The Promise

Chapter Nine You Aren’t Easy

My hands on the steering wheel of my Z, I was aiming her toward Vinnie and Benny’s Pizzeria.

And I was freaking out.

It was the first time I was behind the wheel of my car since I’d driven it to Hart’s house, following the car Hart’s goons had Vi in.

But that wasn’t the reason I was freaking out.

It had been three days since the first day Benny and me tried on the idea of Benny and me to see how it fit.

Since it fit really well, the last three days had been good.

I was definitely healing. I was getting around more, getting exhausted less, and the pain had gone from occasionally sharp and sometimes aching to randomly nagging.

This meant that I’d managed to get a lot done the last three days. Cleaning up my email and making arrangements with my clients to move them to new representatives. Gabbing with friends to let them know I was good and getting caught up with them.

And the last two mornings I went out with Mrs. Zambino on her power walks, which she took the “power” out of in deference to me, but still, the walks felt good. Getting out, moving, getting fresh air in my lungs, and getting a kick out of Mrs. Zambino, who was good company in a crotchety, know-it-all, old lady kind of way.

And the night before, I’d treated Asheeka to one of Benny’s pies at the pizzeria—another obstacle conquered, the first time I’d been there since we lost Vinnie. I’d asked Benny for Sela’s number and called her, asking her to join us, and she’d said yes.

The only weird part was seeing the sign with Benny’s name on it, and the weird part about that was that seeing it felt good. Like I was proud of him and what he was doing but also proud to be the woman who was with him, walking into a restaurant that had his name over the door. Something tangible. Real. Benny didn’t create that pizzeria, but I knew he took over the kitchen what was now years ago and it had lost none of its popularity. Therefore, it was Benny who kept it going.

No, kept it thriving.

So I was proud of him and proud to have a man who could do that want to be with me. And that pride came with a strange sense of peace.

It would have been easy to twist that, to think back to my time with Vinnie, who made all the wrong moves in life and paid for it in an ugly way in the end.

But I didn’t twist it. I walked with the girls into that restaurant with my head held high, knowing my man would wow them with his pie, and knowing if I kept my shit together and didn’t twist things that didn’t need to be twisted, the real wow behind that man was all for me.

The girls and I’d had fun, and with Benny working in the kitchen and not playing watchdog over me, I’d been able to down a couple of glasses of Chianti, which didn’t suck.

Man, who worked the front of the house—sometimes with Theresa, sometimes she’d take the night off—came to our table often, mostly because Sela was there and it was cute how they’d been together for a while and he still took as much time as he could get with her.

Vinnie Senior, like Theresa, had “retired,” but the retirement part was a loose interpretation of the word. Ben told me he came around, stuck his nose in, even worked in the kitchen, helping Ben, or came in so he could have the night off. But he mostly left it to Benny.

Theresa, not one to kick back at night and watch games or cop shows, or kick back at all, had also retired loosely. This meant her form of retirement was still showing at the restaurant more than occasionally to work.

Theresa wasn’t on last night, but with his girl there, Man found his times to come to our table to entertain us.

Ben had also showed once to give me a kiss, the girls a welcome, and to ask Asheeka if she enjoyed the pie.

Asheeka had.

In fact, she told me, after eating the pie (and the fresh breadsticks, and partaking of her portion of the big salad with banana peppers, olives, homemade croutons, and a healthy dusting of freshly shaved parmesan cheese in a light oil-based dressing) that I didn’t owe her for shower duty. My marker was paid.

I got that. The food was that good, and the warm and welcoming feel of the red-and-white-checkered-tablecloth-table-filled room, with pictures of family mounted all over the walls, couldn’t be beat.

Still, I was going to do something more for her. I had to. I was me.

I’d woken up four mornings in a row in Benny’s arms to soft “heys,” nuzzles, and warm arm squeezes, but Benny didn’t push it any further. We kissed, often. No hot and heavy make out sessions, but he frequently laid one on me, either claiming my mouth in a sweet kiss, brushing his lips against mine, or taking his time to make it deeper, but there was no pressure. No pushing.

With other displays of affection, like hand-holding, turning me in his arms every once in a while just to give me a hug and touch his mouth to my neck, I had the feeling he was giving me the chance to get used to him. It wasn’t about making certain I was fit and healthy. It was about making certain I was fit and healthy, mentally. Ready to go there with him, take the next step.

It was like we were living together, but Benny was still giving me the dating-to-get-to-know-you-better part of the relationship and that was pure Benny. Thoughtful. Generous. Sweet.

Awesome.

So it had been a good three days.

No, outside of my own issues that messed up the first part, it had been a good nine days, made good by Benny from the beginning.

Minute by minute was working.

Fabulously.

Or it had been.

Until ten minutes earlier.

Now I was worried the minute-by-minute business was going to fail and do it miserably.

This was on my mind when I hit the alley behind the pizzeria and parked next to Benny’s Explorer, the only car in a lot that was used only by employees.

It was relatively early. The pizzeria didn’t open for lunch, dinner only. They started taking walk-ins at four thirty for orders of takeaway, but didn’t start seating until five.

But Ben had gone in because he had sauce to make. I’d learned in the last three days that he had kids who could make the croutons, whip up the homemade Caesar dressing they used, toss the salads, prepare the homemade pasta, assemble the casseroles, and roll the meatballs.

But the sauce and the pizza dough were made only by Vinnie or Benny.

I parked and got out, walking swiftly to the back door. I prayed it was open because I needed to get to Benny and not do it after pounding on the door, hoping he’d hear me. I tried the door, and for once, my prayers were answered.

I walked in and saw what I’d seen the hundreds of times I’d entered the pizzeria through the kitchen’s back in the days when I was with Vinnie. Stacked up in the space around the door were used kegs. Empty crates that had held vegetables. Discarded boxes.

There was a door to an employee washroom to one side, to the other, a big room lined in stainless steel shelves that held everything the pizzeria needed, from durum flour to toilet paper.

Down the hall I went, passing two more doors: one side, the door to what was now Benny’s office; the other side, a stainless steel door that led into a walk-in fridge.

I was curious to see how Benny had claimed Vinnie’s office, but I was on a mission fueled by a freak out so I kept going, past the last door, which was a walk-in freezer, then I was in the kitchen.

Stainless steel worktable down the middle with a shelf unit that had heating lights where they put prepared plates or pies. Three spindles hanging where they clipped orders. Utensils on hooks. More stainless steel tables around the walls. Big sinks. A back area where more sinks and the industrial dishwashers were. Stainless steel cabinets mounted on the walls that held plates, bowls, glasses. Lower cabinets that held pots, pans, skillets, trays, and drawers with cutlery. Smaller wire shelving under the wall cabinets that gave easy access to herbs and spices. Massive pizza ovens and three enormous restaurant-quality stoves.

Benny’s domain. His kingdom. Where he worked to pay his mortgage and did it in a way that his twenty-five employees could pay their rent.

I stopped just in the kitchen, suddenly not thinking of my problem but, instead, thinking of what could be the crushing weight of being the driving force behind a business where people depended on you to do a large variety of things right on a day-to-day basis. From scheduling correctly, to not over- or under-purchasing tomatoes, to making certain wait staff was trained right, to ensuring every pizza pie and breadstick went out with equal quality, making the dinner an experience to remember and leaving the patron always wanting to come back for more.

With these thoughts coming to me, I turned my eyes to the left to see Ben in his white t-shirt and jeans, standing at one of the stoves, stirring what was in one of two humongous pots there.

The air was filled with the mouth-watering smell of garlic mixed with a subtle hint of fresh cut herbs and I saw big cutting boards on the worktable behind Benny that had the residue of green on one, the juice and seeds of tomatoes on another.

“Babe.”

He spoke and my eyes went to him.

When they did, his gaze moved over my face, his head cocked to the side, and he immediately moved to me, saying, “Jesus, what happened?”

“You know minute by minute?” I asked. He came to a stop a foot away, holding my gaze and nodding slowly. “Well, the next minute is gonna be a lot harder than the last bazillion of them,” I declared.

“Talk to me,” he demanded.

“You’re working,” I replied.

His head jerked slightly in surprise at my words and he said, “Yeah, I am, and you’re here because you’re freaked so now I’m not. Now, I’m standin’ here waitin’ for you to talk to me.”

I shook my head. “What I mean is, you’re working. This is me. I’m freaking and you’re working and I should be good, have a mind to that, keep my shit together, and wait to discuss this with you at a time when you can focus on it, not at a time when you might burn the sauce.”

I watched his face set to firm before he said, “Sauce cooks for-fuckin’-ever and is in no danger of burnin’. But I wouldn’t give a shit if it burned. You got somethin’ on your mind, you talk to me and I’ll listen, even if it takes five hours. I can make more sauce.”

God.

Benny.

“What I’m sayin’ is” —I kept at it, thinking it imperative he heed my warning— “I’m about drama. That’s me and you need to know that. I tried to talk myself out of comin’ here. I knew you’d be working and it wasn’t cool that I interrupted you. That lasted about thirty seconds. Something’s bugging me, I’ll suck you in just to rant about what’s buggin’ me, but mostly, I’ll lay it on you because I want you to fix it for me.”

“Right then, Frankie, maybe it’d be good if you get to the rantin’ part so I can get to the part where I fix it for you.”

God.

Benny.

“This isn’t going to be ranting, per se, just so you know,” I clarified. “This is just gonna be freaking. Ranting is bad, but in some cases, Frankie-style freaking is worse.”

“Babe,” he said slowly, his voice getting lower, his own warning. “Talk to me.”

“I just got off the phone with my new employer,” I declared.

His body tightened and his eyes focused intently on mine.

He knew what was freaking me.

“They’ve given me until tomorrow to give them a definitive start date.”

I watched his chest expand with the deep breath he pulled in, then he erased the short distance we had between us, getting in my space and doing it more by lifting his hands to curl them around either side of my neck.

He dipped his head so his face was closer to mine and he said quietly, “Okay, baby. This isn’t a surprise. We knew this was coming. They weren’t gonna wait forever. Now they’re done waiting.”

I nodded.

They certainly were. They weren’t assholes about it, but they’d gone through a hiring process and those cost some cake. I was supposed to be in my new office in Indianapolis on Monday. They knew I wouldn’t be there then, but no one could put up with an indefinite delay. I’d been understandably cagey about my new start date because I’d never been shot or known anyone who had (who survived it). I had no clue how long it would take for me to get back to good, or good enough, to start a new job after moving to a different state.

The doctor had given me guidance on that but did so with the warning that I hadn’t only sustained a GSW, which was extreme enough, but the circumstances around that were also extreme. So I not only needed time for my body to heal, I also needed to sort out my head.

Thus, the cageyness, because I knew that I didn’t only have all that to deal with, but also the Bianchis.

Now was now. I was getting around better, the pain was fading, and all was well with the Bianchis, primarily the most important one who was right then standing in my space, his hands on me.

It was well, as in it was awesome, and I could do minute by minute when I was experiencing awesome.

But when something big was encroaching on that awesome, I couldn’t deal.

“I’m like this,” I whispered after these thoughts coursed through my brain.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Sometimes I can’t deal,” I admitted. “I’ve been looking out for myself for a long time, a really long time, longer than losing Vinnie, and I’m good at it. But that doesn’t mean sometimes I can’t deal.”

“Frankie, honey, there are times when anyone can’t deal.”

This confused me because Benny was “anyone,” and from my experience of late (not to mention even before), I’d not known a time when he couldn’t deal.

So I asked, “When are the times you can’t deal?”

His mouth stayed closed but his jaw flexed.

I watched it, knew that meant he could always deal, and whispered, “Right.”

“Okay, how ’bout this?” he started. “When my brother pisses away his life and hurts the people I love most in the world, I can’t deal, as evidenced by the fact that I blamed that shit on a good woman and did it in an ugly way that lasted seven years.”

Oh, right. Well, there was that time Benny couldn’t deal.

“That was a doozy,” I murmured, and he grinned.

“Yeah. So there are times when anyone can’t deal.”

I nodded again, feeling slightly better.

Benny spoke again and I felt not-so-slightly worse.

“You give up the lease on your apartment?”

I again nodded.

“Got a place down in Indy?” he went on.

“The company was putting me up in an executive apartment for October, which is still part of my offer. But yes, I went down and scouted a place and my apartment will be open on November first. The movers are all sorted to come, get my stuff, and bring it down the first weekend in November. ”

“Right,” he muttered, his fingers digging lightly into my neck.

He didn’t like this.

I didn’t like this.

I just knew minute by minute wasn’t going to work.

“Ben,” I said, his name coming out shaky.

His face got a smidgen closer so that he was the only thing I could see.

“You gotta go, baby. You got a job. You got a contract with that lease. You got responsibilities. You gotta go.”

I pressed my lips together, feeling the sting in my eyes, the tightness gathering around my heart, because he was right and I didn’t know what that meant for us.

I tried us on and we fit. You tried something on that fit and felt great, you bought it. You did not put it back on the rack and move on.

“But Indianapolis isn’t the moon,” Benny continued. “It’s four hours away. We got phones. We got cars. We got somethin’ worth workin’ on, gettin’ past difficult shit, findin’ a way. You feel up to it, you give them a start date. I’ll take time off, follow you down so you have your car, and I’ll have what’s bound to be your fifteen suitcases in my SUV.”

That made me smile, but my smile, too, was shaky.

Benny carried on, “I’ll stay with you a couple of days, make sure you’re settled, arrange things to come down again when your furniture gets there, help you move in.”

I licked my lips and nodded, feeling the heaviness move out of me and lightness ease in because Benny was making it better.

He kept right on doing that. “You got a new job, a lot to get used to, but somethin’ else you gotta do in between me takin’ you down there and comin’ back is you comin’ up to see me.”

“Okay,” I said softly.

“When are you gonna start?” he asked.

“I, well, would prefer to feel closer to one hundred percent and I still have stuff to pack to get ready for the movers. So, not next week. The, uh, Monday after.”

“Right,” Ben said, sounding businesslike. “I’ll sort shit with Pop and Manny.”

I stared at him for a moment before I whispered, “You make all this sound easy.”

“That’s because this is important to me so I’m determined not to make it hard.”

At that, I fell forward so my forehead hit his chest.

When I did, his hands moved. One to wrap around the back of my neck, one slid up into my hair to cup the back of my head.

And into the top of my hair, he murmured, “See, back to minute by minute. Easy.”

Easy.

Right.

God, Benny.

“We’re startin’ out and I got a new job in Indy I cannot leave, a lease on an apartment that pins me there for at least a year anyway, and you’ve got all this.” I threw a hand out to indicate the kitchen, even though I didn’t move my forehead from his chest. “Which means you can never leave.”

“That’s not the next minute, Frankie,” he reminded me.

I jerked my head back so his was forced to snap his up and his hands were forced to move, and they did, coming to rest just under my jaw.

“We have to think about it, Benny,” I declared, my voice rising.

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeated but didn’t allow him to respond. “Because it’s out there, waiting to strike, and we should plan for when it does.”

“Why?” he asked again, and I felt my eyes get squinty.

“Because, just like this, even though we knew it was coming, it came and now we have to deal and we should plan on how we’re gonna deal.”

“Here’s the drama,” he muttered, lips moving like he was battling a grin.

Wrong thing to say.

And grinning?

Uh…no.

So no, the wax and wane of my freak out waxed. I snapped and shouted, “Benny!”

That was when his face changed, his eyes changed, the bearing of his body changed, everything changed, and I pulled in a breath and held it as he stated, “Honest to Christ, Frankie, you think I’d wait since high school to get my shot at makin’ you mine and then I’d let a four-hour drive and a fuckin’ year lease beat me?”

My breath came out in a whoosh, but this time it was Benny who didn’t let me answer.

“No. I won’t. Puttin’ this out there, Frankie, in the end, Connie was practically livin’ with me. That’s how I burned her. She thought she was in there. But I woke up to her knowin’ I’d come home to a house she cleaned, dinner in the oven, her breakin’ her back to make everything easy on me when that’s my job.”

This particular piece of beauty made me suck in a hissed breath.

But he didn’t quit talking.

“Was a time I didn’t think on shit like that. Back then, what I thought was, for some reason, she didn’t make me happy. Simple. She just didn’t make me happy so I ended it. But the time I didn’t think on shit leaked into the dirt of a forest three weeks ago, Frankie. So I thought on it, and havin’ you in my house, in my bed the last week, it was about me seein’ to your Z. Me makin’ sure you got the Wi-Fi to do your shit on your computer. Me listenin’ to you bitch when you come back from a walk with old lady Zambino. Doin’ it with a gleam in your eye, tellin’ me you’re bitchin’, but you loved every minute she walked with you and busted your chops. So it boils down to this: I don’t want easy, Frankie. I had my shot at that. I wanna work at gettin’ the sweet, enjoyin’ my time with the spicy along the way, ’cause the sweet’s a fuckuva lot sweeter when you gotta earn it.”

“Ben,” I whispered, but didn’t get out another word because he wasn’t done.

“Babe, you cannot plan life. You can pull out all the stops to plan for everything and life will find a way to fuck with those plans, sock you in the gut, send you scrambling. Through that, you either have the balls not to back down and the strength to know what’s important and hold the fuck on with everything you got, or you don’t have that and you give up ’cause you’re weak. Know two things for certain: I’m not fuckin’ weak and you aren’t either.”

He stopped talking and I said nothing because I had no freaking clue what to say.

So he kept going.

“Countin’ it down, we’ve had one date, haven’t fucked you yet, and we been livin’ with each other for nine days. That time good for you?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yeah, it’s been good for me too. Good enough I know it’s important, and I already knew it was important, so I’m gonna hold the fuck on with everything I got and I’m takin’ you with me, Frankie.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“So yeah, it’s gonna suck,” he stated. “I’d rather live a life knowin’ you were bringin’ your girls into my restaurant to throw back some Chianti and eat one of my pies. I’d rather the immediate future came with you gettin’ to know Sela better because Man may be takin’ his time, but he’s gonna put a ring on her finger. You’re already family, which means you’re in a spot where you two can become sisters like no other women can be, and your two sisters are seriously fuckin’ lacking so you could use a good one. I wanna get into bed beside you at night and know I’m wakin’ up to you in the morning. But right now, I can’t get what I want. I just know what I want. I’ve waited for years. I’m not doin’ fuckin’ cartwheels knowin’ I gotta wait more, but I’ll deal. I just gotta know, are you with me?”

I knew what to say to that.

“Yes, I’m with you, Benny.”

He stared at me.

Then he said, “Fuck, gotta stir the sauce.”

For some reason, this made me want to giggle, but I beat it back and just nodded.

He bent and gave me a quick, slightly annoyed but still sweet kiss on the forehead, took his hands from me, and went to the pots that were more aptly described as vats on the stove.

He stirred.

I approached, stopping just short of the stove to rest my hip against the stainless steel counter.

“I’m a pain in the ass,” I told him, and his eyes cut immediately to me.

“That’d be the part where you aren’t easy.”

God.

God.

Benny.

I took in a breath and released it, and with it, I released a lot of garbage. Something I was not really good at doing on my own. Garbage I’d lived with because I’d never had anyone to help me deal, which meant I buried a lot of garbage and lived with it for a long freaking time, polluting me. And something that Benny seemed remarkably skilled at guiding me into getting clean.

Releasing that, I released everything and was back in the minute with Benny.

Being there, I muttered, “Sauce smells good.”

“That’s ’cause it’s not good, it’s fuckin’ amazing.”

I didn’t beat back the giggle at that. I let it loose, and when I did, even more garbage got released, making me feel it.

It wasn’t just clean.

It was also the sweet Benny gave me.

I felt it more when, still giggling, his arm shot out and wrapped around my waist. He pulled me his way so my front was tucked to his side and I was watching from close as he stirred the sauce, the sweet, spicy scent enveloping me.

I slid my arms around him and rested my cheek against his chest.

“You good now?” he asked quietly, still stirring the sauce.

“Yeah,” I answered, also quietly.

“We got a plan for the next bazillion minutes?” he went on, and I smiled against his chest.

“Yeah.”

He kept stirring, even as I felt his lips touch the top of my hair, and he continued stirring and holding me when they were gone.

And I stood in the curve of Benny Bianchi’s arm, watching his hand holding a long-handled wooden spoon, moving it through a rich, thick red sauce, with its miniscule bits of cream-colored minced garlic and dark green bits of a secret mix of fresh herbs going round and round, the goodness of it filling the air.

Another promise.

Feeling that, it hit me that I found myself—me, Francesca Concetti, having lived thirty-four years with not a lot of great, fleeting moments of happiness, and never much to look forward to—standing in the kitchen of a pizzeria in the curve of the arm of a handsome, good, decent man, living a life full of promise.

The promise of Benny.

So I pressed closer, held on tighter, and took in a deep breath, letting the goodness in the air get right in there so it could settle in sweet.

And when I did, Ben tucked me even closer, held on, and stirred the sauce.

***

I should have held on tighter.

I should have let that sweet settle deeper.

I didn’t.