Truly(55)

She wanted more of that, she decided. More life. More Ben.

“Down the rabbit hole in my head.”

“We’re not doing rabbits right now, we’re doing bees.”

“I know. So tour-guide me. What are you looking for?”

“I’m just checking how much honey I’ve got. I’ll need to come back and harvest sometime in the next couple weeks. I have to ask Natalie when, because she wants to help.”

May tried to ignore her distaste for that image—the unknown Natalie as Ben’s helper, rather than herself. She wouldn’t be here a week from now.

And you’re supposed to be living in the moment.

“Why do you have bees in her backyard?”

“Actually, they were in her house. They’d gotten into the woodwork of one of the windows and built a hive in the wall. She called me to come and get them out.”

“You do that?”

“Yeah. You can call an exterminator, but they’ll kill the bees. I’ll get them out. And if you think they’re really interesting, like Natalie did, I’ll help you set up a hive in your yard.”

“How do people know to call you? Are you in the phone book? Ben the Bee Guy?” It hardly seemed credible.

He raised one cynical eyebrow. “Do I strike you as the kind of guy who has an ad in the Yellow Pages?”

“Not even a tiny bit.”

“There’s a club for New York beekeepers, with a hotline. I get some of the calls.”

“What, is there, like, a rotation? Are you on call right now? Ready for any bee emergencies that come down the pike?”

Ben grinned at her and lifted the lid to the hive. “Yes, there’s a rotation. But no, I’m not on call.”

She sat down on the back step and let him do his thing in peace. The bees gave him an unexpected snake-charmer appeal. They kept landing on his hair or his T-shirt. He would ignore them, and they’d fly away. She knew there was no magic to it, and yet she was in awe of him, impressed by his lack of fear, smitten with his bee-geekery. He moved around the hive the way he moved in front of a stove, with a smooth surety that came from competence and repetition.

But it was more than that—there was a serenity to his movements, a distinct contrast to the edgy disturbance she’d picked up on when he’d been in the kitchen at Figs. He’d told her he liked the bees because they were calm. It seemed they had a calming effect on him, too.

“I wish you were on call,” she said. “I’d like to see you wrassling a swarm of bees into submission.”

“You don’t wrassle, you coax.”

“Too bad. I bet you’re a good wrassler.”

“Anytime you want to wrassle, let me know. I’m available.”

She couldn’t see his face, because he was busy easing the lid back into place, but his voice had dropped into a rough, suggestive register. The thrill of it made the hair on her arms prickle.

“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “I might take some coaxing.”

That brought his head up, his burnished eyes full of heat. “I can be persuasive.”

Her cheeks warmed. A lot of other places did, too. She tried to think of something coy to say, but nothing came to mind, and her obvious discombobulation made Ben grin.

A different grin than she’d seen before, full of sexual deviance. “You still have that rain check.”

“Actually, I have two.”

“You want to hear my dirty thoughts now?”

“You’re supposed to be concentrating on the bees.”

He put down the tool he was holding and started moving in her direction.

“Lest you get stung to death,” she said. There were still a few bees hovering around him. “I wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

“I’m not going to get stung.” He was just a foot away from her seat on the back steps now. The sun behind him gave him a golden glow around the edges. He dropped down beside her, hip to hip.

“You did already,” she said.

He held out his hand. She could see a small red dot where the stinger had gone in, but his skin didn’t appear swollen. “I’m still kicking.”

May inhaled. Clean air and quiet bee sounds and Ben.

“Your sweater looks soft. I’ve been thinking about what it would feel like to put my hands on your waist.”

His eyes were so intense, they drew her closer. Her thigh pressed along the length of his. She leaned back slightly, flattening her palm against the warm, rough concrete of the stoop. “Tell me that’s not as dirty as your thoughts get.”

“Are you kidding? That wasn’t even a dirty thought. That was just a segue. Things don’t get dirty until I slide my hands up to your breasts.”