She seemed to take that at face value, giving him a nod. “Okay. I think while you’re in there, I’ll see if I can freeze my cell phone account and my credit cards.”
“You have the phone numbers you need for that?”
“I can find them online.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. I’ll probably need it.”
Ben left his coffee and headed for the bathroom, wondering at himself. My duty as your host—had those words ever left his mouth before? With most of the women he’d brought to the apartment, he’d woken up thinking, How do I get her out of here?
Maybe he’d made more progress in the past six months than he’d thought.
He showered, wrapped a towel around his waist, and popped his head out of the bathroom to check that she was occupied before he went back to the bedroom. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if he could help it—and Jesus, when had he turned into such a sensitive New Age guy?
In the bedroom, he pulled on a T-shirt and a warm chamois button-up. He had to do the farmer’s market this morning, and the sky was overcast.
“You mind if I shower, too?” May called while he was still behind the door.
“Go ahead. Clean towels are under the sink.”
“Thanks.”
When the water started up, he focused on breakfast. No point in thinking about heat and soap and wet woman. He had eggs, half a loaf of brioche on its way to stale, and a few apples that had been sitting on the countertop for a week.
French toast, then.
The toast was sizzling in the pan and the apples sautéing on a back burner when she padded back into the room, her wet hair dark and sleek against her head. She hadn’t put her jersey back on, and the long-sleeved white shirt she’d worn underneath skimmed close over her body.
Ben turned away to stir the apples. They didn’t need it, but otherwise he’d just be staring. His imagination hadn’t done her justice.
He reached for the cardamom he’d ground up and sprinkled it on top of the apples.
“That smells so good.”
“Hope you like apples.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
She settled at the counter again, and he flipped the bread and put the chopped walnuts on to toast. “So what did you find out? Can you fly?”
“I think so. The TSA website says I should be able to get through security with no ID as long as I can answer some questions to verify my identity.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. And I asked a friend to pick me up in Green Bay, so I ought to be able to get to Manitowoc. I guess I’ll figure out the rest from there—new driver’s license and all that.”
“You can stay at your parents’ place, even with them not home?”
“I have a house in Manitowoc,” she said. “But I won’t stick around long. I’ll head up to the cabin and, you know … hide for a few days. Hope the world forgets about The Forking and the guy who stole my phone doesn’t use the numbers in it to hound everyone I know for quotes. Until Tuesday, when I have to be home anyway, because Allie—that’s my sister—is getting married next weekend, and we have a ton of stuff to do for that.”
“Sounds like a plan, if you can just get out of Manhattan.”
“Yep.”
He glazed the walnuts with sugar, plated the toast, ladled apples over the top, tipped the walnuts on while they were still sizzling, and dusted everything with powdered sugar. May’s mouth fell open when he set her plate in front of her. “You want whipped cream?”
“Um, sure.”
He found a whisk and the copper bowl and pulled maple syrup from the cabinet and whipping cream out of the fridge. When he poured it into a bowl and added maple syrup, she said, “You’re going to whip it by hand?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Why not?”
She watched him do it, which made him antsy. Was this weird? He supposed most people whipped cream with a mixer.
They were so fucking loud, though, and it didn’t take long to whip a quarter cup of cream. When it stiffened, he divided it up and put a dollop on top of each piece of toast.
“Wow,” she said. “If this is you throwing together breakfast, I’d hate to see you going to the trouble of making a fancy meal.”
“I take food seriously.”
“No kidding.”
He cut his toast with a fork, standing on the kitchen side of the counter opposite her because there wasn’t much room for them to sit side by side, even if there were two stools.
Not, he told himself firmly, because you get off on watching her eat.
But there wasn’t much point in kidding himself. She honest-to-God moaned when she put the first bite in her mouth, and enough blood rushed to his groin to make him uncomfortable.