Truly(88)

He couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t stupid.

Thanks for staying with me.

The sex was incredible.

I’ll miss you.

He’d miss her. Did she know that? He hoped she did, but he had no intention of telling her. He shoveled potatoes into his mouth.

“I need to talk to Dan,” she said.

Ben swallowed wrong and started to cough. It bent him over the counter, streaks of pain in his chest making his eyes water. For the span of a few seconds, he felt wretched everywhere, deep inside his bones where the marrow hid, blood-dark and unfixable.

“Ben? Are you choking? Stand up and let me see your face. You’re scaring me.”

He straightened, wiping his eyes, and she looked at him. Looked into his eyes and saw too much.

“I’m fine,” he wheezed. He grabbed his water glass and forced air into his lungs, holding his breath as his diaphragm convulsed. When he drank, his chest calmed, and he was able to say, “Just swallowed funny. Why do you need to talk to him?”

The lines around her mouth deepened. “I was going to buy a ticket, but at the last minute like this, it’s more than I should spend. I have to ask Dan if he can change the original one. That’s only a hundred and fifty dollars. But I think he’s flying today, so I’ll probably have to leave a message and wait … I don’t know. Maybe I should just buy it.”

Ben turned back to his food. Put something in his mouth. Chewed it. He couldn’t say what it was—fruit or meat or bread. Nothing tasted right. His ears buzzed with the sound of swarming bees.

“I’ll buy you the ticket.”

“You can’t. It’s too much. I think this is, like, a business travel fare, or something—it’s more than a thousand bucks, and the website says there’s only a few seats left at that price.”

“So you’d better lock it in quick.”

“It’s better if I call Dan. I’d be able to pay you back, but I don’t want to spend that much.”

“I don’t mean I’ll loan you the money, I mean I’ll buy it. You shouldn’t have to talk to him after … not so soon. Not if you don’t want to. And it’s too complicated anyway. Easier to go ahead and buy the goddamn ticket.”

“I couldn’t take that much from you. Not when you’re …” She made a looping gesture with her hand that meant nothing.

“I have the money. Let me.”

She stared into her coffee cup. She wasn’t eating much. He wondered if she felt as sick as he did.

“I have to see him anyway. He’s good friends with Matt. He’ll be at the wedding.” She tried to smile. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll call him, and that’s better, right? It’s more grown up. So nobody feels uncomfortable or anything.”

Ben imagined May making nice with a good-looking Viking in a tux who’d as much as told the whole world there was something wrong with her. A man who’d proposed to her with words so offensive that she’d stabbed him for it.

He tried to set his fork down, but it hit the plate with a clatter, skittered along the countertop, and landed on the floor.

Don’t be like that, he wanted to say. Be the way you are with me.

He had no right to tell her how to be. Nothing but the feeblest kind of hold over her. He just couldn’t stand the idea of releasing it. Not if she would go back to a life so circumscribed and not-May.

And yet he knew there was no way he could hold her. They’d agreed that this was a break for her, a vacation from reality, and even if they wanted to make it real—if May wanted to leave her life with Dan and make a life with him, somehow—he couldn’t imagine what that would look like.

He had to focus on his goals. Find an apartment. Calm himself down, put himself back together so he could be ready for that restaurant and maybe, someday, for May. Or for someone like her.

Even though there wasn’t anybody like May.

“Ben?”

Her eyes were soft with concern, unhurt by the sudden stiffness in his posture. Unafraid of falling forks or his flailing feelings.

He wanted her with him for a few days longer. This May. This one without fear, who told him what she wanted. This May who’d put her soft pink mouth around his cock when he was still knocked flat from their first round of sex last night. Who’d driven him crazy with her fingers and her tongue and her gentle, teasing questions.

Like this, Ben? Here?

He wanted her. He wanted that her.

The words emerged from his mouth at almost the same instant the idea came to him. “I’ll drive you home.”

“You …” May blinked. “What?”

“If I drive you, you don’t even have to worry about the plane ticket.”