by Ruthie Knox
Probably not. Beekeepers couldn’t possibly earn much more than dishwashers.
When she’d nearly given up on getting a real answer, he said, “I like them. They’re calming.”
“Bees are calming? The little buzzing guys with the stingers?”
“They don’t sting much. If you don’t disturb them, they’re too busy living and working to bother stinging. They’re … purposeful. Dispassionate.”
“Very Zen.”
“Yes.”
She considered that. “Busy buzzing bees,” she said, and then covered her mouth with her hand, because she sounded a little too relaxed. “This is just regular wine, right?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me if I drugged you?”
“Or if this is, like, malt liquor that only tastes like wine.”
“Nah, it’s regular wine. It hits you harder when you’re tired. Why, are you getting loopy?”
“I’m kind of melting into the couch here.”
“You can put your legs up if you want.”
May considered the wisdom of that. Her bare feet would be right next to his thigh.
But then, he’d already seen her feet. It wasn’t as though her flats did much to disguise their enormity. And it would feel good to put her legs up.
Ben retrieved the wine from the kitchen, filled her glass again, and put the bottle on the coffee table, propping his feet beside it. May stretched her legs out beside his thigh.
“Thank you,” she said. “You’re really nice.”
He chuckled. “You’re about the only person to think so.”
She nuzzled her cheek against the couch. It was soft, covered in some kind of velourish fabric. “It took me a while to figure it out.”
“What tipped you off?”
“You gave me your taco.”
“Ah.”
“Those tacos were so good.”
“I know.”
“And that fig jam. Oh my God.”
He set down his wineglass and reached for her foot, then hesitated.
“I’m going to rub your feet,” he said. “I’d just go right ahead and do it, but I promised not to touch you.”
“You can’t rub my feet.”
“Why not?”
“They’re smelly.”
“That’ll keep me from getting any ideas.” He lifted one foot into his lap, then the other. Her heels balanced on hard thighs. His thumb found the seam down the ball of her foot and pushed into the sore muscle.
May tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
“You can’t rub my feet,” she repeated weakly.
“I’m still waiting for a real reason.”
“They’re enormous,” she admitted.
“Your feet are the size they need to be to move you around.”
She groaned. “That just means you think I’m enormous.”
“I think you’re tall. Maybe you think you’re enormous, but that’s because you’re a chick, so it’s like a law that you have to think something’s wrong with you.”
Ask those reporters who were mobbing the elevator right before I got robbed. Ask the one who called me Fatty. I’ll bet he thinks I’m enormous, too.
But she couldn’t say that, because it was stupid to care what reporters said about you.
She kept waiting for someone to teach her how not to care.
May looked at Ben’s hands, enveloping her toes. Her feet didn’t seem so big when he had his hands on them.
“I bet I weigh more than you,” she said.
“I bet you don’t.”
She slitted her eyes open to glare at him, but it was hard to keep them open when she was so sleepy, and his hands on her feet felt so insanely good.
“I’m not telling you how much I weigh.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“But you tell me how much you weigh.”
“Buck ninety.”
She closed her eyes again. He had her beat by a couple inches of height and fifteen pounds of muscle. He could manhandle her into submission if he wanted to. Stake her to the floor.
But frankly, there wasn’t room.
“I can’t believe you’re a farmer,” she said, nestling deeper into the couch.
“I can’t believe you thought I was a dishwasher.”
“Nothing wrong with being a dishwasher.”
“No.”
“You should move back to Wisconsin if you want to work with bees and dirt. We need farmers.”
His hands stopped moving. He exhaled, then started up again. “That’s not going to happen.”
“Sorry.”
Mental note: Ben doesn’t like talking about Wisconsin.
“I like it here,” he said after a moment.
“I hate it.”
Had she just said that aloud? Huh. She was too tired and mellow, too blissed out from the foot massage to filter herself.
“Why?”
“I tried not to. If you asked me yesterday morning, I would have told you that New York was different than I expected, but it was really exciting and vibrant and great.”
“But you actually hate it.”
“I do.”
She swallowed the last sip of wine in her glass and let it dangle from her fingers. Where had the rest of it gone? It had stolen away and taken her caution with it.
She felt safe. Despite everything. Safe, and warm, and cared for. And it was the first time she’d felt that way since … since she couldn’t remember when.
The thing about taking care of Dan for so long was that it meant she didn’t have anybody to take care of her.
Not that she needed somebody. She was fine.
Now and then, though, it was good to have a hard thigh to rest your feet on, and the kind of man who would volunteer to rub them.
“It’s lonely here,” she said.
His thumbs rubbed circles over her ankles as his fingers smoothed over her feet, the rhythm softer now. Lulling.
“Not always.”
A clock above the TV ticked off the seconds, and she drifted.
“You’re going to put me to sleep,” she mumbled.
“I know.”
After an unknown interval, he plucked the glass out of her hand, and she turned onto her side into the couch, tucking her arm against her chest.
“Thanks for being so nice to me.”
She thought he might have said “My pleasure,” just before she fell asleep.
CHAPTER EIGHT
He woke to the clang of metal on granite.
A dropped pot. He’d know the sound anywhere.
The bedside clock read 5:18. Way too fucking early. The downstairs tenant was a dick.
Ben turned his face into the pillow.
Another sound—a quiet clink this time—brought his head back up. That had come from his apartment. His kitchen.
May.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Clumsy with sleep when he stood, he had to put a hand out to keep from bumping into the wall.
Where’s the fire, Hausman?
He made himself stop in the bathroom to take a leak and give his brain a few seconds to catch up. After, he found her sitting at the kitchen counter next to the French press, hands wrapped around a mug.
“Morning,” she said. The room was dark. She hadn’t turned on any lights, just cracked the curtain. “Sorry if I woke you. I was trying to find something to heat the water in, and I dropped a pot.”
Ben opened the curtains. “That’s all right.” He flipped a few light switches and helped himself to the rest of the coffee in the French press, adding cream from the fridge. “You sleep okay?”
“Sure. Sorry I conked out on you.”
“No problem.” Far better that she relax and fall asleep on the couch than lie awake all night, jumpy over him possibly making a pass at her, or crying because of what happened with her ex.
Some ex, too. Thor fucking Einarsson. Ben wondered what the guy had said to make May go after with him with a fork.
Had to be bad. She wasn’t the type to attack unprovoked.
“You been awake a long time?” he asked.
“An hour or so. I’m an early riser. I hope I didn’t make too much noise. I couldn’t decide whether to flush the toilet.”
He looked up from his mug to find her bashful, eyes averted. Because she’d said toilet?
“Decided to be civilized and take the risk?”
She nodded. “Sorry.”
“You gotta stop apologizing. You’re going to run out, and it’s not even six yet.”
“Sorry, I—” She stopped and gave him a small smile. “Habit. I’ve got that Midwestern politeness thing pretty deeply ingrained.”
“What’s on your agenda this morning? You need to get on my computer?”
“If I can. I guess I should check on flights and see what the rules are on flying with no ID.”
“Hang on, I’ll grab it.”
He retrieved the laptop from the bedroom and set it on the counter. “You should have an Internet connection. Let me know if it’s hinky. Sometimes I have to reset it.”
“Okay.”
“I’m going to take a quick shower. Then I’ll see about whipping up some breakfast.”
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I can grab a bagel or something. I mean, if you’d just as soon be sleeping, you can go back to bed, and I’ll—”
“Let yourself out? No, I owe you breakfast. Part of my duty as your host.”
She seemed to take that at face value, giving him a nod. “Okay. I think while you’re in there, I’ll see if I can freeze my cell phone account and my credit cards.”
“You have the phone numbers you need for that?”
“I can find them online.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll probably need it.”
Ben left his coffee and headed for the bathroom, wondering at himself. My duty as your host—had those words ever left his mouth before? With most of the women he’d brought to the apartment, he’d woken up thinking, How do I get her out of here?
Maybe he’d made more progress in the past six months than he’d thought.
He showered, wrapped a towel around his waist, and popped his head out of the bathroom to check that she was occupied before he went back to the bedroom. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if he could help it—and Jesus, when had he turned into such a sensitive New Age guy?
In the bedroom, he pulled on a T-shirt and a warm chamois button-up. He had to do the farmer’s market this morning, and the sky was overcast.
“You mind if I shower, too?” May called while he was still behind the door.
“Go ahead. Clean towels are under the sink.”
“Thanks.”
When the water started up, he focused on breakfast. No point in thinking about heat and soap and wet woman. He had eggs, half a loaf of brioche on its way to stale, and a few apples that had been sitting on the countertop for a week.
French toast, then.
The toast was sizzling in the pan and the apples sautéing on a back burner when she padded back into the room, her wet hair dark and sleek against her head. She hadn’t put her jersey back on, and the long-sleeved white shirt she’d worn underneath skimmed close over her body.
Ben turned away to stir the apples. They didn’t need it, but otherwise he’d just be staring. His imagination hadn’t done her justice.
He reached for the cardamom he’d ground up and sprinkled it on top of the apples.
“That smells so good.”
“Hope you like apples.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
She settled at the counter again, and he flipped the bread and put the chopped walnuts on to toast. “So what did you find out? Can you fly?”
“I think so. The TSA website says I should be able to get through security with no ID as long as I can answer some questions to verify my identity.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. And I asked a friend to pick me up in Green Bay, so I ought to be able to get to Manitowoc. I guess I’ll figure out the rest from there—new driver’s license and all that.”
“You can stay at your parents’ place, even with them not home?”
“I have a house in Manitowoc,” she said. “But I won’t stick around long. I’ll head up to the cabin and, you know … hide for a few days. Hope the world forgets about The Forking and the guy who stole my phone doesn’t use the numbers in it to hound everyone I know for quotes. Until Tuesday, when I have to be home anyway, because Allie—that’s my sister—is getting married next weekend, and we have a ton of stuff to do for that.”
“Sounds like a plan, if you can just get out of Manhattan.”
“Yep.”
He glazed the walnuts with sugar, plated the toast, ladled apples over the top, tipped the walnuts on while they were still sizzling, and dusted everything with powdered sugar. May’s mouth fell open when he set her plate in front of her. “You want whipped cream?”
“Um, sure.”
He found a whisk and the copper bowl and pulled maple syrup from the cabinet and whipping cream out of the fridge. When he poured it into a bowl and added maple syrup, she said, “You’re going to whip it by hand?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
She watched him do it, which made him antsy. Was this weird? He supposed most people whipped cream with a mixer.
They were so fucking loud, though, and it didn’t take long to whip a quarter cup of cream. When it stiffened, he divided it up and put a dollop on top of each piece of toast.
“Wow,” she said. “If this is you throwing together breakfast, I’d hate to see you going to the trouble of making a fancy meal.”
“I take food seriously.”
“No kidding.”
He cut his toast with a fork, standing on the kitchen side of the counter opposite her because there wasn’t much room for them to sit side by side, even if there were two stools.
Not, he told himself firmly, because you get off on watching her eat.
But there wasn’t much point in kidding himself. She honest-to-God moaned when she put the first bite in her mouth, and enough blood rushed to his groin to make him uncomfortable.
She’s not for you, he told his dick. Knock that shit off.
“That was so good,” she said when she’d finished. “Thank you.”
“You want another piece?”
“I couldn’t. Two was plenty.”
“You sure?” She didn’t sound like she meant it. “There’s one more in the skillet.”
“Aren’t you going to eat it?”
“Nah. I can’t eat too much sweet stuff in the morning. Makes me sick to my stomach.”
“Okay.”
She sat up very straight, extending her plate forward eagerly, and he put the toast on it. “Apples, too?”
“Oh yes.”
He gave her more apples and walnuts and cream, and she smiled, delighted as a kid at Christmas. “You’re a great cook.”
Funny, the way that hit him—with a wash of warmth, as if nobody had ever told him before. “You’re great to cook for.”
Maybe when he opened his new place, he should do breakfast. He’d always liked cooking breakfast. Humble food.
But humble food didn’t get you Michelin stars. You’d have to transform it into some whole other thing. Tamarind syrup on your griddlecakes. Oxtail reduction swirled on top of your hand-ground Italian grits.
As May got toward the last few bites, she slowed down, and he caught her cutting her eyes in his direction a few times. Or at the clock on the stove?
“What time do you need to be at the airport?”
“The flight’s at eleven.”
Ben looked at the ceiling, doing some quick mental calculations. “I have to be somewhere in about an hour, but I could drive you first. I mean, you’ll be like four hours early, but—”
“I couldn’t ask you to do that. I
’ll take the train.”
“To Newark?”
“Sure. Why not?”
She looked a little peeved, so he turned his back and stuck a few dishes in the sink, trying to think of an acceptable reason why he couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of May going to the airport alone.
She’d been mugged yesterday. She’d nearly fallen into a hole in the sidewalk on the way to the taco place. Now she wanted to take public transportation to Newark Airport, alone.
Probably she’d be fine. But if she wasn’t, who would even know?
“Look, just let me drive you. Otherwise you’ll have to change trains, what, three times? And you don’t have a phone or your stuff … it’s no good. If I take you, I can hang around a few minutes and make sure you get through security all right.”
“But you’d have to park and come inside. And if there’s a line, you could be late for your thing. I couldn’t impose like that. You’ve been really great, but I’ll be fine with the train. I’m really good at the trains—I’ve been back and forth from New Jersey to Manhattan like a dozen times since I moved here.”
“It doesn’t matter if I’m late.”
“It matters to me.”
“Jesus, woman. You’re hell on my peace of mind.” Ben put his hand over his heart and tried to look as though he were kidding.
May smiled, so it must have worked. “There is one thing you can do for me.”
“What’s that?”
“I hate to ask, but is there any way you could loan me a few bucks to get to the airport? I’ll pay you back. You can give me your address, and I’ll send you the money. It’s just that I only had five dollars, and I spent it on that beer last night, because I thought, you know, what good is five dollars going to do me? And at least it meant I could sit on a stool for a few hours. But my metro card won’t work for the train to New Jersey, and—”
“Stop.” He held up his hand. “I get it.”
The words came out too sharp. He chastised himself for it while he looked for his wallet. A nice person would have realized she needed money without her having to ask.
He pulled the cash from his wallet and frowned at it. Not enough.
But when he handed it to her, she said, “I don’t need all this.”
“You need more than this. I’ll run out to an ATM and get you enough to pay cash in case you have to get a hotel again.”
