Page 37 of True Honey (The Hornets Nest #4)

SHORE

“ S i!” My father wrapped me up in a tight hug that made my skin crawl.

His hair was getting longer and there was so much more gray now that he couldn’t dye it brown once a month.

He turned to Arlo who’s jaw tightened in discomfort as he too was offered a suffocating hug.

“It’s good to see you King,” He looked him over, hands on his shoulders.

“Looking good, it’s a shame about that pitching hand.

You had a promising career in Pittsburgh,” he noted.

“Guess not all of us are cut out for the show.”

“Dad,” I sighed, “sit.”

“You don’t bring anyone to see me, I’m just making conversation,” Charles sneered and gave Arlo another pat. “I miss you King boys, what are Luc and Sawyer up to?”

“Working,” Arlo clipped with a forced smile. “Luc has a baby on the way, due in the fall.”

“That’s incredible! Fingers crossed for a boy, we need more talent flowing out of that family and into the Hornets legacy.”

The ignorance of this motherfucker.

He turned his dark eyes on me and I knew what was coming before he opened his mouth because every single time I saw him he asked and every time it filled my throat with vomit.

“How’s Joshua?”

I had been expecting the question, but it had come as a surprise to Arlo who tensed beside me as his brows gave away how pissed off he was that it even rolled off my father’s tongue.

“He’s fine, he graduates soon.” I tried to keep my answers short, mostly because he didn’t deserve much more, but even worse, any accomplishments that Josh made constantly turned into my father patting himself on the back.

“That’s my boy, he’s resilient. Smart as a whip,” he said to Arlo, “luckily he got his brains from the Shore side and not from the Logan side.”

“Ms. Logan was a nurse dad, she was plenty smart,” I reminded him, trying to shift the conversation so he was forced to talk about her.

“Was,” he corrected, “before she ruined her life with drugs.”

“Before you ruined her life with drugs,” I said, staring him down. His joyful mood dissipated and his jaw tightened.

“I didn’t buy her drugs, Silas.”

“You put the money in her hand, once a month to keep her quiet and the only way she managed to do that was by filling the void with drugs that made her feel less broken,” Arlo interjected.

Playing the bad cop without skipping a beat.

He leaned over the table and demanded my father’s attention. “You don’t feel guilty at all do you?”

“All I did was send her money to support my child, Arlo.” He rebutted.

“You sent her money to shut her mouth,” he sighed.

“Who are you to judge? You would be nothing without our money.” Charles snapped, slamming his hand down on the table. One of the guards stepped forward, warning him to behave.

“What was the point in sending her money, did you know she was killing herself with it?” Arlo asked him, allowing me to stay innocent in his eyes while he took the blunt of the aggressive behavior from my father.

Arlo didn’t care what insults Charles flung at him, he had worked hard to get where he was and while his journey might have been fostered by my family.

His skill was not. Baseball had been coursing through his veins the second he was born, if we hadn’t poached his father in high school, Arlo could have played anywhere.

The legacy he carried around wasn’t a blessing, it was a curse.

“I didn’t give a shit if she was killing herself, that was her choice. She knew why the money was coming and she never once said no to it.” Charles defended his actions venomously.

“So you had no idea that in between cheques she was using Josh to make money to support the drug habit. The habit that you created when you drilled into her head that she was disposable?” Arlo kept pushing and I could see my father starting to crack.

“You’ll end up just like your daddy, drunk and dead to the world in a dusty recliner,” Charles snapped.

Arlo smiled, knowing that the argument had worked and we had won.

He had admitted out loud to the two of us what he had been doing.

Arlo scratched his chest over his heart with two fingers and I knew that if push came to shove, he’d get up on the stand.

“At least I won’t be dead in jail, forgotten by the world,” he added just to drive it home.

“Get out, this visit is over.” Charles shot from the table and a few guards yelled at him causing him to raise his hands in the air only to get restricted by the shackles around his wrists.

“Orange isn’t your color, Mr. Shore,” Arlo chittered, pushing from the table with a grin. Never happier than when he was insulting horrible people or starting fights.

We were ushered from the visiting room as they took him back to his cell.

“You didn’t tell me he was that fucking delusional,” Arlo said on the way back to the car.

“He genuinely doesn’t believe he’s in the wrong on this and that’s why I’m working so hard to keep him in that orange jumpsuit. He’s all sunshine and butterflies in there for show. If he gets out…” I wet my bottom lip.

“He’ll go straight for Josh.” Arlo finished, understanding the dangers.

“I have to protect him,” I said.

“We will.” Arlo tapped the top of the fastback. “Together.”

By the time we got back to the hospital, I had about six meetings I needed to be across town at the stadium for. I was so exhausted I barely noticed the sun going down or my stomach screaming for food. It was nearly seven when I parked my bike in the garage and found the Nest virtually empty.

I had been back and forth on whether or not I was going to tell Josh about what was happening with our father.

There was a good chance they asked him to take the stand in a few months and if that happened, I would have to prepare him for the fake bullshit that Charles was peddling to everyone that would listen.

But I found him and Dean at the island smiling, picking over a container of french fries and I couldn’t bring myself to ruin their mood.

Dean was eating, he was healthy. Josh was smiling and his hand was knotted into the back of Dean’s sweater like he never knew anything but stable, loving relationships.

I couldn’t let my father ruin something Josh had been working so hard for.

“Stop hovering,” Josh said before I could announce myself, he was the only person on the team or perhaps in Harbor that could always feel my presence. It was like he had a radar for it and it went off whenever I got within twenty feet.

“How was your appointment with Ella?” I asked Josh, hand out to look at his elbow like it was a natural routine between us now.

“Fine, muscle is good, no signs of stress. I’ll be good to go for the next series,” he confirmed and I believed him. There was no bruising or swelling in the normal areas and he had full range of motion. “Doesn’t hurt, I promise.”

“Mm,” I hummed. “Last idiot that made that promise broke it.”

“It was Cael.” Josh shrugged.

“Cael doesn’t make promises he can’t keep,” both Dean and I sang the tune we had heard from him a million times simultaneously and Josh rolled his eyes at us.

“Sorry if I don’t take anyone's word for it right now,” I said afterward.

“How is he?” Josh asked.

“Pretending like he’s okay but he’s definitely sore.

He’s going to need all the help he can get in the coming weeks.

He’s going to be in a lot of pain but the hospital is going to get him through the worst of it before we bring him home.

” I explained and the two of them nodded at me.

“You should go see him again tomorrow, he needs family.”

“Sure, Doc,” Dean tapped his chest.

“Are they home?” I pointed to the basement door.

“Auggie for sure.” Dean shoved a few more fries in his mouth. “Haven’t seen Red.”

“Don’t call her that,” I scowled. “She has a name.”

“Sorry, I haven’t seen Drew.” He corrected himself. “Auggie is out on the back deck, has been for awhile. We bought him food but it’s getting cold.”

“I’ll take it to him.” I grabbed the takeout container off the island and made my way out to the deck to win over the other side of the Courtney duo. If I was going to convince Drew that I was serious about her, about all of this in the way I thought I was, I needed August’s help.

He was laying on his back staring at the stars with his arms underneath his head to get comfy and didn't flinch when I set the container beside him.

“What are you doing?” I asked, tilting my head back.

“Watching the stars,” he answered without acknowledging me but his face curled up in an annoyed expression. “If you’re out here to ask me if you can keep making out with my mom, don’t bother.”

“I—” I opened my mouth and closed it again, rubbing the bridge of my nose between my fingers.

“You aren’t sneaky and my mom was singing in the shower this morning,” August sneered.

“She was?” I smiled, quickly wiping it off my face when he shot me a dirty look.

“You don’t get it do you?” August sat up and stared at me.

I could feel his upset in his glare. “Sure it’s all fun for you, but she hasn’t been happy in a long time and if you’re the only reason she’s happy again and you do something to make her sad then she’s going to move us across the country again.

” The words came out furious off his lips and he huffed in anger when he finished.

“Whoa, okay.” I squatted down to meet him eye to eye. “What if I told you I was taking this seriously?”

He watched me nervously but didn’t say anything in response to the question.

“I really like your mom, Auggie,” I added to the silence. “I like making her happy enough to sing in the shower,” I said.

“Adults lie,” he countered. “How do I know you aren’t just saying that to take advantage of her?”

“How do you even know how to use that word in context?” I scoffed.

“I’m thirteen! I have basic vocabulary skills.” He grumbled and cursed me under his breath for having to continuously repeat himself.

“Well, I’m not lying,” I said to him, making sure that I sounded as sincere as possible because it was the truth. I liked seeing Drew smile and I wanted to continue that win streak if I could.

“I like it here.” He confessed after a second, his shoulder slumping.

“Everyone is nice to me, no one bugs me for not liking sports, I like my teachers, I like Daisy and I like this house.” He turned his head up to the stars again.

“I don’t want to leave because you kissed my mom and didn’t mean it. ”

I chuckled. “I like this house too. I won’t give your mom a reason to leave and even if I do, I promise to do everything to make her want to stay.”

“We’ve never lived anywhere I can see the stars from the backyard, but they’re so bright here.” He ignored my promise but I could see him thinking about it and that was enough of a win for the evening in my eyes.

“Do you want to see something cool?” I asked him and he turned to look at me again with a small nod. “Come on,” I pushed to my full height and extended a hand to him, when he took it he held onto it for a moment.

“Don’t make my mom cry,” he warned. “I mean it.”

“I hear you, Auggie.” I guided him inside toward the back of the Nest to the storage room off the sitting room.

I told him to wait outside and entered the room with a deep breath.

I hated this room, long after the machines and bed had been removed I could still hear the beeping that echoed against the walls now covered in shelves and boxes.

I would never see it as anything more than the room Lorraine Cody died in.

I spun around, looking for something important when my eyes caught the carton with her neat handwriting sprawled across the piece of masking tape.

“Found you.” I hauled the box up from the floor and carried it back to where August was waiting in the sitting room. Dropping it gently on the coffee table he moved closer to inspect what was inside.

“This box belonged to Cael’s mom,” I said softly so my voice didn’t crack, “she liked the stars too.” I wiggled out the itch that formed in my nose from my eyes watering as I popped the box off.

I reached in and gently pulled out the glass angel used to live on the windowsill in the kitchen.

It had only been retired to the box because we didn’t want to break it but staring at it now I felt like we needed it back.

I rolled it in my hand as August started to lift other stuff out.

“Whoa,” he flipped through the pages of one of Lorraine's journals dated from 1996. Inside there were hundreds of soft, sketch drawings all more intricate than the next and every single one a constellation she had wanted records of. “This is like thirty years old,” August gasped, running his fingers over the yellowed pages. “It’s so detailed.”

“There’s another box in the storage room too, it’s got her old telescope in it.

I’ll set it up for you tomorrow?” I asked him and he looked at me with wonder in his eyes, looking more like Drew than ever as a bright smile plastered to his face.

I was just happy to give him a space in the Nest that felt like his, and Cael would be over the moon that someone had found joy in his mom’s old journals.

Suddenly it felt like the Nest was a home again, and not four walls housing a bunch of self proclaimed orphans, and misfits.

August unknowingly filled a gaping hole in my chest I never knew existed and now more than ever the stakes were high.

I couldn’t screw this up.

“Please?” He asked.

I nodded. “You’ll have to show Cael how to use it when he gets home.”

“Deal.”