Once a Charmer

by Sharla Lovelace

  “You’ve what?” he asked, making me stop and turn around.

  “I’ve managed to unveil every weakness I have in one day,” I said. “In front of the whole town. My dad. My daughter. My fear.” I took a deep breath. “You.”

  “Me?” He walked closer, hands in his slacks pockets, looking like something out of a magazine. “Are you saying I’m a weakness of yours?”

  “I’m saying you broke me out there.” I gave him a small smile. “My feelings for you were all over that stage.”

  His progress stopped, and his gaze dropped to some point on the ground as his expression went troubled.

  “Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess mine were, too.”

  When he looked up, the unspoken question was so loud, so intense, it made me pull in a quick breath and grab a support pole nearby.

  What are those feelings?

  Did my eyes say that, too?

  Because I couldn’t answer that. I couldn’t honestly say I’d ever been in love, or had strong feelings for anyone, or at least anything I could identify as that. I didn’t see a lot of romantic love growing up, I only saw reasons not to get my heart involved. So, what was this thing I had going on lately with my best friend? I had no idea.

  “Come on, y’all,” Carmen said, speed-walking past us as we stared at each other. “Let’s get over there before the rain hits. Vonda said we can get our tables tomorrow, and I’ve already put the basket in my car, so…” She turned around when we didn’t answer. “Am I—interrupting—”

  “No,” I said.

  “No,” Bash said simultaneously. “We’re good,” he added, putting his carefree smile back on. “Let’s go dance.”

  “I’m not dancing,” I said, falling into step beside him.

  His fingertips skimmed my back. “You are so dancing.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  I could not believe the amount of people turning out for this thing. It was a dance. For nothing. No festival, no carnival, no honeycomb anythings. Just hey, let’s dance after we vote for the world’s stupidest contest.

  That was evidently my town.

  I probably wouldn’t call it stupid if we actually won, and twenty grand slid our direction, but I didn’t see that happening. Other than the big emotional tug Bash had mastered, all I’d done for us is show how many problems I have. I needed to let go of any notion that we had a chance.

  “Holy glitter balls,” Carmen said as we walked through the doors to the thump-thump of some high energy retro dance tune. “It’s like—prom came back and exploded all over this room.”

  “I never went to prom,” I said, looking around at the cheesy sparkle everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. Every corner, table, and ceiling space was draped, pinned, or stuck with something shiny. Most of which also shimmied, spun, or swayed when air hit it. “But if this is what I missed, I’m okay with it.”

  “I must have been drunk enough to forget all this,” Bash said. “Good God.”

  “Weren’t you prom king?” Carmen asked.

  “No, that was—what’s his name with the Camaro,” Bash said. “Alan would remember. He keeps up with all that.”

  “Of course, you’d remember the car,” she said.

  “Hell yeah,” he said. “That car was fine.”

  I listened to them with an increasing distance, as one who couldn’t relate whatsoever. My senior year was spent waddling down judgmental hallways, planning for a baby. When they were worrying about what to wear for prom, I had to borrow my dad’s car to go find secondhand maternity clothes. Once again, knowing now that he had a windfall of money at his fingertips that would have made life a million times easier, poked at me.

  I had to let that go, too.

  “Earth to Allie.”

  I blinked myself back to see Bash gazing down on me. We were alone, as Carmen had run off to greet her handsome guy.

  “I’m sorry, what?” I said, pressing a hand against the butterflies in my stomach.

  “Where’d you go?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Nowhere, really. Just—” I smirked. “I’m probably having a pity party for myself and someone needs to kick my ass.”

  Bash turned to face me head-on, resting both forearms on my shoulders, essentially pulling me in toward him but in a casual way. Not that anything felt casual with him anymore. Close was close. And a slow song came on. God help me.

  “I’d be happy to kick your ass,” he said softly, humor dancing in his eyes again. “But you have to dance with me first.”

  “I don’t dance.”

  “Because?”

  I tilted my head, getting a little of that previous thrill back when his eyes lowered to my exposed neck.

  “I never learned.”

  He pulled me closer. “See, now I take that as a challenge.”

  I was all too aware that we were just standing next to a table, not on the dance floor, and that there were a million other people in the room, but the way he was looking at me…

  His hands slid down my back ever so slowly, prompting mine to creep up his chest as I felt my breathing quicken.

  “Feel that little sway?” he said, his face achingly close to mine as we moved the tiniest bit.

  “Mmm,” I said, feeling those damn magnets tugging us together.

  People, Allie. There are people. Judgey people.

  “We’re dancing,” Bash said. His lips brushed my forehead.

  “You know, we don’t do so well close up,” I whispered, closing my eyes.

  The people were gone.

  It was intoxicating. The smell of him. The feel of his hands on my bare skin. The sensation of the heavy slow music soaking into my bones. Him holding me tighter until we were moving as one. I slid my arms around him under his jacket, and he sighed into my hair.

  “I think we’re doing just fine,” he whispered.

  I chuckled, and lifted my face to look at him, knowing it would be a mistake. Knowing his mouth would be right there. Knowing we wouldn’t be able to resist.

  He was only centimeters away and his eyes went serious.

  “God, you’re beautiful,” he breathed. “You take my damn breath away and you don’t even know it.”

  I knew the feeling. All the air left my lungs, left the room, the planet, the universe. All there was in my head space was Bash. His voice, his body, his eyes, his smell, and his mouth that was right there saying things like that, and I wanted to kiss him so badly I could taste it.

  “When did this happen?” he said, the words barely making sound, but I felt them.

  “Everyone!” screeched Vonda’s voice throughout the room, a sound so jarring that Bash and I both jumped.

  My heart felt like it skipped about eight beats, and I had to grab a chair to steady myself as I let go of Bash. The four people sitting at the table next to where we were doing whatever the hell we were just doing all looked up at us with knowing grins.

  Sweet Jesus.

  They knew. I didn’t know shit about anything, I barely remembered my name at that moment, but they knew. Bash and I exchanged looks that said we both looked like we’d been hit by a bus. We needed to get out of there. Go anywhere. Be anywhere but there, surrounded by fifty million eyes.

  “We have the results!” Vonda exclaimed.

  “So, we can go as soon as they call this thing, right?” I asked.

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “It was kind of a landslide,” Vonda said in her singsongy voice. “Are you ready to hear who your new royalty will be?”

  Good grief.

  “Really?” I said, as everyone yelled their excitement. “Cheesy, much?”

  “Your new Honey King and Honey Queen of Charmed and winners of several local business prize packages and a cash prize of ten thousand dollars each, is—Sebastian Anderson and Allie Greene of
An—”

  The names of our businesses were drowned out by the roar of crazy, and Bash turned to me with stunned exhilaration on his face.

  “We did it!” All I could do was look at him wildly as all the clapping and hooting and hollering went on around us. I couldn’t even speak. His hands cradled my face. “Baby, we did it!”

  My hand was in his and we were walking up to wherever Vonda was before I realized I was moving, and the only coherent thought I had as I walked on numb legs was he just called me baby.

  Silly little crowns went on our heads, and we laughed as flashes went off everywhere and people cheered. Lanie and Nick had shown up from out of nowhere, and it warmed my heart to see Nick whistling and doing a fist pump. Carmen was jumping up and down and Sully was laughing at her. Alan and Katrina were smiling fakily and basically sulking. Kia was there, standing off to one side, alone. Smiling and clapping, but looking ready to bolt. I felt a little envious.

  I had never made it to a prom, and now there I was, amidst all the glitter and paper ribbons, voted prom queen.

  Except better. Because it came with ten grand.

  And Bash.

  Did I just think that?

  “Okay, we’re going to let the King and Queen dance, and then you all can do whatever you want,” Vonda said as another slow song began.

  “I don’t—” I began, but my words were cut off by being lifted off my feet into Bash’s arms. I shrieked but the crowd loved it, applauding louder.

  “I don’t want to hear it,” he said, depositing me on the dance floor but not letting go.

  I laughed as I held onto my plastic crown and him. Definitely him. I never wanted to ever let go of him. And that was a rocketing sobering thought.

  I let my hands slide to the back of his neck, as those eyes I adored so much drank me in, my fingers going into his soft hair. It was fair game for what his fingers were doing on the skin at the base of my spine. He was teasing along the line of my dress, and it was maddening.

  “This is crazy,” I said on a laugh. “What were they thinking?”

  “I know, right?” Bash said. “Maybe they just think we’re hot.”

  I laughed out loud. “Well, then they should be bowled over by these sexy crowns,” I said. “I think half the glitter on mine just fell down my chest.”

  Which of course brought his gaze exactly there. “They are looking extra sparkly—”

  “Stop,” I said, laughing, pulling his head so close that the natural thing—what had become the natural thing—happened. He kissed me.

  Just a brush of lips. Soft. Sweet. Another one, and my head started to spin. Our bodies swayed, our lips found each other. It was a potion like none other I’d ever experienced, and I felt myself getting drunk on it. On him. A flash went off nearby, and then I remembered.

  My eyes popped open.

  “We’re in public,” I said. Way more than public. We were dancing alone in front of the entire town.

  “Do you care?” he asked, his gaze uncharacteristically serious.

  I was so dizzy with the need to kiss him again, I could barely process the question, but I shook my head slightly and smiled up at him.

  “No, but maybe we need to figure out what we’re doing before the Gazette tells us—and Angel—what we’re doing,” I said softly.

  Humor tugged at a corner of his mouth. “You might have a point.”

  “So…”

  The floor started to fill with couples congratulating us and then wrapping themselves around each other, and I met Bash’s eyes.

  “Let’s go.”

  * * *

  The sky opened up thirty seconds after we were out the door. Bash’s shop and vehicle was easily only maybe fifty yards away, but in full blowing downpour, it took forever. He gave me his suit jacket when we left the banquet hall, and even with that I was soaked through by the halfway point.

  “Hang on!” I yelled over the din, pulling off my shoes. “I can’t run in—”

  My second shriek of the evening happened as he swept me off my feet and kept going.

  It wasn’t graceful. It wasn’t the romantic-looking gesture you’d imagine, since one leg didn’t make the swoop and so was dangling and flopping very ladylike as he ran. If my hoo-hah hadn’t seen rain before, it did now.

  We were laughing when we made it under Bash’s awning and he set me on my feet, him leaning over on his knees to catch his breath.

  “I need to start running again,” he wheezed.

  “Carrying a woman?” I added.

  “I used to carry a heck of a lot more in the service,” he said standing upright and sucking in air as he dug out his keys. “I’m getting weak.”

  “Some people might call that getting normal,” I said, slinging the wet locks from my face and pulling the useless pretty hair ribbon free.

  He slid me a sideways glance. “Like I said.”

  I texted Angel.

  Please tell me you’re home and not out in this.

  He left the light off and locked the door behind us, not that anyone else might still be out there in this weather. But the indoor warm security lighting illuminated the room beautifully. Honey glowed from the stacked jars arranged randomly among the other products. Candles of all different fragrances sparkled in pretty wrappings. Boxes of household wax, raw beeswax, a cosmetic line of lip balm called WaxMackers, and a variety of other products filled the room. I knew Bash didn’t physically make all these things, he contracted some of it out, but all of it came from his hives. His bees. His vision. His copyright.

  “It’s beautiful in here, Bash,” I said. “You’ve really outdone yourself.”

  “It was a team effort,” he said. “Everyone at the apiary had a part in this, and they still split their time to help work sales here.” Even in the low light, I could see his frustration. He raked his wet hair back and ran that hand over his face. “Losing so much of my hive this summer—that wasn’t part of the plan. I should have four new hires by now, working here solely.”

  “And then Lange.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Yeah. Lord only knows what that cost me. But it’s my own fault.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I got cocky,” he said. “Bee farming is a gamble, like any crop. You’re at nature’s mercy, and anything can go wrong. You have to keep a comfortable buffer in case that happens.” He shrugged. “I had a long stretch of success, and instead of socking that away into my buffer, I thought hey, a shop at the Lucky Charm! Wouldn’t that be awesome? I have the money, let’s do it. Signed the papers, wham, bam—Dean.”

  “Ugh,” I said. “That was a mess.”

  “That was a lesson,” he said, chuckling. “I knew better, and I didn’t listen to my gut. I won’t make that mistake again.”

  “All these pictures,” I said, turning in a circle as I tried to call Angel. It went to voicemail and I jabbed angrily at the end button. The honey-tinted light brought a warmth to the black and white photos, almost a sepia tone, and I blew out a calming breath and tried to let it soothe me. I wandered into his office where they continued. They were from all different times, in the apiary, around town, old and new, a couple from the diner, and—“Oh my God.”

  I walked forward to see it better. It was from before. Way before. A double-framed snapshot of me and Bash in the diner in our teens. The first one was pre-pregnancy, I remembered it. My dad was trying to take a picture of me at the counter, and Bash had run up and photo bombed it before that was a thing. We looked so young. I looked exactly like I remembered feeling. Absolutely ecstatic that Bash Anderson was goofing around with me.

  The second one brought tears to my eyes, because I’d never seen it before, and because I remembered that moment, too. I was very pregnant, and I’d just endured a particularly harsh ridicule from Stacey Keener, a girl from our class who’d come to eat with he
r friends and left a penny on a napkin with the words cheap whore scrawled in lipstick. I’d gone into the kitchen to cry alone, and Bash had been in there sweeping. He stopped and held me, and for a second we’d just stayed that way, his hands over mine on my swollen belly.

  “How—who—” I managed, swiping at my eyes.

  “Your dad,” he said, walking up to stand next to me. “I’ve had the first one forever,” he said. “Always a favorite of mine. But he gave me the other one a little over a year ago.”

  I turned around. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Said he took it through the service window. Y’all weren’t really getting along then, so I guess he didn’t say anything.”

  I stared at it in awe. “What, he walked around with a camera?”

  Bash held out his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. “I didn’t ask. I just—I love that picture. Not what it represented, because you were sad, but it was like the first photo of the three of us.”

  Emotion, hard, fast, and immense slammed into me like a rogue wave. I looked at his profile as he gazed on the photo, and his image swam in a sea of tears. This man. This man. Who’d made us his family without—

  “What are we doing, Bash?” I asked, my words more of a whisper.

  He looked at me and frowned as I whisked two tears away.

  “Hey.”

  “No, I know I’m being a girl, here, but seriously.” I crossed my arms, still wearing his jacket. “I don’t know—” My voice caught and I closed my eyes to pull it together. “It’s not just about me. It never is. It’s why I’m so clueless and never know what I’m doing—”

  “What are you talking about?” he asked, looking genuinely dumbfounded.

  “I’m a package deal, Bash,” I said, my voice quivering. “What I do affects her. If I just mess around, it has to stay under wraps, but if I go somewhere—more serious with it, well—I’ve got nothing for that because I’ve never done it.”

  “Neither have I,” he said.

  It was falling out of me in a rush. All of it. And I was about to lose him, this version of him, lose this amazing ride we were on, because we couldn’t do it.