Truly (New York 1)

She imagined him back then—his unfinished face and skinny, defenseless adolescent body. Ben with his hands buried deep in his hoodie pockets, hurting.

He glanced at her. “Naw, don’t look like that. It was a good thing. They were fighting all the time.”

A woman passed them with a rolling suitcase. Her intense focus on the ground reminded May to get out of her own head and look around. There was so much water and sky and air up here, she didn’t want to miss it. It was hardly like Manhattan at all.

Ben caught her eye, and one corner of his mouth hitched, maybe at the expression on her face. She felt like a deep inhale, caught and buoyed up.

“Are you an only child?”

“Yeah.”

“And the farm—that’s what you wanted to do?”

Ben stepped around her and pushed her to the outside of the bridge, away from an oncoming bike. “Walking in public isn’t one of your best areas, is it?”

“I’ve managed to survive this long without your help.”

He grinned that loopy grin, and she looked down at her boots, afraid she’d float away.

He’d shaved this morning. In the bright light, against the blue sky, she was having trouble not staring at him. With a few days’ beard growth, Ben was good-looking, but clean-shaven … holy cow. He had a nice square chin, a strong jawline, and since when did she notice a man’s jawline?

When he spends two days hiding it from you.

Maybe. Or maybe just when the man was Ben.

“I guess that was what I wanted to do,” he continued, ignorant of her jawline fixation. “It wasn’t something we talked about. It was how things were, with my dad. But then after the divorce, I went with my mom, and all the plans changed.”

“That must have been disorienting.”

“It was … a surprise.”

“Were things better after the divorce?”

“In some ways. But the farm—not really. I couldn’t get along with my dad. When he remarried, he was kind of done with me and my mom. And then after a while he had another whole set of kids. Three boys. I figure one of them will take over.”

“Is that what he says?”

Ben shrugged. “We don’t talk.”

His expression had darkened. May saw the skinny boy again and suppressed the urge to hug him. “Are you close to your mom?”

“Nah. She’s Latvian. Got stuck marrying my dad when she found out she was pregnant. As soon as I went to college, she moved back home.” He glanced toward her, frowning. “How did we get on all this? It’s fucking depressing.”

“I wondered how you got to be a chef.”

“Right.”

They walked in silence for a few beats before he spoke again. “Well, so I went to college on scholarship, where I worked three part-time jobs and figured out fuck-all, and then after graduation I had this buddy who was going to Europe. My mom paid for a plane ticket so I’d come visit her. I thought it would be for a month or so.” He glanced at her. “I didn’t come back for four years.”

The bright daylight picked up colors in his short, dark hair—those scattered strands of gray at the temples, a sprinkling of auburn and gold on top where the sun had brought it out.

Those eyes like rings in burnished wood.

Striking. Handsome in a way that was almost threatening.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”