Honey by Jenna Jameson

didn’t need a second lover complicating her life. What she needed, all she needed, was a friend who had her well-being at heart. Marc focused on being that for her.
    That didn’t mean it was easy.
    He descended the curved steps from the statue of Mahatma Gandhi to where Honey had finally stopped snapping pictures of him with her iPhone camera. Situated on the periphery of the park’s southwest corner, the bronze depicting the renowned Indian leader was set against a backdrop of magnolia trees in full blossom. Eyeing the stalls of the green market, where not only fruits, vegetables, and meats were sold but also an array of artisanal cheeses, wines, and baked goods, all of them locally sourced, Marc heard his stomach rumble. Earlier he’d suggested they put off picture taking, pull up a bench, and make a picnic of the goods they’d bought.
    But Honey could be stubborn when she felt something to be sufficiently important, a character trait that gave Marc hope that her days as an abused kept woman might well be numbered. Noting the fire in her eyes and the firming of her mouth, he recognized this was one of those times—and that he didn’t have a chance.
    Those blossoms, she pointed out, flinging a slender arm back toward the tree, were as fragile and fleeting as they were beautiful. One good rain would send most of the petals dropping. A slightly overcast sky and the weather forecast calling for midday thunderstorms bore her out. Marc resigned himself to more posing.
    â€œYou must be the worst model ever,” she declared, softening the complaint with a smile. “Besides being a fidget, you’re a blinker.”
    Marc admitted to both. “I’ve singlehandedly managed to mess up every family Christmas and Fourth of July photo for the past two decades. My mother says I was drawn to emergency medicine because it always keeps me in motion. I’ve never admitted it before, but I think she may be right. A desk job would kill me. Unless I’m reading, I seriously hate sitting still. Even then I’m more likely to pick up my tablet and start pacing.”
    He paused there, belatedly wondering what had started him babbling. Honey was incredibly easy to talk to. Over the past months, he’d probably strung more words into sentences with her than he had in the last five years of dating. And she was fun, seriously fun. Be it something as simple as strolling through the city on a quest for the perfect angle, light, backdrop—whatever—she was a great companion, a great friend, a great …
    Rather than go “there,” he glanced down at her hands. “Can I see?”
    â€œSure, but remember to be gentle. I’m still … learning.” She held out the phone.
    He took it from her, flipping through the last few photo frames. “Whoa, these are really good. You have a real eye.” The compliment wasn’t only intended to boost her self-confidence. He meant it.
    She dismissed his praise with a shrug of her slender shoulders. “I’m just an amateur.”
    Not for the first time it struck him how often she prefaced her passions and accomplishments with “just,” as if by getting the jump start on minimizing herself, she might divert some knockdown blow.
    â€œEverybody starts out that way. You think the Sistine Chapel was Michelangelo’s first time picking up a paintbrush? That Frank Lloyd Wright started out with Fallingwater as his inaugural project? That he didn’t maybe, you know, try designing something simpler like a tree house first?” He would have referenced a famous photographer too, but off the top of his head he couldn’t come up with any.
    But he had her laughing, and that was something. Shaking her head, she shot him a smile. “You really are sweet, but I’m hardly in the same league.”
    At times like this, Marc could have shaken her—gently, of course. “My point is to stop being so