly two hundred dollars.” She spat through the receiver and I could feel my chest tighten.

The thing about trauma was that it never gave warning for when or how it might show up.

With my mind still swirling around the topic of Bradley, it snuck past my defenses and suddenly I was back in the living room being screamed at for a crying baby that I couldn’t soothe.

I tried to clear my throat and get a word in against her, trying desperately to slow her down just long enough to transfer her upstairs.

But she was relentless, the stream of irritation and rage licked words flowed from her without remorse.

All over tickets to a baseball game.

It felt foolish, I felt foolish.

“How hard is it to be a mother, Drew? You sit at home all day with him and the one thing you’re supposed to do you can’t even manage that. What’s wrong with him?” Bradley asked, raking his anger across my cheek. “What’s wrong with you!? Answer me!”

A surge of pent up anxiety rattled through me and stung at the corners of my eyes and as she continued to berate me over the phone. I tried to catch a full breath of air but my throat was sticky and dry all while her voice melted into the memories of Bradley.

It was a tangle designed to wound.

“You’re useless to me and him if you can’t figure yourself out Drew.

You wanted a baby, you begged me for this and now you’ve let yourself and this house go.

It’s all in your head, you can make the decision to get up and be better.

” He snapped, throwing his glass in the sink so hard it shattered against the bottom.

“Clean that up and get dressed, we’re going for dinner. ”

“Are you even listening to me?” The woman’s voice whined through the phone.

“I’m sorry, Ma’am, you’re looking for the sales offices. One moment please,” I said not giving her a chance to get a word in otherwise. I hung up the phone and excused myself from the desk, Susanna just offering me a distracted smile as she continued to work.

I couldn’t breathe, but I pinned my shoulders back and looked both ways down the hall before turning left and just walking. Eventually finding an unlocked door I slipped inside and luckily found the storage closet empty. It was packed floor to ceiling with equipment, helmets, bats.

I slumped against the concrete wall thankful for the silence as the tears finally poured from me in private.

Over the years I had gotten pretty good at hiding my sadness from others, from August. I knew I wasn’t perfect at it, that sometimes I let it slip and he was the first to be hurt by it.

But it was never meant for him, sometimes it just got to be too much and I had nowhere to run and hide it from him.

I rubbed my thumb down the palm of my hand, trying to ground myself in touch but the old emotional wounds seemed to split open like they’d never healed. I gasped for air through the tears, only working myself up worse.

Glass smashed, it shattered across my memories and the sound of slamming doors and a crying infant flooded in and filled every space in my mind like a collapsed dam.

Tucking my head between my knees I forced my body to inhale, forced my lungs to fill with air before I could drown completely in my emotions.

“Figure yourself out Drew.”

It repeated in the back of my head like if I said it to myself enough times that maybe I would miraculously just figure it all out.

The door popped open and I flinched, scrambling back against the wall to my feet and rubbing the tears off my face with the back of my hands. Silas’s brother, Josh, stood in the entrance. His dark eyes moved over me before he stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

“I’m sorry, I just came in here for some quiet,” I rambled.

“It’s alright, I don’t mind sharing my panic attack closet,” he said, a delicate curve to his lips, that might have been a smile, formed.

I chuckled through the last sob and stared at him in wonder.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a moment. I assumed he was dressed for warmups before the game and must have been coming down here to grab something before heading out to the field. He was wearing cleats and a pair of athletic shorts with a dark compression long sleeve and Hornets Athletics shirt.

“Yeah, fine.” I said, sniffling.

What he did next surprised me. Instead of grabbing what he needed and leaving, he slid against the door and found a spot on the floor.

He stared up at me, waiting for me to mirror him and when I finally did he pulled off his hat and hung it between his knees, picking at the frayed edges with his fingers.

“Dean likes that word too,” he said after a moment. “I’m fine, it’s fine…” he grumbled. “I hate that, when is anything ever fine?” He asked.

“Dean is your boyfriend right?” I questioned and he nodded.

“It’s funny how it sounds coming out of someone else's mouth, scares me a little,” Josh sighed. “You’re Silas’s-”

“Fiancée,” I finished quietly. For now.

“Around here that makes you family you know,” he said to fill the silence that flooded in. “They’re really loose about the term,” he grumbled. “And it can be great to have them but sometimes…”

“It’s nice to have quiet?” I asked him and he nodded.

“Silence is my favorite sound,” Josh admitted. “And the Hornets are loud.”

“Very,” I smiled at him, I could feel the anxiety retreating and I was grateful for the conversation he had so generously provided.

“Do you like the silence too or are you crying in the storage closet for another reason?” He asked eventually.

Every time someone walked by the door I flinched nervously, thinking they might try to come in here or might be looking for us.

But Josh never moved, his body like stone against the floor, his brown eyes so cautious of everything around him.

He was nothing like Silas, not in a bad way, just..

. the opposite. Silas seemed to be the type to give and give until he had nothing left, his generosity being his downfall.

Josh was guarded, careful with his words and slow to give his trust to someone.

It was clear that he had questions he wanted to ask me, perhaps for the sake of his family…

for his brother but he didn’t. He continued to let me be sad until the last tear dried up and I finally started to feel like myself again.

“This job can be a little overwhelming,” I confessed, unsure where the honestly had come from.

“You’re working in the office with Susanna?” He asked.

“I know it’s just a secretary job—”

“I was going to say she might be the hardest-working person in the whole building.

Josh cut me off. “I couldn’t answer phones all day, I’d go insane.”

“A week ago I would have sold her job short but today I’m learning that she does in fact do more than anyone else,” I chuckled under my breath, still trying to compose myself.

“That’s usually the case,” he said.

“Can I ask you something?”

He scratched the back of his neck and pulled his hat back over his messy hair with a nod.

“Is Silas really the guy everyone makes him out to be?” I asked and Josh’s serious expression softened. “They all tell stories about him like he’s the best of them.”

“I wouldn’t really know,” he said, the honesty in his voice was refreshing. “We didn’t grow up together, so I don’t have the stories or the memories. I have…” he paused, “ had , a lot of resentment and anger toward him for a long time.”

“Because of your father?” I asked, knowing I was probably wading into dangerous territory. Worst case scenario, he didn’t answer.

“It’s easy to assume a person is like their father through rumors and gossip, I didn’t know a lot about Silas for a long time.

” Josh inhaled slowly, “What I do know,” he said, wetting his bottom lip.

“Is that Silas has never let me down. Even when I bit the hand that fed me, even when I didn’t deserve his kindness. He just kept trying.”

“Thank you,” I said to him, knowing exactly what he meant and finally understanding Silas a little better. “Sorry for invading your panic attack closet.”

“I don’t mind sharing,” he said with a small smirk. “You’re family, remember?”