by Tasha Black
“It’s the popcorn,” Tansy said softly.
He turned to her.
She began to laugh in spite of herself.
“What’s going on in here?” Sage asked on her way to the refrigerator.
“The popping corn startled me,” Burton said. “But now I have a greater understanding of its name.”
“Guys, it’s starting,” Arden yelled from the other room.
Sage put the pitcher of lemonade on the counter and headed back to the living room.
Tansy shrugged at Burton and they followed.
In the living room Riggs was fussing with Grandma Helen’s TV. It was a tiny thing and old fashioned, but it seemed to be working.
She took a seat on the floor and Burton settled down next to her, his body just close enough to excite her senses.
“Thank you so much for joining us today,” the interviewer on the screen said to the three couples seated on a sofa beside her.
Tansy recognized the couples immediately - anyone who had recently passed the magazine aisle at a check-out counter would have no problem identifying the men from beyond the stars and their mates.
On one end of the sofa sat Georgia, the woman Tansy had met today, beside her mate, Rocky. Georgia was leaned against him at an angle, as if her pregnant belly were making it hard for her to sit comfortably.
In the middle were Posey and her mate, Bond. Posey was cradling an adorable baby in her arms.
That was little Estrella Grace, a baby so famous she might as well have been royalty. As the first child born of the union between Earth and Aerie, all eyes would always be on her. Tansy did not envy the small family the loss of their privacy.
On the other end of the sofa the enormous Magnum held his mate’s hand. Rima smiled up at him, seemingly content. Her belly was conspicuously flat and her arms conspicuously empty. Tansy wondered why Rima and Magnum were not obeying Aerie’s command that the men produce young with their new mates.
“We’re glad to be here,” Georgia said brightly.
“I think I’ve been given a tremendous honor here,” the interviewer said. “You’ve never all agreed to be interviewed together.”
Georgia nodded in assent as the camera panned to Magnum.
He seemed to notice all the attention being paid to him and his jaw clenched.
Beside him, Rima patted his thigh.
He drew a protective arm around her.
“Are you looking forward to your speaking tour?” the interviewer asked Magnum.
He blinked at her twice as if he couldn’t decide whether to answer or run away.
Rima patted his thigh again and he appeared to relax.
“I am a man of few words,” he pointed out.
“That will make your tour a challenge, won’t it?” the interviewer asked, trying to hide her smile.
“I am looking forward to the jokes,” he allowed.
“The jokes?” the interviewer echoed.
Magnum leaned forward conspiratorially. His pleasure at being able to share knowledge with someone else was clear on his face.
“Rima has explained that public speakers are permitted to ease the audience into a sense of comfort and familiarity by telling jokes,” he said. “I am very fond of Earth jokes. As a matter of fact, one of the techs at the lab told me a magnificent joke this morning. It involves a door-to-door salesperson and the daughter of a local farmer—”
“—Not that joke,” Rima said swiftly, gripping his leg like it was a life raft.
“Is that joke about you, Tansy,” Burton asked, dragging her attention away from the screen.
“No, no, farmer’s daughter jokes are kind of a thing,” she explained. “But they’re usually dirty.”
“How can a joke be dirty?” Burton asked. “It’s just words.”
“Shh,” Sage hissed.
They turned their attention back to the screen.
“…a burden to travel when you are just starting your families?” the interviewer was asking Posey.
Posey looked directly into the camera to reply.
“Although touring the globe to speak about our families isn’t exactly how any of us pictured our lives a year ago, we feel it is our privilege, and more than that, our duty to open our lives to the public. If we want Earth and Aerie to enjoy intergalactic harmony, those of us who are lucky enough to be mated must take on the role of ambassadors,” Posey said. “Personally, I look forward to meeting so many new people, and I’m so happy that Estrella will have the chance to grow up learning about different cultures from all over the world.”
Tansy felt her heart drop to her stomach.
She could hear the truth in what Posey was saying. Marrying a man from Aerie did mean a life of public service to interplanetary peace.
Tansy could see the importance of that mission, and feel the weight of it on her conscience.
But all she had ever wanted was a quiet life on her grandmother’s farm. And now that Grandma Helen wasn’t around, there was no one else to care for the crops and the animals.
She glanced over at Burton. He was gazing at the screen with sparkling eyes.
He must long for that spotlight. And who could blame him? He was stunningly gorgeous - built for the limelight. In spite of his sweet and laid-back nature, Tansy could see him gracing television screens and stages all over the world, bringing the planets closer by his mere presence, far, far away from her life on the farm.
I won’t fall in love with him, she told herself firmly. I just won’t.
5
Gretchen
Gretchen Peterson cursed softly under her breath and hoisted up her jeans as she jogged up toward the peach orchard at Martin’s Bounty.
Her brother Clement’s footsteps thudded along behind her, and Otis Rogers brought up the rear, panting and pushing the squeaky hand truck. The two of them were making way too much noise.
“Shh,” she hissed over her shoulder.
“I told you to let me bring my ninja gear.” Clement scowled at her in his typical older brother way, as if being born thirty-eight minutes earlier actually made a difference.
“For the last time, Clem,” Gretchen whispered, trying to keep her cool. “You are not a damn ninja. You took like three karate classes when we were twelve.”
She shot them both a withering look.
“Sorry,” Otis mouthed, giving her puppy dog eyes.
Gross.
She turned back to the orchard.
There was no time for her brother’s nonsense or Otis’s pining.
The sun was peering over the horizon, turning the sky the nauseating pink of a blushing nerd trying to talk his way out of a lunch money shakedown.
They were late.
She’d had a boring shift at the restaurant last night, and then come home to hear her mom yelling that Rima was on TV.
When she closed her eyes she could see it now, seared on her mind like the blackened part of a Pittsburgh-style steak. Rima Bhimani was sitting on that interviewer’s sofa, holding hands with that alien guy. He was so hot, and so huge. He looked like an underwear model who had just eaten two smaller underwear models.
“Doesn’t she look great?” Gretchen’s mom had gushed.
Rima did look pretty good, mooning at her big hunky alien. And it made Gretchen mad.
“They’re in love,” her mom added.
“I can’t believe Rima Baloney’s got a boyfriend,” Gretchen said shaking her head.
“She has a husband,” her mom corrected her. “Rima’s your friend. Aren’t you happy for her?”
Rima had been Gretchen’s friend back in elementary school, before it became clear that Rima was a total loser who cared more about homework and kissing up to teachers than about hanging out.
“She’s going to have a charmed life,” Gretchen’s mom said dreamily to the TV.
“She has to answer to that alien for the rest of her life,” Gretchen scoffed. “Screw that noise.”
But secretly Gretchen could see
that Rima might have had the last laugh after all.
That infuriating realization might have been the reason Gretchen snuck a six-pack out of her dad’s garage fridge and brought it with them to Martin’s Bounty.
They had hung out all night in her F-350 parked in the shrubbery at the edge of the farm, waiting for the occupants to go to sleep so they could sneak into the orchard and get what they had come for.
Gretchen had definitely needed a minute to chill. And since Otis was on some type of girly diet, she’d actually drunk enough to get a buzz.
Then she’d drifted off on the big dummy’s shoulder. And he and her good-for-nothing brother had fallen asleep too instead of waking her.
And now they were late.
They had nearly reached the peach trees. Gretchen could see their quarry up ahead. It was a big wooden crate, bigger than she had expected. There was writing on the side.
Bee Our Guest
Cute.
A sort of rumbling sound came from the crate. She wondered if bees buzzed in their sleep.
“Whoa, they’re snoring,” Otis breathed, practically right in her ear.
Gretchen almost jumped out of her shoes.
“Don’t sneak up on me like that,” she whispered angrily.
“Sorry,” he whispered back, putting an arm around her shoulder.
She shrugged it off. The big guy just couldn’t take a hint. She wasn’t into him. Sure, he could be a pleasant distraction from time to time, but Gretchen Peterson was nobody’s girlfriend.
“Fuck, I wish Earl still wanted to do this stuff with us,” she griped.
“He wants to do stuff with those fruity aliens,” Clement said, offering his unwanted opinion as usual. Her brother’s voice had a rusty quality to it. Gretchen sometimes joked it was because he used it so little. Sometimes he’d go whole weeks without saying a word. She found herself wishing this were one of those times.
Problem was, he wasn’t wrong. Earl Road used to hang out with Gretchen, Clement and Otis, but since last fall he’d been hanging out more and more with that do-gooder Rima and the aliens.
“He’s on the straight and narrow now,” Otis said dreamily.
Gretchen rolled her eyes. The dumb lug was always trying to improve himself. He probably thought it was awesome that Earl was no fun anymore.
“Maybe narrow, definitely not straight,” Gretchen quipped.
Her brother raised his eyebrows, acknowledging that was how you laid down a sick burn.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to talk about people’s sexuality like that,” Otis said.
“Shut up and get the bees on the truck,” she told him.
Otis pushed the hand truck over and Clement moved to help him.
The two men exchanged a look that meant nothing to Gretchen but that likely had the nuance of communicating a tricky football play to the two of them. They’d lifted so much stuff over the years they didn’t have to talk about it. Which was a good thing, because she wasn’t sure how much more of their talking she could take.
The wooden crate groaned and Otis grunted with effort. It tipped onto the hand truck where Clem barely caught it.
For one glittering moment everything was just right.
Then a noise rose out of the crate that woke an instinctive terror in some ancient part of Gretchen’s brain.
It was a high-pitched hum, whining like a dirt bike.
She took two steps back before she realized her brother was trying to do the same.
“Don’t you dare drop that hand truck,” she hissed.
“They’re awake,” Otis breathed.
A bee rose out of the crate, hovering just at the level of Clem’s nose.
He stared back at it, practically cross-eyed.
Another bee darted out and then another.
“What do we do?” Otis moaned. The big man was frozen in terror beside his friend.
“Smoke,” Gretchen said. “It puts them to sleep. Do you have your cigarettes, Otis?”
“I’m trying to quit,” he said, shaking his head. “I just vape now.”
He pulled the vape pen out of his pocket and started puffing, engulfing the hive in a sickly-sweet cloud.
Bees were streaming out of the top of the crate now. The whole thing seemed to tremble as if it were about to explode.
“Move, Clem,” Gretchen said, urging him to start rolling the thing down the hillside.
He backed up, pulling the truck.
“Ahh,” he gasped as one of the stingers connected.
“Stay quiet,” Gretchen said, hoping the little bastards would steer clear of her.
Otis was vaping for all he was worth, but it seemed to have no effect.
Maybe it was just that Clem was in an all-out retreat, barreling backward down the hillside with the hand truck, moaning lightly. A couple of red raised bumps were forming on his forehead and hands.
“Ow,” Otis bleated, dropping his vape pen.
He bent down to retrieve it and cried out again.
Gretchen ran ahead to the F-350 and grabbed the tarp from the back. By the time she got back to the guys they were nearly to the truck.
Clem’s face was as round and red as an apple with stings.
Otis looked like he was about to pass out, like a kid at a birthday party that tried to blow up too many balloons.
“Help me with this, Otis,” she called to him.
He obliged her and they managed to get the tarp over the crate.
“Okay, you just need to get it in the back, and we can get out of here,” Gretchen told them.
“Fuck that,” Clem groaned.
“We didn’t come this far to stop now,” Gretchen said. “We’re bee rustlers. There’s money in this.”
“Only from your dad,” Otis pointed out.
“For now,” Gretchen said. “If we get good at this we can make real money.”
“Why does your dad want us to steal Miss Helen’s bees?” Otis asked, not for the first time.
“I don’t freaking know,” Gretchen said. “I don’t know why he wanted us to steal his bees either. But you know I can’t ask my dad anything.”
“That was an easy job,” Otis said a little sadly.
“Well, yeah,” Gretchen said. “Stealing our own bees should be easier than stealing someone else’s.”
“We need to get out of here,” Clem said from between clenched teeth.
They managed to get the bees into the back of the F-350, though Gretchen was pissed at the scratch they left on the bumper.
But they did make it off Martin’s Bounty before Helen’s goofy granddaughters got up, so at least there was that.
And Clem looked pretty funny with all those bee stings - just like when they’d had chicken pox as kids.
“Dad’s gonna be really happy with us,” she declared as she got back onto the road and then pulled a sharp right toward their own farm.
Everything was coming up Gretchen.
6
Burton
Burton tried to remain calm, but with Tansy so upset he felt like there was a storm gathering inside him.
They had hiked up the hillside just after dawn to see if the bees were at work.
Instead they had found the crate gone and only a handful of bees buzzing in the trees.
“Stolen,” Tansy breathed.
Burton’s heart sank and he placed a tentative hand on her shoulder in sympathy as he mentally searched his limited experience with human problem-solving for a way to help.
They returned to the farmhouse in silence.
“How did we not see this coming?” Sage stormed when Tansy broke the news about the bees. “The Petersons’ bees were stolen.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” Tansy said. “We have to focus on how to fix this. We’ll get more bees, and this time we’ll protect them.”
“We don’t have the money to rent more bees,” Sage said. “We certainly don’t have the money to reimburse Bee Our Guest for the hive we lost. It’s over
, Tansy. We’re done.”
Tansy’s face went white with a rage so fierce even Burton was a little frightened of what she might be about to say.
But before she could speak there was a loud rap on the door and Sage dashed to answer it.
A small woman with snowy white hair stood on the other side.
“Oh you poor dears,” she exclaimed. “I heard you’ve been having some troubles.”
“Hi, Mrs. Strickland,” Sage said politely.
“You know better than that,” the woman said with a smile. “Call me Dolly. Oh my, who’s this?”
Dolly was looking at Burton.
He realized his brothers had the good sense to leave the room before Sage had opened the door.
“He’s a farm hand,” Tansy said quickly.
“Dolores Strickland, call me Dolly,” the woman said offering him her tiny hand.
“Burton,” he replied, taking it. “Call me Burton.”
“Aren’t you a charmer?” she giggled.
Burton was nonplused but he smiled back at her.
“And this is Arden,” Sage said, indicating Arden, who stood between the sisters.
“Nice to meet you, dear,” Dolly said, patting Arden’s arm. “So what’s your plan, girls?” she asked, turning back to Sage with a more serious expression on her face. “And how can I help?”
“Please have a seat,” Tansy said, indicating the sofa. “Can we offer you something to drink?”
“Oh, no thank you,” Dolly said, plopping herself down on the couch. “So tell me everything.”
The others sat too.
“We’re in a pickle,” Tansy admitted. “You don’t keep bees, do you?”
“Oh no, dear,” Dolly said. “I haven’t ever kept them. We always borrowed from the Petersons. But I heard his went missing.”
“Ours too,” Tansy said, her brow furrowed. “We’ll think of something.”
“It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?” Dolly asked kindly. “When my dad died I thought I’d never pull the farm together.”
“But you did,” Tansy said.
“I sure did,” Dolly agreed. “I’ve always loved this place. It’s home to me.”
