The Promise

Chapter Fourteen And Fast

For the three thousandth time that evening, I heard a car, went to my window, and looked out.

Three thousand was the golden number. I knew this when I saw the car outside was Benny’s Explorer.

This meant I ran to the door of my apartment, threw it open and dashed out, racing straight to Ben, who’d managed in that time to angle out of his SUV.

I didn’t slow. I hit him on the fly, arms wrapped around his neck, legs around his hips. He went back on a foot on impact, but I only vaguely noticed. This was because I bent my head and laid a wet one on him.

One arm around my back, one under my ass, he let me.

In order to breathe, I eventually had to lift my head.

But when I did, I smiled big down at him and said, “Hey, baby. Welcome to Brownsburg.”

He smiled back, gave me a squeeze, and replied, “Think it’s safe to say you’re happy to see me.”

“Two weeks is too long,” I returned.

“Yeah,” he said, still smiling. “Now, do I gotta carry you in and haul my ass back out here to get my shit, or are you gonna let go so I can take one trip?”

“I suppose I’ll let go,” I told him.

I said it, but I didn’t let go.

Ben waited.

I held on and kept grinning at him.

After this went on awhile, Ben started laughing but hefted me up a smidge, his signal he was done with my game.

It was then it hit me he’d been on the road for hours so I should get him inside, get him a beer, and get him fed. Once I got all that accomplished, I’d get something else out of him, and not out on the street.

I loosened my limbs and he put me on my feet. But he immediately grabbed my hand and used it to adjust my position in order to open the back door of his truck. He nabbed his bag, slammed the door, and moved with me to my opened apartment door.

He did this looking around, and we were on the curvy path that led to my place when he looked down at me and noted, “This place is the shit, babe.”

It was. The Brendal apartment complex in Brownsburg. Steep rent, but the landscaping was amazing. It was kept clean, had security, was gated, had top-of-the-line everything, and each floor plan for each unit was different, but differently awesome.

I had a two-bedroom floor-level unit. It was designed and landscaped so the front was shaded and mostly hidden, the entryway to the door was an alcove shrouded in ivy and tucked under the upstairs apartment. The inside had views from its windows at the dining/kitchen area to the pool, the bedrooms to some now-fallow cornfields, and the living room led into a not insubstantial courtyard that had plenty of space for a couple lounge chairs and a two-seater patio table, which I’d arranged around my own personal two-tiered fountain.

I loved it. It was awesome. Removed from the town proper, thus quiet, but close to all its amenities, a nearly straight shot to work, and well kept. It was the best apartment I’d ever had.

“Wait until you see the courtyard,” I told Benny.

He looked down at me before he used my hand to shove me through my front door.

I pulled free as he closed the door, dropped his bag, and looked around.

I took two steps in, turned, and asked him, “Beer before tour, or tour before beer?”

Ben quit taking in the open space that consisted of a curved living/dining/kitchen area and his eyes came to me.

Not looking, he tossed his keys on the little tile-topped table I had by the door and replied, “Tour.”

“Okay.”

“Of the bedroom,” he went on, and a tremble ran along my inner thighs.

Apparently, the drive down hadn’t tuckered Benny out.

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Immediately,” Ben finished.

I stared into his eyes.

Then I turned and walked quickly to my bedroom.

Ben followed me.

***

Some time later, wearing Benny’s tee, I hit the bedroom with two fresh cold ones in my hands and saw Ben in my bed, sheet to his waist, back to my headboard, chest bare, eyes lazy and on me.

I wanted to stop, take a moment to memorize that or, better yet, go get my camera and take a picture. However, that would delay me joining him.

So instead, I climbed into bed using only my knees, moved to straddle him, and the instant I got in position, he cocked his knees, semi-cocooning me in the awesomeness that was Benny.

Way better than a picture.

I handed him his beer and put mine to my lips, sucking it back.

When I tipped my head down, Ben asked, “You gonna get me drunk or are you gonna feed me?”

I tilted my head to the side and asked back, “You hungry?”

“Made me do all the work, cara,” he remarked, and I felt my eyes begin to go squinty.

“It was only ten minutes ago, Ben, so the memory is fresh that you didn’t let me do any of the work.”

“You didn’t fight that too hard.”

He was right.

Still, I glared at him.

He grinned at me, put a hand to my waist, and slid it back and up my spine at the same time forcing me closer to him.

“Like your bed,” he murmured when he got me where he wanted me.

“That’s too bad. You continue being a jerk, you’ll be sleeping on the couch.”

His eyes lit with humor at a threat he knew was empty. He ignored that threat and went on, “Your place is the shit.”

“I know.”

“Missed you, Frankie,” he whispered, and at his words, I dropped forward, forehead landing on his collarbone.

“Missed you too, honey,” I said there.

He wrapped his arm tight around my back and asked, “Now, you gonna feed me?”

I lifted up again and looked at him. “Of course I am, but, pointing out, I didn’t buy ready-made barbeque. I put dinner in the crockpot before I went to work this morning and it’s been cooking all day.”

“Good news, but are you gonna keep bragging about it, or am I gonna actually get the chance to eat it?”

I ignored him this time and shared, “Out of season, but chocolate-filled snowballs for dessert.”

His body froze under mine, his eyes flared, and he stared at me.

Oh no. Was that too soon? A mistake? Was that reminder going to make him pissed at me?

I had my answer in under a second, that answer meaning my beer bottle met his on my nightstand, I was on my back in my bed, Ben on top of me, and he was kissing me.

When he was done, he looked into my eyes and said, “I get dessert first.”

I smiled.

***

“The next one’s gonna be a boy.”

This was proclaimed over dinner at Vi and Cal’s table the next evening, and it was proclaimed by Cal after Vi shared they were having a girl and they were naming her after Cal’s sadly departed mom, Angela.

“I haven’t even given you this one yet,” Vi snapped.

I pressed my lips together in order to hold my tongue, a tongue that wanted to advise Cal that teasing his seven-months-pregnant fiancée was probably not the way to go.

Cal totally ignored her and stated, “It’s not, then the next one after that will be.”

Vi’s eyes got huge.

“I want all sisters,” Keira declared unwisely at this juncture. “My friend Heather has two brothers and their rooms smell. Like…crazy.”

“Joe needs a boy so he’s not totally outnumbered,” Kate chimed in.

“He’s got me,” Keira told her sister.

“You aren’t a boy,” Kate pointed out.

“So?” Keira returned, and not letting her sister get another word in, she carried on, “With this one bein’ a girl, that means Mom will have to pop out, like…three more for Joe not to be outnumbered.”

“Works for me,” Cal muttered before shoving seafood risotto in his mouth.

“Joe!” Vi practically yelled.

Cal looked to his woman and swallowed before saying, “Well, it does.”

“Can we please end this discussion of Violet, otherwise known as the one-woman baby-making factory?”

Cal gave her a look that eloquently said that baby making required two, which fortunately the girls missed since they were giggling at what their mother had said.

But it was then I felt something coming from my side. I looked there to see Ben leaned back, arms resting casually on the arms of his chair, his eyes on his cousin, his face holding another expression I wished I had a camera to capture for eternity.

He was happy for Cal. Openly. He was happy that after the nightmare Cal had lived that forced him to live half a life, it ended with this: a beautiful, kind woman, pregnant with his child, opposite him at the end of the table; two gorgeous girls, who acted like Cal hadn’t been sitting there for eight months but he’d been doing it for eight years, and they liked it; a lovely home; a fabulous meal on the table.

Happiness.

Goodness.

Everywhere.

I reached out a hand and curled it around Ben’s thigh and he aimed that look at me.

I leaned toward him and he read my lean. This meant he met me halfway and touched his mouth to mine.

When we pulled away and turned back to our plates, Keira, who’d obviously witnessed the PDA, asked Cal, “It’s been months. Can I make my move on Jasper Layne now?”

Cal leveled his eyes on his girl and said, “No.”

“Joe!” she cried.

“No,” he repeated.

“He’s only had one girlfriend the last three months,” Keira informed Cal, sharing plainly how into this Jasper Layne she was and, thus, how closely she paid attention.

“Yeah? He still with her?” Cal asked.

“Um…no,” Keira muttered.

“And how long was he with her?” Cal pushed.

“About a week,” Kate put in, and Keira cut her eyes at Kate, giving her the look any little sister gave her big sister for ratting her out.

“Then, no,” Joe said firmly.

Keira slumped in her seat.

“Keira?” I called, and her eyes came to me. “Good things come to those who wait.”

After I said that, Ben slid an arm along the back of my chair. Keira watched this, eyes darting between Ben, me, and his arm on the back of my chair. The devastation lifted and she smiled. Then she resumed eating.

It was then that I caught a glimpse of Cal looking at Benny with much the same look as Ben had been giving him earlier. Not as open, not as out there, but the contentment in his eyes was easy to read.

This meant what he read in Ben was that Benny was happy.

And the reason he was was because of me.

When I saw that, I felt a warmth spreading, starting from my belly.

I looked back down at my plate of the phenomenal risotto that Vi made, which Cal had told us would be the “best shit we ever tasted.”

He was wrong. Benny’s pies were better.

Still, it was amazing.

So I resumed eating.

***

“This sucks,” I whispered late afternoon the next day.

“Yep,” Ben whispered back.

“My turn next,” I reminded him.

“Yep,” Ben agreed.

“I’ll get on that immediately.”

“Good, baby,” Ben replied. “Now kiss me.”

I looked into his eyes before I rolled up on my toes and kissed him.

Ben kissed me back.

Then I had to let him go so he could get in his SUV. As he was doing that, starting up and pulling out, I made my way back to the sidewalk in front of my apartment.

I stood there and waved as he pulled away.

And I kept standing there, though not waving, until I couldn’t see his truck anymore.

Only then did I repeat in a whisper, “This sucks,” and walked into my empty apartment.

***

The next day, I swiftly made my way to my office, got there, closed the door behind me, sat behind my desk, and snatched up my cell.

I found him easily. He was all over my Recents.

I hit Go and put the phone to my ear.

“Cara,” Ben answered.

“Guess what?” I asked.

“Tell me,” he ordered.

“Well, I have a bunch of travel coming up the next three weeks. But after that, I just talked with my boss, and he said he couldn’t see why I could occasionally work from my place in Brownsburg but couldn’t work from your house in Chicago.”

“No shit?” Ben asked.

“No shit,” I answered.

“Excellent, baby,” he said, deep, easy, and happy.

I clicked on my computer, bringing up my schedule, talking into the phone, “Looks like…” I paused, doing a scan. “I could drive up Friday night after I get back from Atlanta, just under three weeks from today. And I can stay…” I clicked, scanned, and told him, “at least until the next Thursday. I have a meeting in the office on Friday, but I can ask if they can conference call me in. That’ll give us a whole week.” When I finished, my voice had pitched higher with excitement.

“When do you get back from Atlanta?” Ben asked.

“Flight lands at 7:45.”

“At night?”

“Yep.”

“Drive up on Saturday,” Ben commanded.

I sat back in my chair and blinked. “Why?”

“You land at 7:45, you aren’t on the road until well after eight at least, and you’re a woman alone on the road at night until late.”

“I can hack it.”

“Bet you can, but you aren’t.”

“Benny.”

“Frankie,” he said low and in a tone I’d never heard from him.

Hearing it then, I stared unseeing out the window that made up the wall of my office and listened closely as Ben kept going.

“You give me attitude over shit like this, I’m not gonna think it’s your normal cute. I’m gonna find it frustrating. Because straight up, this means somethin’ to me. You can take care of yourself, but there are assholes out there who, wouldn’t matter how good you were at it, they’d be better at doin’ the shit they do. You gotta stop to hit a bathroom. You get a flat tire. Whatever. You’re vulnerable, even though you think you got your shit tight. The freaks come out at night, Frankie, and no freak is gonna get to my baby. I wanna see you as soon as I can see you, but I’d rather it not be after I’ve worried for hours that you’ll get to me in one piece. So come in the morning, yeah?”

After he quit speaking, I sat frozen in my seat.

Night after night, hell, day after day, growing up from age twelve to when I got the hell out, I could be anywhere with anyone doing anything and neither of my parents cared. My sisters didn’t care. My brother didn’t care.

As for me, I was the big sis, got in my siblings’ faces and kept track of them. I knew where they were all the time, and sometimes, I even went out to check they weren’t lying to me (they often lied to me, which meant, when I’d find them, I had to go bat-shit crazy in front of their friends—so they quit lying to me).

But no one worried about where I was. No one worried about how I got there. No one worried about me getting there safe.

I loved him for it, but Vinnie knew I could handle myself. He knew the kind of woman I was and the one I was aiming at being. He could be macho and protective, but mostly, he let me be me. He didn’t even try it, probably because he didn’t want me to go bat-shit crazy.

Benny didn’t care if I went bat-shit crazy.

Benny wanted me to be safe and get to him healthy. Benny cared where I was, where I was going, and how I got there.

Right then, experiencing that for the first time in my thirty-four years of life, my throat felt scratchy and my eyes felt prickly, and I had to put everything into keeping it together so I wouldn’t start crying at work.

“Frankie,” Ben said softly when I didn’t say anything. “Don’t be pissed, baby.”

“Hush, Benny,” I whispered, my voice croaky. “I’m figuring out one of my ‘I don’t knows.’”

He grew silent.

I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath.

After giving me time, Ben prompted, “You gonna share that with me?”

I opened my eyes. “Yeah, honey, but I’m at work and things are kind of crazy. Huge schedule and I’m everywhere the next three weeks. And it’s one of those things that I wanna share with you when I have you with me. But I will say it’s good, you bein’ the first person in my life who gives a shit that I get where I’m goin’ and do it safe.”

He grew silent again, but this time, the silence was loaded. Loaded with warmth. Loaded with goodness. All of this beating into me after pinging off cell phone towers over hundreds of miles.

When his silence lasted, I called, “Benny?”

“Hush, baby, I’m tryin’ to figure out if I’m more happy that I gave you that or more pissed that you’d never had it.”

“Well, I’m happy,” I told him.

“Good,” he replied quietly.

I pulled in a deep breath to keep my emotions under control while Ben kept speaking.

“Now is one of those times when a day away from you seems way too fuckin’ long, and before that, a day away from you was way too fuckin’ long. Three weeks is gonna kill,” he told me.

“I’m a phone call away, honey.”

“Yeah, and that sucks, ’cause that phone call won’t hit you at the market and end with you askin’ me what I want for dinner.”

“You work through dinner,” I pointed out.

He had a smile in his voice when he returned, “Shut up, Frankie.”

I had a smile in mine when I said, “I gotta get back to work, honey.”

“Right. Talk to you later.”

“Absolutely. ’Bye, Ben.”

“’Bye, baby.”

We disconnected and I gave myself the pleasure of feeling the goodness of all of that, including coming to my epiphany. The goodness of the last part wasn’t coming to understand I’d never had anyone who gave that kind of shit about me. It was coming to that understanding when I had someone who did.

That goodness ended when my attention was taken by Travis Berger walking into the Director of Research and Development’s office.

Travis was the Executive Vice President of Operations. I liked him. He was driven and aggressive and built like a pit bull. But he’d also taken me out to lunch on my first day at work, took his time to get to know me, told me in a way that felt genuine they were happy to have me on their team, and shared how brave he thought I was about the whole kidnapping/getting shot thing. In other words, generally folding me in the arms of Wyler Pharmaceuticals.

But now he looked ticked as in ticked.

I couldn’t say I knew him very well. He was around but I was not, and he was five steps above me—me as Manager of Eastern Sales, reporting to the Assistant Director of US Sales, who reported to the Director of Sales who, in turn, reported to the Assistant VP of Sales and Marketing, who reported to the Vice President, who reported to Travis Berger.

I did know he was young. I’d never known a man in his position at his age. Our company was massive and multinational, employees numbering in the thousands, and he was in his late forties.

I did know that when I wasn’t on the road, I burned the night oil when I started because I had a lot to do, a lot to learn, and a lot to prove, and I never went home when he wasn’t sitting at his desk behind his own (much wider) wall of glass.

He was not always affable. From what I could tell, that just wasn’t his nature. But he seemed one of those quiet, watchful types who didn’t miss a trick, controlled his emotions, and would have no problem telling you that you’d fucked up, but he’d do it quietly.

So him looking ticked surprised me.

My phone ringing in my hand took me out of those thoughts, and the name of my Chicago rep on my screen put me into less reflective ones and more annoyed ones.

But I made the big bucks; I had to take the shit along with it.

So I didn’t have time to think about how much I was falling in love with the process of falling in love with Benny Bianchi. I didn’t think about what it might mean that the Executive Vice President of our company was walking around ticked.

I took the call.

***

“Hey, baby.”

“Things got crazy, traffic primarily, not to mention a rental car agent who was way too freaking chatty to a woman who needed to catch a plane, and now the marshal on my flight is eyeing me like he’s gonna tackle me and force me to put my phone in flight mode. So it sucks, but I got on this plane by the seat of my pants and I gotta say ‘hey’ and ‘later.’ I’ll call you when I land,” I said to Benny after his greeting.

Over the past three weeks, this had become our gig. He worked when I was not working. I worked when he was. This meant brief snatches of conversation when I had time at work and phone calls on weekends, if we were lucky.

But Ben knew my travel schedule because he demanded to know it.

Of course, thus ensued me explaining to him that if he had email, I could easily email my schedule to him rather than reciting it over the phone while he wrote it down. He replied that he didn’t get to hear my voice through an email so he’d take the cramp in his hand so he could listen to me talk.

I quit giving him shit after that.

Now Benny expected me to phone when I boarded before takeoff and phone again when I landed. He didn’t mind me phoning again when I got home or to my hotel, but he didn’t have the schedule memorized to that point or his phone on him so he could take my call, even if he was making a pie. Which he always did when he knew I was hitting a flight and when he knew when the wheels would hit land.

I loved this.

I loved it because I loved connecting with Benny any way I could. I loved it because Benny wanted it. I loved it because when he demanded it, I knew he was demanding it because I’d opened the floodgates to him doing something like that when I told him I was glad he gave a shit that I was safe. I loved it that he had been holding it back to spring on me when we were more solid, and doing that with a mind to the woman he knew me to be.

Last, I loved the fact that I was falling in love from (mostly) afar with Benny Bianchi.

I was doing it so fast, from my previous experience after Ben took me home from the hospital, I knew if it wasn’t from afar, it would happen a lot quicker.

Maybe instantly.

“You’ve spotted the marshal?” Ben asked, taking me from my thoughts.

“Yep. He’s hot.” I felt unhappy vibes from Ben over the phone, which made me smile but they also made me say, “You’re hotter, obviously.”

“A save, but not a good one.”

“Whatever,” I muttered.

“Call me when you get home,” he ordered.

“You got it, capo.”

“And call me before you leave in the morning.”

“You’re on my speed dial.”

“And bring that nightie, the purple one with the pink at the tits. I’m feeling nostalgic.”

That order caused a lovely ripple and me to hiss into my phone, “Ben, don’t turn me on when I’m fifteen minutes away from thirty thousand feet.”

He didn’t miss a beat as he replied, “First chance we got, vacation, plane ride, mile-high club.”

God!

Benny.

“Are you listening to me?” I snapped.

His voice was nothing but sweet when he whispered, “Get home safe, Frankie.”

I huffed out a breath, not enjoying his increasingly utilized tactic of quelling my attitude by bringing out all the awesomeness of Benny. Even so, I had not yet figured out recourse other than to have my attitude quelled.

Falling in love with Benny was knocking me off my game.

Whatever.

“I will, honey,” I told him. “And I’ll call.”

“Right. Later, cara.”

“Later, Benny.”

He disconnected.

I eyed the hot guy, who perhaps only in my fertile imagination was the air marshal, and put my phone into flight mode.

***

I parked my Z in the space off the alley at the back of Benny’s place.

I grabbed my big suitcase out of the back, dropped it to its rollers, extended the handle, and barely cleared the back of my car before Ben was there.

Then I was pressed against the side of my car, Ben pressed into me, one hand at my ass, one hand curved around my side at my breast, thumb stroking this close to ground zero, tongue in my mouth.

When he lifted his head (and after my eyes fluttered open), he said, “Welcome home, Frankie.”

I pressed deeper into him and smiled.

Ben smiled back, let me go, grabbed the handle of my case in one hand, my hand in his other, and he dragged us both up and into his house.

Ben left my bag in the kitchen and kept dragging me up to his bedroom.

But not before I saw it.

Right there, out in the open, for anyone to see.

A white sheet of paper, on the top in bold script, Francesca, and on the bottom in slashed scribbles, dates and times.

My schedule.

On Ben’s fridge.

Yes.

I was falling in love with Benny.

And fast.

***

I felt Ben get close to my back.

The good part about this was that he lifted up the hem of his tee that I was wearing and cupped my ass over my panties when he did it.

The bad part was him looking over my shoulder at what I was doing at his kitchen counter and promptly asking, “Tuna casserole? Seriously?”

I twisted my neck to look up at him and pointed out, “Your cupboards were bare, Benny. I had two options. Tuna casserole or lasagna made out of chicken and cream of mushroom soup.”

He’d moved his eyes from the casserole I was assembling to me as I spoke, and when I was done, he started.

“Drawer’s full of delivery menus.”

“And my life is full of eating out, room service, getting home late and doing it with takeout in my car. I wanna cook,” I replied.

Ben’s face got soft as I spoke and he muttered on a squeeze of my ass, “Whatever you want, baby.” Then he moved away, stating, “We’ll go to the market tomorrow.”

“Works for me,” I told the casserole.

It was after spending all day in bed with Benny.

Not true. He got up and made us sandwiches while I snoozed, since I’d gotten in my car at six in the morning, hightailed my ass up to Chicago, and, upon arrival, got laid thoroughly and energetically by Benny Bianchi. He came back to his bedroom with two sandwiches filled with salami, turkey, and provolone, covered in mayo and Dijon.

He also came up with three bags of chips.

Benny and his chips.

I loved that.

Now we’d surfaced. It was the dinner hour. Ben had arranged for the night off, so it was him and me.

And I was cooking.

I quit grating cheddar cheese into a bowl and opened the tub of Pringles. Then I poured the remains of the tub into the cheese.

“Pringles?” Ben asked, and I twisted my neck to see him lounging in nothing but his jeans at his kitchen table, beer in hand, eyes on me.

Benny Bianchi, lord of the manor, watching his woman cooking.

Why was that so hot?

“Pringles,” I replied, then turned back and grabbed the metal spoon to start stirring and scrunching. “We aren’t having tuna casserole. We’re having cheesy, crunchy, Pringle-topped tuna casserole á la Frankie.”

“I’da known about the crunchy top, I wouldn’t’ve bitched.”

I looked over my shoulder to see if he was giving me shit and grinned at him when I noted he was serious.

A man who appreciated a crunchy-topped tuna casserole.

I liked that.

The insanity in that was, I was thinking about tuna casserole, which meant I had officially entered woman-falling-in-love zone, a zone that made women crazy.

Since I was already crazy, this was a dangerous place for me to be.

As if reading my thoughts about being crazy, Ben said, “Three weeks.”

At first, I didn’t get him, so I looked back to what I was doing and asked, “What?”

“The answer to your ‘I don’t know.’”

That was when I got him.

I stopped smushing the Pringles and cheese and, spoon in hand, turned to Benny and asked, “Can we talk about that when the casserole is in the oven?”

“You get I’m into you?” he asked back crazily.

I thought about the four orgasms I’d had that day and answered slowly, “Uh…yeah.”

“Okay, you get that. Do you get that I’m into you?”

My breathing stopped coming easy.

Still, I managed to get out, “Yes, Benny.”

“Right. So you get that, then you’ll get that you came to an understanding about yourself that was meaningful. I’m into you, so whatever that was means something to me too. I gave you time to give it to me. I can give you another ten minutes, babe, what I’m askin’ is that you don’t make me.”

What he was saying was that when I freaked out on him, we nearly lost what we were enjoying right then, the hours before, and even apart, the weeks before that. I had no reason to give him that explained what I did to tear us apart. I hit upon part of that reason. And he needed that reason in order to have some hope that I was working on it so I wouldn’t do it again.

I’d made him wait.

He was done waiting.

Getting all that, I was powerless not to blurt, “No one gave a shit about where I was or what I did growin’ up.”

“That part I got, and in gettin’ it, realized I pretty much knew it already,” Ben replied.

I drew in a breath and turned back to the Pringles.

I went back to smushing but did it speaking.

“It was my life. I didn’t really think about it until you said that to me over the phone.”

“Okay,” he said when I stopped speaking. “Now, where does that lead you, cara?”

“It leads me to the fact that I don’t have the training to be good at this.”

“Good at what?”

“Anything,” I whispered to the bowl, then saw the pot with the noodles was near to boiling over, so I went to the stove and turned it down.

On my way back, I ran into Benny.

His hands came to my hips and I tipped my head back to look at him.

“You know that’s whacked, right?” he asked softly.

“Rationally, maybe. Crazy-Frankie, which is who I happen to be, no way.”

“Rewind,” he stated. “You found a man you fell in love with, shacked up with, and stood beside, even when he decided to get involved with the mob.”

I pressed my lips together.

Benny kept going.

“Through that, though, you lived clean. You stood beside him all the same.”

I unpressed my lips to remind him, “I already admitted to you I was givin’ up on Vinnie.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” he returned.

“Do we have to go through this again?”

“I don’t know, do we?”

“She bailed,” I declared, and Ben’s brows drew together.

“Come again?”

“Ma. She bailed,” I told him. “Repeatedly. On Dad. On her other husbands. Boyfriends. It wasn’t the same, but it was in a prolonged way, a very prolonged way, bailin’ on her kids.”

“Keep goin’,” he urged.

“Same with Dad. Women in, women out.”

“And?”

“No connections. No roots. Nothin’ to drag them down.”

“I’m tryin’, honey, but I’m not followin’.”

“That’s what I learned. That’s how I was raised. That’s what I know.”

“Fuck,” he whispered, getting it.

“Yeah,” I replied.

He put it out there verbally, “So that’s why you’re kickin’ your own ass, thinkin’ before he was killed of givin’ up on Vinnie.”

“I didn’t want to be like them.”

“And you think you’ll do the same to me?”

I shook my head but said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You need to reason that out, honey.”

I didn’t know what he meant, so I asked, “What?”

“First, your folks, they were shit parents. I know they’re yours, babe, but evidence suggests they’re straight-up shit human beings.”

“Ben—” I started, but he was not done and he talked over me.

“Heard from your ma or your dad since you got out of the hospital?”

“Well, Ma phoned to ask me to her wedding.”

His mouth got tight but he still managed to say, “Classic.”

“It’s who she is,” I informed him.

“Yeah, and the fuck of it is, you got no choice but to accept that. You can cut her out or you can take her as she comes. She was my ma, she’d have seen the back of me a long fuckin’ time ago. What does that say about you, Frankie?”

His words penetrated, they did it deep, and I went completely still.

Ben, eyes on me, hands on me, caught it.

That was why he said, “Right.”

“Oh my God,” I whispered, something fluttering in my chest.

“Right,” he repeated. “Nat fucks up, she comes to you. Your ma gets hitched a-fuckin’-gain, she invites you to the wedding. Heard from Enzo Junior?”

“He calls. Not often, but regularly,” I said quietly.

Benny nodded once, shortly. “Yeah, pours his shit on you. His life’s a fuckin’ mess, but you do not tell him to sort his shit out. You do not tell your mother she shit all over you growin’ up and you don’t wanna watch her marry another schmuck whose heart she’s gonna crush. You don’t do any of that shit ’cause you’re Frankie. You stick.”

All he was saying struck so deep, I had to lift my hands and curl them around his wrists to stay steady.

But Ben didn’t stop talking.

“You know, babe, it is not okay for a woman to live thirty-four years without one person in her life givin’ a shit. I was workin’ through my shit with Vinnie, seein’ as I had no choice; the man’s dead and I gotta let it go. But heard that and got pissed at him all over again.”

“He knew I could take care of myself. It was respect, him giving that to me,” I explained.

“Bullshit,” Ben bit out. “I get you get that I can take care of myself. I know how to drive a car so I can get places safe. Someone gets in my space, I can handle the situation. But it still would feel good you showed you were happy I got home safe, even if I went to the fuckin’ grocery store. You do that no matter it’s dick or pussy, if you care about somebody. That said, a man has a woman, he sees to that woman. He doesn’t leave her to see to herself. It’s not disrespect to do that. It’s disrespect the other way around.”

I stopped breathing.

Ben kept going.

“Pissed at your parents for doin’ that to you. Pissed at Vinnie for doin’ that to you. Contrary to that, I’m glad I got to give it to you, because you gettin’ it now means you’ll appreciate it. It also means I don’t have to put up with your shit when I do what I gotta do to look after you.”

That thing in my chest stopped fluttering.

“You’ve got a good roll going here, honey, don’t fuck it up,” I warned.

“Impossible,” he shot back instantly. “You’re into me. You’re Frankie. I could treat you like shit and you’d stand by me. But lucky for you, I have zero intention of doin’ that.”

That flutter came back and it wasn’t a flutter anymore.

It was shaking me to the core from the inside.

I held on to his wrists and stared into his eyes and knew in that instant exactly why I was falling so fast for Benny Bianchi.

Because he had zero intention of treating me like shit and every intention of caring about me.

“See I scored with that,” he said softly, staring right back at me.

“Big time,” I replied softly too.

“You’re worried about hurting me,” he kept talking softly. “Doin’ the shit you grew up watchin’ your parents do.”

I nodded uncertainly. “I think so.”

“So, in order to protect me, you instigated a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

I just kept nodding.

He lifted his hands and mine went with them, even as he cupped my jaw and bent close so his face was all I could see.

“Baby, let that shit go.” His fingers dug in. “It’s not in you.”

“What if it is?” My voice sounded tortured.

“How could that be?” he asked gently.

“It’s who I am.”

“If it was, think about it, Francesca, when would you have left Vinnie?”

I didn’t answer, just held on to his wrists at my jaw and stared in his eyes, knowing it would have been early.

After the franchise idea crashed and burned, possibly.

After the sandwich shop tanked, probably.

The minute he started things up with Sal.

Definitely.

“You got it good. You got someone who looks after you; you got someone who gives a shit. Livin’ the way you lived, losin’ shit you didn’t even know you should have, do you ever think you’d leave?” he pushed.

“No,” I breathed.

“No,” Ben agreed.

I kept holding on, staring into his eyes while I said, “I think the noodles are gonna turn mushy, Benny.”

“I don’t give a fuck, Frankie.”

“I also think I need tequila with dinner,” I went on.

“Lucky for you, cupboards are bare, but I got that.”

“You’re the shit, Benny Bianchi,” I whispered and watched him close his eyes.

Then I felt his hands pull me to him. He kissed my forehead before he moved me back and, again, looked at me.

“You gonna let me give you good?” he whispered back.

God.

Benny.

“Yes.”

“You gonna freak and bail on me?”

“No.”

His fingers dug in again as he said, “That’s my Frankie.”

I wanted to, I really did, but I couldn’t stop them. The tears hit my eyes, one dropping and sliding down my cheek.

Ben saw it, pulled me by my jaw into his chest, and let go only to wrap his arms tight around me.

I did the same to him.

Another tear slid down, but I held tight to Ben and got control.

While I did, Ben held tight to me.

Minutes later, he moved to put his lips to my hair and said there, “I’ll get the noodles, babe. You deal with the rest.”

“Right,” I agreed.

“You good?” he asked.

I was better than I’d ever been, in the arms of Benny Bianchi.

“Yep.”

“Good,” he murmured, then kissed the top of my head, let me go, and went to the noodles on the stove.

I turned to the counter and dealt with the rest.

***

The next day, Ben and I went to the market.

We got napkins.