In Love Again by Megan Mulry Page A

and took one of Claire’s nervous hands in his and patted her like an older brother would. “Yeah, she’s the best. We haven’t seen each other in over twenty years and we just bumped into each other yesterday.”
    Jenny stayed for another twenty minutes, laughing with Claire about her first impressions of working in New York. Ben tried to act normal.
    After Jenny left, he moved around to the banquette to sit next to her and tried to act like it was because the music from the next act was a little too loud and he couldn’t hear what she was saying. Of course, he was just trying to get as physically close to her as he could without frightening her.
    She had pulled her hair back into a practical ponytail and was wearing a long-sleeved white T-shirt and a pair of blue jeans. She couldn’t have looked more pedestrian if she had tried. Ben had the distinct impression she had tried.
    “I’m starving. Have you eaten dinner yet?” Ben asked, forcing himself to look away from the curve of her fitted white T-shirt and away from the train of thought that made him question why she was trying to make herself nondescript. It was impossible anyway. His stomach lurched with desire at a white T-shirt and jeans. What would he do in the face of a black thong and bra? Or just a pair of shorts. He shook his head and scowled at himself.
    “Are you okay?” Claire asked. “You look a little…”
    “What?”
    “Angry.”
    Ben shook his head and tried to shake off his irritation with himself. “No. I’m just trying to shake off a week’s worth of irritation, I guess.”
    “Oh.” Claire looked down at the soggy napkin beneath her wine glass. “You looked like that yesterday, and I thought you were aggravated, you know, with me.”
    Ben was totally out of his depth. He wanted her, obviously. She didn’t want him. Obviously. Or so he thought. He smiled, the big one, which seemed to put her at ease. “It’s all just work and the usual crap,” he tried. “Let’s go get something to eat and forget about life for a while.”
    Claire smiled, but there was something wistful and disappointed when she did. Ben stared at her gray eyes.
    “What is it, Claire?”
    She shook her head and tried to look away and then stared into Ben’s eyes, as if it were a dare. “You used to say that. Do you remember? When we were in France. When we were so young?”
    “What, that I was hungry?”
    Claire’s face clouded, as if she’d gone too far and the world would never really understand her. “No. Oh, forget it. I sometimes think the world is full of a million memories and most people remember five hundred thousand particular memories, and I remember the other five hundred thousand.” She shook her head again. Her long, blond hair swung against her shoulder. “I sometimes think I should try to remember the other five hundred thousand, to be a part of the world.” She smiled—a sad, lost smile—then shrugged. “But I guess we can only remember what sticks, you know?”
    Fuck , Ben thought. He was a mess.
    He stared at her lips. Why did they have to be so plump? If she was a hard, cold, strident woman, it just didn’t make sense that she would possess a pair of kissable, red, trembling lips.
    “Ben?”
    “Yes,” he answered firmly. “Sorry, I was just remembering…the same things. I remember it. I remember how you and I could forget everything,” when we kissed , he wanted to add. “You aren’t the only one who remembers that…those…the memories. I mean, well, let’s go get something to eat, eh?”
    Claire smiled and Ben recognized it for what it was. The full, real one, not the cool stubborn one she used as a mask to protect herself from the world. “Yes. Yes, please.”
    Ben put a few bills on the table for the two beers and Claire’s wine, and they walked out of the bar and into the cool night.
    They went to a Japanese noodle shop on Second Avenue and laughed about Claire’s first two weeks of work and how ridiculous it was