CHAPTER ONE  ╱  A Woman Like Honey

On soft spring nights, I like to sit quietly on my back porch. Just listening. Admiring. Letting the hum of katydids swell beneath the hush of dusk.

            The air tastes sweet this time of year, heavy with honeysuckle and pine. Somewhere in the trees, a mourning dove sings low, the sound laced with something I've never quite had the words for.

            There's comfort in these small, unremarkable rituals. The last of the sun tucking itself behind the shortleafs. The faint steam curling from a pot of steeping lavender on the railing. The way troubles dull themselves in the stillness. Just like the moon. Waning, pale, easily mistaken for peace.

            But they're never gone. Not exactly. Just waiting for the right wind to stir them up again.

            A rumble splits the quiet. The growl of an engine slapping up dust. A car door slams. Then hurried footsteps, the sharp crunch of gravel giving way to grass.

            Trouble, returned.

            "I'm going to kill him!"

            I don't even flinch. That voice, Southern-laced and sugar-coated rage, belongs to only one person.

Junia Driscoll, one of my best friends.

            "Who, Junie?" I call, glancing over my shoulder just as she rounds the corner, looping past the old tire swing that hangs limp from the oak.

            She flops herself dramatically into the hammock I strung between two maples, legs tangling with mine, skin dewy with what's left of the day's humidity.

            "August," she snaps. Her twin brother. "The absolute nerve of him to pick Sawyer over me? For God's sake, I'm his twin. That should count for something!"

            Sawyer—her older brother—is a man made mostly of silence and sun-squint scowls. Thankfully, his wife Calla has softened the edges. Graceland owes her for that.

            "It's sweet they're getting closer, though, don't you think?" I offer, knowing exactly what I'm risking.

            June shoots me a look sharp enough to peel paint. "Yes, of course," she huffs, "but at my expense?"

            I try to stifle a laugh, and fail tremendously.

            I think of sleepovers on June's fuzzy, blush carpet, the air thick with popcorn salt and the scent of whatever Bath & Body Works spray she was obsessed with that month.

            Lucy always brought her Caboodles case, full of nail polish in colors none of us actually wore to school.

            And me? I'd come with my silk scarf and my jar of Pink Oil, already knowing their shampoo wouldn't work for me. But they knew, too. June would clear space in the bathroom for my wide-tooth comb and edge brush like it was second nature. Lucy once spent a whole afternoon reading the label on my Blue Magic, just to get it right.

            We were twelve. Loud, glittery, and full of borrowed words we didn't yet understand. We'd sing into hairbrushes and dance barefoot on the rug, watch A Cinderella Story on DVD until the disc skipped, flip through J-14 and highlight boys we thought might soon someday love us.

            We always took turns picking our Cheetah Girls. June was Chanel, Lucy was Galleria, I was Aqua, and Calla—when she was over—was our honorary Dorinda. We based it on who we were, not what we looked like. No one ever tried to hand me the "Black one."

            They just... knew me. Saw me. It meant a lot, then and even now.

Back when girlhood felt like forever. And friendship meant trying, even when you didn't know the whole story. When heartbreak meant your best friend picked someone else to sit with at lunch. And the boys we wrote about in our glitter pens didn't even know our middle names.

Except ours did. We were lucky like that, us four.

            June and I fall into a familiar silence. It holds for a while until she breaks it, of course, with something far heavier.

"He was going to be my Man of Honor," she mutters after a beat. "But then I got this idea. And I wanted to ask you before I do anything with it."

That quiets me. "Okay...?"

"I was thinking I'd ask you and Lucy to be my Maids of Honor. Both of you. Side by side."

"Well, that's kind of perfect," I chirp, my nerves softening a bit. Then I feel my brows scrunch together. "You sure Lucy will say yes? She's been raising hell about wedding ceremonies since the day August proposed."

            "Yeah, well," June says with a half-shrug, "she can get married under a drive-thru awning for all I care. I want her in mine. Even if I have to drag her in boots and those bedazzled jeans."

            I cackle. "Alright, well, that's fair. She'll show up for you anyway," I reassure. "You know she will."

            June's lips split open, her teeth coming together in that signature grin of hers. I love seeing her happy, especially after that sorry excuse of an ex-husband tore her heart in two.

"I'll bribe her with concert tickets and my mama's old band baby tees. She won't be able to resist either."

            I let out a quiet laugh, "And who exactly is walking us down the aisle in this very dramatic bridal vision of yours?"

            June gives me a look. Cautious. Earnest. My heart plummets.

            "August and... him."

            The air shifts. Laughter fades, as well smiles smile. Enough for her to notice and reach forward. Our hands clasp together. She gives it a squeeze, and I squeeze right back.

He who shall not be named. That's the quiet agreement June and I made a long time ago, a little truce wrapped in soft denial. We don't say his name, not out loud. It's easier that way. Easier to pretend he's just some man with a shadow for a face.

June eventually broke that rule with Smith. He used to be nameless, too. Once upon a time, she couldn't say his name without splintering. But she found her way back to him. He was always hers. Still is. Always will be.

            But Coulter Ivers... he was never mine. Not in any way that stayed. So he remains unnamed. The man who could undo me with a single syllable. The one I keep folded into the quiet corners of myself. Half out of habit, half out of self-preservation.

            It's always been easier that way. Or so I tell myself.

            She presses on, "Smith's idea, kind of? But I liked it. That's the truth. I think it could be good, Ruth. I really do."

            I don't say anything at first. The quiet stretches. Starts to feel heavier than it should.

June shifts beside me, just a little. I catch the way her thumb taps against my wrist. Absent, rhythmic, like she doesn't even notice she's doing it. Like she's nervous.

That's when I realize she's waiting on more than an answer. She's waiting on a sign that I'm still okay. Still whole, or close enough.

            "You don't owe me an answer right now," she says, something tender and considerate. "I just... I don't know. I guess a part of me hopes maybe it could be healing? Standing beside the people we love. Even if it's complicated."

I glance at her, studying the worry tucked behind her lashes.

"I'd never throw you to the wolves, Ruthie. I swear that on everything," she oaths. "But I guess a part of me thought, if there's ever gonna be a soft place to land again... maybe it's this."

"You really think a wedding lineup could somehow fix what's been broken between me and him?"

"No," she says, quieter now. "But it might... remind you of who you used to be? Of who he used to be."

A breeze moves through the trees, tugging on the hammock gently beneath us.

"You don't have to say yes," she tacks on. "But I wanted your blessing. Before I even breathed it aloud."

I nod slowly. "I appreciate that, Junie."

"I just want you beside me," she confesses with a heartfelt sort of frown. "Both of you. Even if everything's messy underneath."

I look out toward the pines, my voice thin with memory. "Things have been messy a long time."

"Then let's stop pretending they're not," she whispers, strengthening her grip of my hand. It's nice. It soothes. "Let's just... walk through them anyway."

I nod again, more certain this time. "Okay. I'll think about it."

"That's all I need," she murmurs, leaning her head against mine.

I swallow hard. Look toward the trees, just to have somewhere to rest my eyes.

"You always were the brave one, you know?" June admits. I don't look at her, but I can hear the smile in her voice. The kind that softens, never teases.

            And maybe once, that would've made me feel strong. Now, it just feels like she's remembering a version of me I'm still trying to find again.

I huff. "Hardly."

            She leans back, eyes drifting up toward the branches overhead, "August and I always knew we'd end up planning our weddings at the same time. I figure it's the twin-brain. We've been tripping over each other since the womb. Makes no sense to anybody else, but it's always made perfect sense to us."

            She's always known how to ease out of touchy subjects. I thank God for it.

            "Lucy's over there trying to skip a ceremony entirely," The corner of my mouth tilts up into some smile adjacent. It's all I can manage.

            "She'll still wear the ring," June says with certainty. "Just wants to do it her way. Kind of like Sawyer and Calla. No church, no crowd... just the two of them and a justice of the peace on Mama and Daddy's back porch."

            "They were stubborn as ever."

            "But they knew. That's the thing. When it's real, you don't wait around for people to clap about it."

            Silence stretches some more. We let it.

            Then June recounts, her voice something careful. A little hesitant, "Heard Miss Patty and Delaney Ivers in the market yesterday."

            My hand tightens on the book lying open across my thighs. I don't chance a look at her. "Oh?"

            "Del said he might be taking a job at Graceland High. Teaching history and overseeing the mechanics room."

            "It sounds like he's moving back. For real," she adds as gentle as a feather across the cheek.

         I knew that already, of course. Colt listed it on Facebook, plain as day. We're not friends on there anymore, but his account is still relatively public. Mine's the same. Just in case he's ever curious, I guess.

            But it's right there below the profile photo of him in uniform and the kind of smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes anymore.

            Besides, Smith had mentioned something in passing—unbeknownst to my presence—about Colt helping his parents settle their travel plans, leaving him the house over on Ellis.

            I just hadn't let myself sit with it for too long. Didn't let myself believe it. Him potentially coming back. Being here, walking these same streets again. Teaching history and a mechanics elective, of all things.

            Like he's trying to rebuild from both ends. His father's grease-stained past and whatever discipline the force carved into him. There's a tension in that, like he's patching together two halves of a man who never quite met in the middle. Not that I've studied it or anything. Just a few scrolls.

            A healthy scroll... or maybe four.

            Had I lingered on a shirtless gym photo he'd been tagged in? Guilty. But it wasn't just about the arms (though, to be fair, they were solid enough to crack hickory). It was in the way he stood, as if he'd learned to carry weight that didn't belong to him.

He was always quiet, but a fighter no less. The kind of boy who wouldn't start the fire, but wouldn't flinch walking through one either. That quiet's still there, but it's older now. Tempered. Like the Army didn't just cut his hair and shine his boots, they forged him. Sharpened the edge he'd always carried into something tighter, more controlled.

There seemed to be structure in the way he moved now. Something deliberate. Like a man walking the fault line between who he came from and who he's still trying to be.

            I shouldn't be dwelling so intensely on someone I never really knew.

I blink once. Slow. Controlled. "Hmm," I say, the sound too casual, too careful. Conditioned.

            June hums. "Didn't know he was teaching now?"

            She phrases it like a question. Like I'd know. Like I'd answer. My expression doesn't shift. I am a vault. And I'll die one, if I have to. Just to stall the ache.

            I tell myself he had his reasons. That day... he left without a word. No goodbye. No request. Just gone. His enlistment took him somewhere far and dry and brutal, and I stayed behind in a town that suddenly felt too quiet without him in it.

            For a long time, I thought maybe he hadn't loved me the way I'd loved him. Maybe I'd imagined it all. Because if he'd wanted me there—really wanted me—wouldn't he have asked?

Wouldn't he have written, said something, anything? He always had a knack for that.

            But nothing came. Not a letter. Not a whisper. Just time stretching long and bitter. And so I learned to live with the not-knowing. With the ache of almost.

            I told myself it was better that way. Safer. That if he'd asked me to leave, I might've said yes. I might've gone. I might've thrown away everything I'd built here, everything my mother wanted for me. And what kind of daughter would that have made me?

            But we weren't all that mattered. Not back then. Not the way we wanted to believe.

            "His mom mentioned it to me in passing," I admit. Truthfully. Sort of. In Graceland, you can't avoid the people you'd rather not see. And Delaney Ivers has always meant well.

            "Did she?" June asks, lips pursed like she's trying to taste whether I'm lying.

            I say nothing.

            "Anyway," she sighs, drawing it out. "You'll be okay, right?"

            Her eyes meet mine, warm and steady. Brown with flecks of something unreadable.

            "I mean, I know it's been nearly a decade," she tacks on gently. "But some wounds turn to scars, and some scars never stop aching."

            I smile, just enough. "You really need to lay off the poetry books, babe."

            "Blame Smith. He's been reading me Keats before bed, soothes me right to sleep."

            I grin, unabashed. "You give that man too much credit. It'll go straight to his head."

            "Good. He needs it. That head of his is full of so much doubt it might collapse under its own weight."

            I nod. I used to wonder if anyone could love June the way she deserved. But, in truth, Smith always did. Even when we were kids, he looked at her like she hung the stars just for him. The moon, too. It's a love I'm proud to witness.

Even when it makes my chest throb with a kind of hope I don't know what to do with.

            She leans back, eyes on the sky, and I follow her gaze. The sun's all but gone now, its last breath casting a soft glow across the porch.

            I'll never stop loving nights like this.

            Just like I never really stopped loving him.

            Even now, I write letters I'll never send. Just the return address in the corner. No stamp. No intention. Just ink and ache and what-ifs that never learned how to let go.

            And yet, all it would take is a single word—a knock on the door, a hello—and the whole thing would crack open again.

            A breeze stirs. Strange and sudden. The air shifts as my eyes cut around. Instincts honed in, charged somehow, like something's coming. Or already here.

            And then I see them.

            Tire tracks. Fresh. Winding up the dirt road behind my house.

            Not mine.

            Not June's.

            But familiar, all the same.