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I’ve only met Silver’s best friend, Sandra, once, but she seemed to be pretty level headed. “Does she have an issue with Kyle?”
Silver shakes her head, trading places with me so she can fry the donut holes while I ice the cake rings. “I think she’s just more cautious about guys in general. She always has been. She thinks a year is too early to move in together.” She sighs, glancing over at me. “Do you think so?”
Considering Silver and I are new friends, I’m flattered she wants my opinion. “Would you be on his lease, or would you get a different place together?”
“I own my house. He’d move in with me.”
“I don’t know that there’s any amount of time you should date before living together. A year, or two years doesn’tguarantee anything. If you want to be with each other more, that’s what matters.”
“I do and I’m sure he does too.”
“Then my opinion is go for it.” I bump her arm with mine as I pass by with a tray. “Besides, it’s your house. If he gets on your nerves, you can chuck him out. No harm no foul.”
“True,” she says, beaming at me.
“Just drop kick him now and I’ll move in,” Ethan calls out from the far side of the room where he’s clearly been eavesdropping.
Silver rolls her eyes. “Boy, prep your tomatoes and let the adults talk.”
The indignancy in his voice makes both of us laugh. “I am nineteen!”
“Exactly. I could be your mom. Well, if I had you at fourteen.”
Ethan turns around to lean against the counter, crosses his arms, and grins at her. “I’ll call you mommy if that’s what you’re into.”
“Hard pass. Don’t forget to ring the onions.” Unfazed, she turns back to her work.
Ethan teasing Silver is nothing new. He likes to flirt with me and Misty too. We’re always joking around, and I love how fun and relaxed our workplace is, unlike others I’ve endured.
“I’m wearing you down, Sil, I can feel it!” he says, disappearing into the walk-in cooler.
“Those Yeager boys. He has three older brothers just like him. They’re trouble, the whole family,” Silver says, shaking her head in his direction. The little fond smile on her face argues with the sentiment, and I’m glad she isn’t serious.
Not that I have any interest in any of them, but I don’t like the idea of judging someone by the rest of their family. I’ve spent too much of my life being blamed for half my blood and hating the other half.
Silver puts some music on, and we all work silently for a while. Ethan finishes what he’s working on and goes out to the dining area to restock while Silver and I braid dough for the donut twists.
An unfortunate habit of mine is getting lost in my thoughts then blurting out random stuff as if everyone knows what I was thinking. Silver is a victim of it tonight. “Did I tell you he’s a beekeeper?”
Her eyebrows rise. “Arlow?”
“Yes, he asked if I wanted to meet his bees.”
“Okay, that’s cute.”
“I thought so too.”
She peeks up at me, biting back a grin. “But you aren’t interested in him.”
Maybe there’s a little fascination. He’s so different. There’s a softness to him despite his rugged masculine demeanor. “I’m just innocently trying to make friends in a new town.”
She holds up her oil coated hands. “I’m not judging. If midnight graveyards and swarms of bees are appealing to you, I’ll tell you the same thing you told me. Go for it.”
I’m excited to visit the hives when Arlow invites me, but I’m surprised when he leads me to an ATV with a trailer attached. “Oh,” I pause. “We aren’t walking?”
“We can but I need to take some supplies up there. Do you mind riding with me? There’s an access road on the other side of the church. It isn’t far.”
I’ve passed the edge of that road—which is scarcely more than a dirt path barely wide enough to accommodate a car—onmy walks down the street. Guess I’m going to see where it leads. “Okay, do we wait to put the bee suits on when we get up there?”
