Truly(17)

“They were here first.”

“Yeah, and if they could do what we’re doing, they would in a heartbeat.” He greeted the hostess with a casual “How’s it going, Sadie?” and then spotted a short, harried-looking Asian woman over her shoulder and hailed her. The woman, who had just burst through the kitchen door at the back of the restaurant, came straight to the front, beaming.

“Ben!”

“Hey, Cecily. You got a minute?”

“For you? Always. You need a table?”

“Nah, we just ate.”

“How insulting. Where did you go?”

“That place with the steak tacos.”

“Lucky duck. What do you need?”

“Can we borrow the office? I need the computer.”

“Absolutely. Come on back.”

The restaurant was airy, with country-farm tables and a scarred wood floor that looked like Old Europe and must have cost a zillion dollars. May felt the eyes of everyone in the entryway boring into her back as they moved past table after table of elegant New York. She wished she were wearing something halfway decent.

They hung a left at the kitchen door and arrived at a tiny closet of an office, where Cecily sat down at the computer and typed in a password while Ben leaned over her shoulder and May remained in the doorway, afraid to go in because she wasn’t sure how they’d ever all maneuver in there, much less get back out.

Ben and Cecily continued a conversation they’d been conducting as they walked—something about someone named Sam, who’d apparently been in the hospital, and also bags of manure were involved. May wasn’t entirely following.

“I’ll sort it out. Thanks for covering this week, by the way,” Cecily said. “I don’t think I ever got a chance to say so, in all the craziness, but I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

“No problem,” Ben replied. “You need me to help out over the weekend?”

“Nah, it’s fine now that Perry’s back. I think I’ll probably have Sam in my hair again by Monday. She’s going stir-crazy, and between you and me, her badgering is wearing me down.”

“All right. Well, just let me know.”

“Oh, come to think of it, can you take a look at the dishwasher? Ricky’s having to send the dishes through twice to get them clean, and nobody seems to know how to fix it but you.”

Ben’s mouth quirked. His amused expression. “You’ll have to pay me more if you want me fixing the dishwasher. It’s harder than washing them.”

So he was a dishwasher? Huh. May would have thought he did something more … well, something more. Could you even make a living in New York as a dishwasher?

“Minimum wage for you, buddy,” Cecily said.

Ben flipped her off.

At least he seemed secure in his employment.

“You going to introduce your date?”

“This is May,” he said. “I picked her up at Pulvermacher’s.”

Oh lovely.

Cecily stood and extended her hand with a friendly smile. “Good to meet you, May.”

May smiled back and tried not to shake Cecily’s hand too vigorously. May’s handshake had the ability to frighten the unsuspecting; she had to keep it on a leash. “You, too.”

Ben slid into the seat Cecily had vacated and fired up a web browser. “Here you go.” He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket and set it on the desk on top of a pile of papers, then rose. “I’ll be in the kitchen a few minutes if you need me.”

“Sounds good.”

“And I need to get back to the salt mines,” Cecily said. “Holler if I can do anything else, okay?”

“Sure,” Ben said.

May turned sideways to let Cecily leave the office. Then she scooted a few steps into the room and found herself in an awkward dance with Ben as they tried to figure out how to pass each other. Finally, he grabbed her by the hips and held her still as he moved by.

“Back in a bit.”

And then he was gone, and she had to stand there and breathe for a while, because his grip had triggered a land mine of heat between her legs, and being so close to his mouth, to his breath …

Holy, holy, holy cow.

She unlocked her knees, and her wobbly legs dropped her into the chair like a zapped bovine in the kill chute.

Could she chalk this up to stress? She felt as though she were fourteen again, riding home from school packed into the back of a too small car, perched on Ryan Van Den Haven’s lap when she first felt that quick, slippery pulse of heat and thought, What is going on here, exactly?

May wasn’t fourteen anymore. She knew what was going on. She was lusting after a dishwasher. She shook her head and turned her attention to more pressing problems.