“—a lot of damage that I can’t gloss over, but that doesn’t mean—”
“EVERYBODY SHUT UP,” May said.
Everybody did. Nancy looked a little shell-shocked, whereas Allie had gotten some color back in her face. May’s father paused with one foot into the living room.
“I’m moving to New York,” she said.
Then the smoke alarm went off.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
It took a few minutes to get everything sorted out. May pushed her mom out of the kitchen into a seat at the table, where her dad had resumed his customary chair. Allie shoved the bacon away from the burner and turned off the stove. Ben, being the tallest, reached up to unscrew the smoke alarm and pull the battery out.
His reaching exposed a slice of bare skin right above the waistband of his jeans, and May had to admit to herself, she loved that particular slice of skin. And the battered hand that wrapped around the smoke alarm—she loved that, too.
And that he had come back for her.
She didn’t love much else about the man at the moment, though. He had a previously undiscovered talent for creating chaos in her family.
She poured her mother a cup of coffee, added the usual gigantic dollop of vanilla-hazelnut creamer, and delivered it to the table. Then, with a fork, she extracted the overcooked waffle from the waffle maker and poured in fresh batter.
“Ben, you want some orange juice?” she asked.
His response was an inarticulate half syllable, from which she surmised that he didn’t know whether he wanted orange juice or not. She poured him a glass and shoved it into his hand.
“Allie, go sit down,” she said. “And take off your sunglasses. Your head can’t possibly hurt more than mine does.”
“But you’re stronger,” Allie said feebly.
“I’ll fortify you with a fresh waffle.”
Allie slumped into a chair and dropped her sunglasses on the table. Ben leaned against the wall by the fridge and watched as May put on a second pot of coffee, pulled the finished waffle from the maker, spread it with peanut butter, and drizzled maple and chocolate syrup on top. She handed it to Allie.
“You are my favorite.”
“You should have seen the French toast Ben made me at his apartment.”
“He makes French toast?”
“With sautéed apples. And he whipped the cream by hand.”
Allie made an oooh mouth at Ben. “I’m impressed.”
“May?” her father said.
“Yeah. Okay.” She crossed her arms. “Honestly, I don’t know how this all got so complicated. Dan proposed. I attacked him with a fork and broke up with him. I left his place to go to the airport, and this guy who I thought was a security guard stole my purse. I couldn’t fly home, so I went to a bar in Greenwich Village that has a big following of Packers fans. I thought I might meet some kindly Packers person from Wisconsin who could help me out, and I did. I met Ben.”
Ben raised an eyebrow at that, which almost made her smile, except she was still mad at him.
But he was kindly, even if he didn’t think so. Even if he’d caused her pain, he’d given her so much joy, too. And she hadn’t exactly been Little Miss Perfect. She’d been an idiot and a coward, and it was lucky he’d come back so she wasn’t forced to track him down in New York and campaign for another chance.
He seemed to think he was the one who needed to do the campaigning. Maybe they could both cut the campaign phase short.
“After a few hours of mutual suspicious circling, plus dinner, he invited me to stay on his couch, and I took him up on it. The next morning, I tried to fly home a second time, but the airline wouldn’t let me check in without ID. I went back to Ben. He asked me if I wanted to hang out with him for a few days, and I knew you guys were all at the cabin—I didn’t realize Dan was there—so I said yes. Because I wanted to hide, and because … because I liked him.”
She uncrossed her arms and leaned against the counter, momentarily distracted by Mom and Allie’s matching expressions of avidity and her father’s completely blank, stoic facade.
“He liked her, too,” Ben said.
It did something to her, hearing that—something that felt like a tiny little pebble of weight lifting off her heart.
He likes me. He loves me.
That wasn’t a fantasy. That was their reality. They’d both been idiots, but maybe they could do better.
“And I showed you all around the city,” he said.
“Right. We had fun. And …” She spun her finger in the air and said quickly, “… one thing led to another, yadda yadda, you don’t want to hear about any of that. Then I was going to fly home, but he offered to drive me, and Allie had already told Mom he was Dan’s agent’s PA, because that seemed simpler and she didn’t realize he was going to show up. I went along with it because I didn’t want him to leave yet.”