“Eat borscht.”
“Kiss strange men.” Her eyes were still glistening, her voice husky and solemn when she said it. He couldn’t figure out what it meant. Whether to be funny or serious, or to just kiss her again like he wanted to.
But no. No kissing. Not unless she asked.
He leaned back against the tree trunk, wiping his palms on his jeans. “You think I’m strange, woman?”
“No.” She unwrapped her arms and leaned against the tree beside him, bumping his shoulder with her own. “I think you’re pretty great.”
He let that sink in, soaking it up until it saturated him.
The most meaningful compliment he’d received in a long time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ben took her to Park Slope to see about some bees. She liked the neighborhood. The brownstone where he kept the hive was four stories tall, one of a row of beautiful, interconnected red- and beige-brick homes with elaborate stonework and neat front walks on a beautiful leaf-shaded street.
No fish deliveries or abandoned mattresses on the sidewalks. This was a family place, like the park, and it was easy to envision herself living somewhere like it, if she’d been a city woman. Taking the subway to work every morning, coming home to her pretty little brownstone to find her husband sautéing something that smelled delicious, presiding over the kids doing their homework at the table. She’d lean around his shoulder to see what he was making, kiss the side of his neck, and he’d turn to grasp her waist and kiss her properly.
She had to admit, she was dying for him to kiss her properly. Slow and long and deep, or hard like he had last time, with all that heat and urgency. She wanted his body against hers, his hands all over her, and why hadn’t he kissed her in the park?
Maybe because the last time he kissed you, you started crying on a curb, you space cadet.
There was that. Or maybe he’d somehow intuited she was having marriage fantasies about him. She kind of felt like apologizing for them preemptively, but she wasn’t sure she could quit if she tried. A woman with a brain like hers, hanging around a man like Ben, talking about life and disappointments and babies—what was she supposed to do?
Change your brain to another channel.
“This looks like The Cosby Show,” she said.
“Yeah, it was set in Brooklyn. But I think they actually filmed the exterior shots in Manhattan somewhere.”
“How on earth do you know that?”
“I know a lot of random crap like that. I told you I’d be a good tour guide.”
No one answered when he rang the bell, but he had a key to the building. He led her through the house to the fenced-in backyard, where two stacked white wooden boxes sat in a corner, buzzing.
“There they are.”
“Cool. So what are you going to do?”
“Just a general check. I’ll pull out the screen and look for mites, look to see if there’s enough honey to harvest yet. With winter coming, I want to make sure there are enough bees here to get through the cold months, and that they have enough to eat.”
“Where’s your, you know …” She waved her arm around her head. “Bee hat.”
“I don’t usually wear one. If you know what you’re doing, they’re not that dangerous.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
Ben grinned and stepped closer to the box. “You ever been in the kitchen of a busy restaurant during the service?”
“I was a waitress once.”
“Where?”
“Olive Garden.”
“Okay, well, what I’m talking about is a little different. Much smaller, for one thing, because in New York the kitchens have to be as small as possible to make room for more tables in the front. Crammed with people—executive chef, sous chef, pasta guy, grill guy, sauté guy—more than that, really, but the point is, it’s crowded, it’s small, and there’s open flame and boiling water, plus hot oil. It’s fucking dangerous.” He pointed at the innocent-looking humming box. “This is a piece of cake.”