Truly (New York 1)

She nodded. “Like a motherfucker.”

The unexpectedness of the word startled him into laughter, and she laughed, too. Beaming that smile straight at him, nose to nose. Eye to eye.

He wondered, for the first time, how he was going to give her up come Tuesday.

But it wasn’t time to think of that.

He stuck out his elbow. “This way, my lady.”

He was a terrible white knight, but she didn’t seem to care.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“This is even more crowded than last time.” May scanned the cavernous space full of people waiting to board the Staten Island Ferry. “And even less exciting, since I’ve already done it once. Tell me again why we’re here?”

“I think you were doing it wrong,” Ben said.

“What does that even mean?”

“New York,” he said. “You’ve been doing it wrong.”

“That’s so arrogant,” she said. “Actually, that’s another thing I don’t like about New York—the arrogance. You guys are so sure it’s the best place on earth that when someone doesn’t agree, they must be doing it wrong. I mean, how ridiculous is that? New York is objectively messy and dirty and loud. There’s no way for me to be wrong about that.”

“You don’t like it messy and dirty and loud?”

“No.”

“Funny,” he said. “That’s my favorite kind.”

The wicked smile he gave her liquefied her underpants, but she didn’t let on. She’d been getting a grim sort of satisfaction from seeing his scowl deepen. The more she ran down the whole ferry experience, the darker the lines carved themselves around his mouth. If she kept being uncooperative, he’d probably snap at her again. And then …

Then what?

You’ll snap back.

She thought maybe she would. It seemed essential—vital, even—that she let the conflict happen, and she make herself a part of it. She was tired of avoiding inconvenient truths.

She wanted Ben, and he wanted her. Only chivalry had kept him from doing something about it last night. She would make damn sure he did something about it today. And in the meantime, she would prod him. She would test this new trust she’d found in the alleyway—this certainty that had dropped over her when she was tipsy and tired and frustrated that she knew what he was all about, and she saw him more clearly than he saw himself.

There was nothing cruel in him. His anger didn’t speak for his true self. It spoke for the part of him that had been deprived. Starved.

He was so hungry. She could feed him, if he would let her.

“All I’m saying is, it sounds to me like you came here with an ideal in your head,” he told her. “You don’t like New York because it doesn’t match. But that’s not really fair to New York, you know? It deserves a shot on its own merits.”

“So what are its merits?”

“I’m going to show you,” he said.

“On the ferry.”

“Yeah, on the ferry.”

“I can’t wait.” She tried to match the tone he used at his most sarcastic.

“Shush.”

The doors opened, and the crowd surged through them.