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Why had she said or? What had possessed her?
“Or, May?”
“Ormymouth.” She said the words so quickly, they ran together, but he must have understood, because now he closed his eyes. He also clutched at her hips with both hands, pulled her right against his body, and put his head into her neck again.
“Pretend I didn’t say that,” she suggested.
He shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Sorry. I need more practice.”
“With what?”
“The dirty talk. I’m not very good at it.”
Ben laughed, dark and rich. “If you were any better at it, I’d probably come in my jeans.”
“You think?”
“I know. Now quit practicing. I have to think about something other than your mouth on my dick.” He pushed himself back a few feet and released her.
“Sorry.”
Ben shook his head, smiling as he turned away. “Quit apologizing, too. There are few things I’d rather do on a sunny day than get blue balls making out with a gorgeous woman.”
“It beats getting stung to death by bees, right?”
“Haven’t tried that yet. But from where I’m standing, it beats pretty much everything except those last few things you said. And straight-up sex, which we’re not talking about, because I really do need to be able to walk.”
May sat on the step again, centering herself in the sunny patch and bracing her hands behind her. She felt like she could soak in all the light and keep it. Store it in her heart, in her blood, for a future when she might need it.
Ben picked a tool up off the table, bent over the second bee box, and began prying at the lid. “Quit distracting me over there, Goldilocks. The bees don’t like it when I’m agitated.”
“I’m not agitating you.”
“You damn well are.”
She stuck out her tongue. “Deal with it.”
He muttered something about red sweaters and nipples and sunlight, and she smiled and tipped back her head.
Ben did his bee thing for a while. He kept up a steady patter as he worked, telling her all about bee spacing and showing her how to check for mites. She kind of zoned out and just watched his arms move around. He’d taken off his hoodie. His arms were well worth watching.
He whistled to himself as he tucked various tools away, and she smiled.
He did this because it made him happy. Because it took away the dark cast to his thoughts, the bubbling anger that sometimes boiled over and scalded the people around him, and reminded him of the man he really was. A good man.
Happy Ben.
She sat in her patch of sunlight and watched him. Happy May.
CHAPTER TWENTY
He took her to Bed-Stuy, where they ran into a fair on Fulton Street. When she found some earrings she liked, he bought them for her because he could tell she would never have let herself claim them otherwise.
They strolled through the fair, eating cheese pies and talking about nothing, and then turned and meandered a while, looking at real estate. Ben idly made note of the shift from street to street—the mix of commercial and residential, the traffic levels, the passersby.
When they passed a restaurant on one corner, an Asian fusion place that was doing good business, Ben glanced at the menu. Halfway down the next block, they went by an organic burger joint, and a few minutes later he realized May had asked him a question and he’d completely missed it, too busy running calculations in his head. Ballpark rent and staffing costs on one side of the scale, number of tables times average price of a meal and other expenses balanced against it …
