Page 37 of Maybe Yours (Love & Wine)

Penny laughs as she shoots me a smirk, shoving me back with a hand on my chest. “Watch and learn, Tommy Andrews. Watch and learn.”

I take a step back, leaning against the workbench, arms crossed over my chest. Penny pulls on some gloves before picking up the first super. She methodically works through the wax with the knife, cutting it away so the honey falls into the clean container we’re collecting it in. She’s precise and careful, cleaning away every bit she can.

It’s hard work though, and inside, the shed is hot under the full afternoon sun, even with the doors open. After she’s done a couple of them, she lays the knife down, swiping an arm across her forehead.

“You wanna try?” she asks.

She’s got a smear of dirt across her forehead now that also has a leaf stuck in it. Her shirt is still drenched in sweat, only now there’s a sticky, honey-like residue covering it and her arms. She looks like a mess, but somehow still totally fucking hot, all at the same time.

“Sure thing,” I tell her, smiling as I pick up the knife.

“What are you laughing at?” she asks, as she hops up on the workbench so she’s sitting watching me.

“I’m not laughing,” I say, shaking my head even as I’m still smiling.

“You are,” she says, gently kicking the side of my ass. “You’re laughing right now.”

I chuckle. “I’m not, I swear.”

“Tommy!” she half shouts. “You can’t say you’re not laughing at the same time as you’re actually laughing!”

I have to put the knife down, because now I am legit laughing out loud, unable to stop. Penny kicks my ass again as she says, “Seriously, what the hell are you laughing at?”

I reach for the knife again, taking a deep breath as I wave it in her direction. “Quite the picture, Pen,” I say as I turn back to the super.

She pulls her phone from her back pocket and taps away at the screen. “Oh shit,” she mutters when I’m guessing she gets a look at herself in the camera.

I chuckle expecting her to pull the leaf from her forehead. But she doesn’t, instead surprising me as she leans over and says, “Here, look up.”

I do and see she’s holding her phone up to take a picture of us. “Wait, hold up,” I say, turning away.

“Tommy,” she groans because of course she thinks I’m chickening out. She’s always taking sneaky pictures of me and most of the time, I do turn away, confused about why I always seem to be the focus of her gaze.

Not this time though.

“Two seconds, Little Miss Impatient,” I say, as I turn back and stick a few more random twigs and leaves to her face, before adding a now dead bee to the end of her nose. “Alright, go for it.”

She turns the camera back on herself to see what I’ve done, rolling her eyes even though she’s smiling. Then she leans over again and just as I think she’s about to take the picture, she grabs my cheeks in her hand, squeezing them between her fingers as she snaps a selfie of us.

“Perfect,” she says with a grin.

I give her a teasing smirk. “So, still documenting this shit show then?”

Penny gives me a shove, smiling as she looks at the picture she’s just taken. “It’s not a shit show. It’s going to be awesome.”

I laugh. “Uh huh, well it’s gonna need a name if it ever takes off.”

“A what?”

I glance up at her. “A name, for the mead,” I add, gesturing toward the bucket of mostly honey we now have.

“You think?”

“Sure,” I tell her, as I grab some of the other equipment I’d bought.

We need to strain and filter the honey, get rid of all the dead bees and other crap that’s gotten caught in it. Then it needs to be boiled to kill off any bacteria and stuff before we start the fermentation process. It’s gonna be quicker than making wine or cider, but we’re still winging the whole process. Basically trying shit out as we go based off what we’ve read on the internet.

“Okay, I guess we better come up with something.”

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