Truly (New York 1)

It didn’t occur to Anya to ask her where she was staying. But everyone she’d left a message with would be at the bachelorette party, and Anya would definitely tell them all what had happened.

“What’s wrong?” Ben asked.

“She’s going to tell everybody I know. And then they’re all going to call. Drunk.”

He plucked the phone from her hand and turned it off. “Problem solved.”

“I’ll have to face the music sooner or later.”

“You don’t have to face anything you don’t want to tonight.”

She thought of her friends calling and getting no answer. Her family up at the cabin, wondering how she was doing. Or possibly upset with her for not calling yesterday afternoon or this morning. For hiding out with her phone turned off.

It had seemed better, more fitting, to encase herself in silence. To lie awake most of the night next to Dan, wondering what she’d done and what she was about to do.

“They’ll worry about me.”

“Not your problem.”

An intriguing thought. She lifted her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

When their goblets clinked together, his toast back at Pulvermacher’s came to her. Cheers, then. I can’t fucking stand Einarsson.

How liberating it must be to be able to say whatever you wanted that way. To be rude without guilt—without even obvious awareness. How did someone get to be that way? If she asked him, would he teach her?

He settled back into the couch, and she kicked her shoes off and tucked her feet under her butt, leaning her head on the cushion as the wine wove its way into her bloodstream. Her toes were cold, her blood warm, her hair tangled from walking so many blocks today in the wind. She felt gritty and sleepy, but somehow cocooned from having to worry too deeply about it. Ben had turned off the phone and absolved her of responsibility for one night.

“Why bees?” she asked.

“Why not bees?”

“Oh, I can think of some reasons why not.”

He sipped his wine, which was disappearing at a much more reasonable rate than hers. She wondered if she was guzzling something precious and expensive.

Probably not. Beekeepers couldn’t possibly earn much more than dishwashers.

When she’d nearly given up on getting a real answer, he said, “I like them. They’re calming.”

“Bees are calming? The little buzzing guys with the stingers?”

“They don’t sting much. If you don’t disturb them, they’re too busy living and working to bother stinging. They’re … purposeful. Dispassionate.”

“Very Zen.”

“Yes.”

She considered that. “Busy buzzing bees,” she said, and then covered her mouth with her hand, because she sounded a little too relaxed. “This is just regular wine, right?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you asking me if I drugged you?”

“Or if this is, like, malt liquor that only tastes like wine.”

“Nah, it’s regular wine. It hits you harder when you’re tired. Why, are you getting loopy?”

“I’m kind of melting into the couch here.”

“You can put your legs up if you want.”