Truly (New York 1)

“You think?”

They’d walked for a while, then hopped on the subway to Prospect Park.

“Well, if I squint and ignore the people, and the fence keeping us out of the actual woods, and the fact that I can hear traffic, yes. It’s not so different from the woods around Manitowoc.”

Ben tried it. He’d never been to Manitowoc, but it did remind him a little bit of home. “It’s my favorite park,” he admitted.

“How come?”

“It feels like the real outdoors to me, more so than Central Park. Have you been there yet?”

“Sure. It’s pretty. I liked the rambly bit.”

“The Ramble.”

“Yeah. I didn’t get lost, though.” She sounded disappointed.

“Were you hoping to?”

May ducked her head and looked away, a gesture that was getting to be familiar. She did it when she wasn’t embarrassed but thought she should be. If he teased her at the right moment, she’d glance over at him sideways and give him one of those coy little May smiles that made him want to wrestle her to the ground and kiss her breathless.

Stop. Stop with that.

He’d been trying all morning. So far, no luck.

“I don’t usually know where I’m going in Manhattan, but I always know where I am,” she said. “It’s impossible not to keep track of which way north is when you’re living in a place so tiny. I thought it would be fun to go somewhere I could get completely disoriented.”

“No dice?”

“Sadly, no. I just had to stand still for a minute, and I could hear cars.”

“Shattered the whole illusion, I bet.”

“It did. My illusions are easily shattered.”

They passed a family with a stroller, then a couple holding hands.

“Most of the time it’s not this busy,” Ben said. “This is holiday-weekend busy.”

“I guess everywhere’s going to be like that today.”

“Yep.”

She pulled a few steps ahead, interested by something around a bend. Her hair changed colors as she moved in and out of patches of sunlight. Dull wheat in the shade, but shiny and bright when the sun hit it, falling around her shoulders. The wind had made a mess of it on the bridge. She’d tried to put it right with her fingers, but it still looked disorganized.

He liked it that way. He liked how adaptable she was, how comfortable in this park, with him, even though she’d lost all her stuff and all her plans, and even though New York hadn’t lived up to her expectations. If he were in her shoes, he’d be sullen and pissed off, trying to find somewhere to hole up, but May was rushing around corners, pointing out a neat building or a great view.

She was delightful.

“Did you see this?” she said as he came around the bend. “It’s huge!”

It was a big rock. He checked for leprechauns, statuary—anything to make sense of her excitement—but he found nothing but more rock.

“I’ve seen bigger,” he said.

She made an exasperated face. “Men. You’ll say that about anything. My family went to the Grand Canyon once, and my dad had tears in his eyes. He wouldn’t admit it, but I saw them. And by the time he got home and our neighbor asked him about it, he was like, ‘Yeah, it’s pretty deep. So did you get that lawnmower blade sharpened?’ ”

Ben smiled. “What’s your dad do?”