Truly (New York 1)

He drove straight to the harbor, expecting to see Lake Superior’s shoreline with its tall pier of jutting steel, the long vertical line of ore chutes marching hundreds of feet out into the water like so many rusting soldiers.

But the ore dock was gone.

His whole life, the dock had been falling apart—endangered, structurally unsound, calving chunks of rust and paint like a postindustrial glacier. Now it had vanished. Tens of thousands of pounds of early-nineteenth-century enterprise. Poof.

There was nothing without it. No harbor to speak of. Only an absence. An ache that vibrated with noise.

The rest of Ashland looked the same—the quaint grid of downtown, with its collection of modest, well-maintained shops, the café, the coffee shop.

The blocks weren’t as long as he remembered them, though. The bank wasn’t as grand.

His hands shook, and he shoved them in his pockets. Walking the paths around the college, he pulled his hoodie up over his head, earning apprehensive looks from the coeds he passed. He veered back downtown. The cup of coffee he bought at a vegan-friendly cafe did nothing to warm him.

After the sun set, he checked into a run-down motel on the fringe, took a long, hot shower, and yawned almost continuously as he dried off and pulled on boxers and a T-shirt. The curtains were heavy, the room almost pitch black with them closed.

He didn’t think of May, because to think of her would be to cause himself pain, and there was no pain in this sliver that wasn’t even a place. There was nothing.

The bed sagged under his weight, and he wrapped himself in the comforter and dropped gratefully into darkness.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

May leaned toward her bathroom mirror, seeking a better view as she slicked her sister’s lipstick over her bottom lip. Candy-cane pink, it made her look cheap and bubbly, like an extra in an eighties movie—particularly in combination with the earrings Ben had bought her and the spangly black top, its low scoop neck far more revealing than anything she normally wore.

As she reached beneath the cap sleeves to adjust the straps of her black bra, she heard her front door open, and her heart leapt.

Ben.

“It’s just me,” Allie called. Her jaunty tone did little to disguise the weariness in her voice. “The life-wrecker.”

“I’m in the bathroom.”

“I know. I can smell your hair product from here.”

A jingling noise told her Allie must have dropped her keys and purse on the entryway table. May glanced at the shower, where Allie’s wedding dress and May’s own dark blue maid of honor dress hung side by side from the curtain rod.

“Whoa, Nellie,” Allie said when she came into the room. “What are you wearing?”

May did a little twirl. “You like?”

“You look unbelievable.”

May studied her reflection in the mirror. The woman looking back at her had dramatic, smoky eyes, fabulously tousled hair, and a pouting bubblegum mouth. She had great tits, a tight ass encased in faux-snakeskin pants, and shit-kicking cowboy boots.

“Thank you. The look I was going for was tramp-who-got-dumped-and-is-in-search-of-rebound-action.”

“Are you?”

May raised one shoulder and watched the slithery top fall off it. Maybe she should lose the bra. She’d be hiding the straps all night long. “Not really.”

“But it’s fun to pretend.” Allie grasped her shoulders from behind.

May squinted at her reflection. “I’m not pretending,” she said. “I like these pants. I like this whole outfit.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Only I never would have let myself wear it before, because I didn’t feel like I was supposed to.”

“Supposed to what?”