“So you’re saying … what? You’re trying to pick me up?”
“No, not me, genius, the cop.”
For a second, she thought Ben meant that he was trying to pick up the cop, which confused her further, because he hadn’t even been there. But then she figured it out. “He wasn’t.”
“He tell you to call him?”
“If I ever needed anything.”
“And I bet he wrote down his personal cell number on the back of the card.”
He had, but that didn’t mean … “He knew I had a boyfriend. He was just being nice.”
“You call him sometime,” Ben said. “I bet you ten bucks he asks you out.”
“Nah. I would notice if someone was trying to ask me out.”
“Clearly you wouldn’t, because you didn’t. One of NYPD’s finest put the moves on you, and you thought he was being nice.”
“He was.”
“Men are nice to old ladies for no reason. You’ve got blond hair and nine-mile-long legs. If a strange man is nice to you, he wants to get in your pants. If a cop gives you his cell number, he’s hoping you’ll use it.”
“Yeah, but—”
“And,” he interrupted, vehement now, “if a guy grabs you by the arm and starts dragging you into an alley, you’re supposed to kick and scream, not go with him and give him your fucking purse.”
“I thought he was security.”
“Next time? Check.”
May took a breath. Her face felt hot, the skin beneath her bra strap damp and itchy.
It was exciting, talking to Ben. Bickering with him. She never bickered.
“So what’d you do?” he asked.
“Hmm?”
“After you got your purse stolen.”
“I just started walking,” she said. “And now I’m here.”
Ben cupped his chin in his hand, scraping his fingers over his stubble. “Six weeks, you said you’ve been in New York?”
“Mmm-hmm. Well, in New Jersey, mostly.”
“You know anybody in the city besides Thor? Or over in Jersey?”
May shook her head. In the year Dan had been playing for the Jets, she’d established casual friendships with a few of the other players’ wives and girlfriends, but no one she’d want to call right now.
“And your family’s all back in Wisconsin.”
“Yeah. On the way to Michigan.”
“So you’ve got nobody to take you in.”
“Right. Except Dan.”