Vendetta(40)

“Hey!” I punched his arm playfully, reveling in the familiarity that existed between us. “I’ll have you know I can be very intimidating.”

“I’m sure those tiny fists are very powerful.”

I punched him again, but this time he caught my hand beneath his, trapping it mid-assault. “I heard you came to my house today.” All of a sudden his expression had turned serious, and his eyes had lost their warmth. “Don’t ever come to my house.”

I slid my hand out from under his. I turned from him and started walking again. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

“Sophie.” He jogged after me. “That came out wrong, sorry.”

“I was just returning your hoodie,” I replied, keeping my attention focused ahead of me as I walked. “It was the polite thing to do. Now I see it was the wrong decision, and before you start, don’t worry, your brother Valentino already made it perfectly clear I was unwelcome, so you don’t need to bother.”

“Just let me explain.” He sped up, then turned around and began walking backward so he could face me and keep up at the same time.

I blew a stray strand of hair from my eyes and glowered at him.

“I don’t mean your presence is unwelcome. I really like seeing you … I’m just wary, that’s all.”

“Of me?”

“No, not of you,” he said, pulling at his hair. “Of my family. Some of them are really strange.”

So he was embarrassed. Well, that wasn’t the worst reason not to want me parading through his house.

“I met Felice,” I offered. “If that’s what you’re referring to.”

Nic winced. “I know,” he said. “He’s very intense.”

I decided not to comment on that.

“Does he keep bees?” I asked instead. I had been thinking about the honeyed scent all day; at times I swore I could still smell it. It’s not like it was a crime to make your own honey, but there was something about the way my uncle Jack had reacted to that mysterious jar that kept crashing back into my mind.

Nic stopped walking. “How did you know that?”

“The marks on his face,” I said, stopping as well. “They’re bee stings, right?”

Nic hesitated for a beat, like he was weighing what to say, then simply answered, “Yes.”

“And he smells of honey.” I paused, wondering if the next sentence would be offensive, but then I decided to say it anyway. “It’s almost like he bathes in it …”

Nic laughed. “Maybe he does. He likes to eat the honeycomb raw, and he harvests and extracts the honey by himself. It’s … his thing.” A shadow swept across his features, but he broke into another smile before I could decipher it.

“But there aren’t any hives at your house?”

“Thankfully!” he replied, a tinge of relief creeping into his voice. “Felice lives over in Lake Forest. But while my mother’s in Europe he makes it his business to check on us, to make sure we’re not all killing each other.”

“So he makes his own honey?” I confirmed, trying to stay on topic. I thought of the black-ribboned honey jar again, the one that turned up the week Nic’s family moved in.

Nic’s answer came slower this time. “Yes.”

“Does he give his honey away?”

“Why?” His expression changed, and I didn’t understand the way he was looking at me. Like he was suspicious of me. Was I asking too many questions about his family? Or had honey just become a universally sore subject for everyone? I had obviously missed the memo.

I shrugged, watching him as carefully as he was watching me. “A jar of honey turned up in the diner not too long ago. It had a black ribbon around it.”

“OK …”

“We were wondering where it came from, or who it was for.”

“Who found it?”

“I did.”

Nic’s brows furrowed. “What did you do with it?”

“I brought it home and tasted it. It was nice … Then I dropped it by accident and it broke,” I added. There was no way I was telling him what really happened. It was too weird for even me to understand, and I had known Jack my whole life. One unhinged uncle was enough for this conversation.

Nic’s frown deepened, and he shook his head. “Like I said, Felice doesn’t live around here.”

“So that’s not something he would do?”

“I highly doubt it,” he said, his attention turning to the stars above us. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“But I do worry about it,” I said, fighting the urge to tug on his arm so he would look at me again.