“No.”
Ben leaned forward, squinting at her face. “You look really freaked out.”
“It’s been kind of a long day.”
“I bet. Sure I can’t get you some wine? Might help you unwind.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
He’d already unlaced his shoes and left them by the door, and now he unzipped his hoodie to reveal a gray T-shirt underneath.
Socks and a T-shirt. Lounging on his pink couch, he should have looked like Ken relaxing at the Barbie Dream House. Instead, he looked disreputable. A standing lamp cast a pool of light around him, and the exposed bricks behind him gave the scene a rugged feel. The T-shirt stretched tight across his chest, hinting at an even better build than she’d guessed.
She could see him exactly like this on a catalog page. Slap a faded Packers T-shirt on him, put some other bodies in the frame, and with the wineglass in his hand and the unzipped jacket, the scene would say, I’m just lounging around in my urban apartment among my metropolitan friends, drinking wine and eating canapés and being hipper than you.
He would sell so many clothes.
“You should be a model,” she said.
He made a deeply cynical face.
“What? You’d be great for catalogs. It probably pays better than washing dishes.”
Oops. That had been a rude thing to say. She really was nervous, if she was forgetting t
he social niceties so thoroughly.
“You think I’m a dishwasher?”
“Aren’t you?”
“No.”
“Oh. So what are you, then?”
Ben sipped his wine, and the silence drew out between them. She couldn’t read his expression—bemused, bewildered? Finally, he said, “I guess I’m a beekeeper.”
Of May’s mental list of all the things he might have said, I’m a beekeeper was way, way down toward the bottom. So far down, she couldn’t think of a response. Finally, she came up with “This is New York.”
The quirky little smile. “I know that.”
“Where are the bees?”
He pointed up, and like an idiot, May looked toward the ceiling, searching for buzzing insects. “On the roof,” he clarified.
“So that’s …” A job? “That’s a surprise.”
“I’ll bet. I keep hives on the roof. They’re not my bees, actually, they’re Alec’s. He gives me a break on the rent in exchange for taking care of his bees. But I’ve got a bunch more hives all over the city.”
“Why?”
“For the honey,” he said. “And because I like it.”
“You sell the honey?” She was still trying to figure out where the viable career was in all this.
“Yep. And some of the bees are leased to rooftop gardeners, so I get paid to make sure their crops get pollinated. I do some of that, too.”
“Some of what?”