Page 123 of The Beekeeper

“He moved out because he’s scared, Harper,” Frankie insisted, folding her arms and completely forgetting about her task. “And as much as I think it was a dumb move on his part, I can…understand how strong of a motivator fear can be. When I found out I was pregnant after Chandler left, I was so afraid. Too afraid to tell him. Too afraid to admit there was more.”

“But there wasn’t more, Frankie. Not for us.”

“Now who’s making up a story? Everyone saw how good you two were together even when you were trying to hide it.”

“Everyone including Blaze, and after everything he’s been through, when so much of his life has been fake and fleeting, it’s very easy to think anything real is too fragile to survive.”

“And what was I supposed to do?” I turned to her and asked, emotion thick in my throat. “What else could I have done to make him see⁠—”

“Nothing.” She took my arm, trying to reassure me. “I’m just saying…I hate to see you like this.”

I pulled out of her hold. “Like what? I’m fine.”

“You’re the kind of fine you were after Adam started the smear campaign against you. The kind of fine where you retreat and it feels like the sun just disappeared behind a gloomy cloud.”

I gritted my teeth, not wanting to admit she was right. Not wanting to admit I wasn’t just moving behind a cloud, but underneath one.

“It doesn’t matter how I feel. I signed up for this. For there to be an end. Blaze is a good guy—a good dad. He’s just trying to do what’s right for Paisley⁠—”

“Doesn’t he deserve to be with someone who made him smile? Who gave him sanctuary? Who brought his daughter out of her shell?” With every question, she dug deeper into the raw wound of my heart.

“He deserves to have what he wants,” I said thickly. “And what he wants isn’t me.” I let my eyes shut and on the backs of them, I saw the image from Nox’s phone of Blaze and Aria. I saw the two of them at the cookout. I saw all the things I knew had to be lies and yet my fear framed them as truth.

“Harper…”

“I love him, Frankie, so yeah, it hurts; my heart hurts,” I said, with an angry, low voice even as tears started to leak down my face. “But it’s also why I let him go. I want what’s best for him. I want him to be happy. Even if that means he’s not with me.”

“Oh, Harper.” Frankie hugged me then, and I basically collapsed into her, quietly crying in the corner of Nox’s workshop.

Even though it didn’t change anything, I found myself telling her everything that had happened with Blaze and me. The way he’d been on Father’s Day, like he didn’t want us to end. The photos leaked of us had burst that bubble, and then Paisley with my perfume. The careful separation that followed like pulling apart two magnets you didn’t want to snap back together, but that did, after Paisley’s allergic reaction.

“All we ever were was an arrangement,” I told her at the end, fighting to keep my voice low and steady so my brother didn’t hear me upstairs. “A learning experience for Paisley. A temporary housing situation. A contractual fling.” I swallowed hard. “Where we ended up can’t erase how we started.”

I quickly wiped the wetness from my cheeks, hearing my brother moving around in his loft, gathering the rest of his things. The last thing I needed was for Nox to see me crying because of Blaze and do something…stupid.

Frankie folded her arms, having that look in her eye that always made everyone nervous—the one she got when she wanted to change something and was just trying to figure out how. “No one can erase and rewrite the beginning of the story, but you can choose a different ending.”

I lowered my chin, my head swaying. “Maybe he already did,” I said softly, hearing Nox’s heavy footfalls on the steps.

“Is everything ready?” he asked but didn’t even look at us, instead examining the boxes we’d helped him pack of all the glass creations he was going to exhibit this weekend in Boston.

“You’re all packed and ready to go,” Frankie declared.

“You ready, Harper?”

I winced as my cousin’s head whipped to me, confused. “What is he talking about?” she asked under her breath.

“I’m going with him. To help. To be his assistant for the week,” I explained, stumbling over my words.

“But…”

“I’ve always been here, Frankie, and I’ll always continue to be here for him,” I said quietly, reaching for her hand and giving it a squeeze. “But how much more of me can I rip out to protect what we could have before I can’t…survive this anymore?”

This time, it was her eyes that welled with emotion, and because I didn’t want to cry again, especially not with Nox here, I gave her another quick hug and then went to help my brother load up the boxes into his truck. It wasn’t like I was leaving for good, I wanted to say. It was just a few days in the city—a few days away from this place.

It was one thing to want Blaze from a distance. It was torture to have had him, and now, have to pretend like what we had was nothing.

Chapter 30