Read Online The Wedding Bees by Sarah-Kate Lynch - Free Book Online

from the bad old days before Ethan. She’d bumped into him in the square recently but he still ran with the old crowd and she was not interested in running with him.
    U LOOKD SO GUD THE OTHER DAY , the text said. SURE U DONT WAN2 MAKE SUM $$? CALL ME .
    She did not want to call him. She really did not. But she needed $$.
    She looked up and down Flores Street again. It was empty. She punched the dinosaur in the head and stomped down the stairs to the store, slamming the door closed behind her without flipping the CLOSED sign to OPEN .
    Moments later, Sugar and George came around the corner. The dinosaur was still looking surprised and bobbing from Lola’s punch but it was far perkier than the other balloons. The world globe now looked like a peach pit, and the superhero had aged a further decade.
    â€œI’d buy some balloons to help her out if I could ever get in the place,” Sugar said. “Or at least help her blow them up a little better. But she keeps closing the store.”
    â€œSome folk just don’t want helping,” George said.
    â€œSpeaking of which, we have four flights of stairs to climb. Are you going to be all right with that?”
    â€œMy leg will do fine but my head might suffer,” he said examining the building’s entrance. “I’m not much of a one for heights. This door is an original, did you know that? It sticks, I bet, and it’ll be heavy to push too, but still, that’s one fine-looking door.”
    Sugar thought this through as George opened the second door and then slowly followed her up the stairs.
    Once they reached her apartment he stuck to the wall like a limpet and Sugar had to prize him away and lead him, eyes closed, to the sofa.
    â€œUp off the ground and in a lady’s boudoir,” he said. “This does not feel right.”
    â€œIt’s my kitchen and my living room as well,” Sugar assured him. “And if you open your eyes and look outside, it’s my rooftop terrace too.”
    George opened one eye enough to confirm that he was too high off the ground.
    â€œJust let me look at that leg of yours and I’ll have you on your way back down to ground level in no time,” Sugar assured him.
    His eyes stayed closed while she bathed the wound but he opened them to watch her apply pure honey with a drop of tea tree oil in it.
    â€œYou think honey can really fix this?” he asked.
    â€œI think honey can fix anything,” she said. “I know most people just want to eat it but there’s a heck of a lot more you can do with a little honey. It’s practically magic.”
    â€œIs that so?”
    â€œIt’s all antiseptic,” she said. “Every last drop. But there’s a type of tree over in New Zealand called manuka. It’s not so pretty to look at, kind of dark and scraggy with a tiny white flower. Anyway, the bees love it like nothing else and the ones who feed on it make the best healing honey in the whole world. I tasted it once; it’s real strong and woody, with a hint of lemon.” She showed him the label on the jar of honey she’d used on his leg. “This New Hampshire amber is pretty good too, but it might take a week or so. Still, you’ll be opening and closing doors before you know it.”
    â€œIf only I had any doors to open and close.”
    â€œAbout that,” Sugar said. “I was wondering . . . You know, it seems to me that you are a doorman without a door and that is not a good state of affairs, yet right here at 33 Flores Street we have a door—and, as you have already pointed out, a very unobliging one at that—which seems to me to be seriously short of a doorman.”
    â€œIndeed you do and indeed it is,” said George.
    â€œI would even go as far as saying that opening and closing that door all day long is just wearing me and the other tenants of this building out. They’re for the most part not in the best