The Promise

Chapter Twenty Swingin’ in the Breeze

“You okay?”

I looked from the computer screen, on which I was obsessively watching the time change in the bottom right corner, to Tandy standing in the doorway of my office.

The answer to her question was, no, I was not okay.

It was Monday after spending the weekend with Benny for the sake of spending the weekend with Benny, as well as being there for the family celebration that consisted of him blowing out birthday candles on a pizza pie that he made and everyone on staff getting to suck back quick sips of Chianti while they worked. Ben opened presents in between making pies and getting out orders. Theresa, Vinnie, Manny, and Sela all were around, mostly being loud, giving Ben shit, and getting in the way.

I hung with Ben the entire night in the kitchen, my ass taking up counter space since I sat on one with a wineglass in my hand, and alternately gabbed with my man, gave him my own shit, and communed with what he called his “kids.” I took this time to get to know them, something I liked a whole lot since they were good kids and fun to be around.

In fact, Ben ran a fun kitchen. It was work, definitely—hot work with the ovens going and the stoves on, people rushing around, always busy.

But I’d been in those kitchens when Vinnie ran them, and although he wasn’t an asshole, he was a taskmaster.

It was strange knowing a father’s way and then seeing his son’s.

They both took what they did seriously. They both communicated that. But Ben was far more laid-back about it and the kids responded to it.

Watching him work, firm in woman-in-love mode, I fell more in love, my already immense pride at being Benny’s woman growing, watching him run his kitchen. His kids liked him. He organized chaos without any apparent effort. He wasn’t about shouting and bossing. He was about quiet words and direction. And every pie or dish put on the warming shelf to be taken out looked mouth-watering because I knew it was.

It wasn’t like he was organizing a disaster relief effort.

Still, it was awesome.

Saturday during the day and Sunday before I left to drive home, Ben and I tackled his office. On Friday, Ben had called the cable company to have Internet jacks installed. On Saturday, we went out and bought a filing cabinet, shredder, and a desktop computer. It took us hours, but we got a system down that might (might) make the rest of our efforts throughout the house easier. We tossed a bunch of crap, filed some away, and in the end, the office looked more like an office and less like a dump. The kind of room you’d find in a home, not a bachelor’s pad.

In other words, I thought every minute was worth the effort.

The cool thing in doing this was that I found Benny wasn’t a hoarder. He just didn’t bother to throw shit away when it should have been thrown away. There were no battles about keeping stuff. He also didn’t get into the project for fifteen minutes, then get sick of it and try to find an excuse to escape. Except for me giving him guff about being a lazy ass and Benny grinning through it, we worked beside each other in harmony.

It was kind of fun.

Domestic bliss, Frankie and Benny style.

So now it was Monday. The Monday after being awed by Benny’s kitchen prowess and gaining another promise from Benny that a life at his side would be good, seeing as I wasn’t buying one with a hoarder or someone who would dump all the crap work on me and go his merry way.

It was also the Monday after I gave Benny what I considered lame birthday payback and he considered it something else entirely. And the something he considered it made me fall even deeper in love with him, because as simple as it was, it was everything to Benny and I liked that. A whole lot.

And last, it was the Monday after I gave a goof gift I expected Ben to laugh at and toss aside and it would be me who tacked it on the wall in the kitchen and wrote stuff on it, but it was very much not.

I liked that it wasn’t. Actually, I liked why it wasn’t.

It was a gift I had a feeling changed both our lives.

Because, unexpectedly, we’d made plans to move in together.

But when I gave him that calendar, we’d made plans to spend the rest of our lives together.

I was down with that. I didn’t think twice about it and I knew I didn’t in a way that I never would.

This was because Benny Bianchi was always going to be a promise at the same time Benny Bianchi was the prize at the end of a crazy life.

So there was no reason to think twice about it.

And I was also never going to feel stupid about my goof gifts again.

Now it was Monday and I had a four o’clock meeting with my boss to ask if there was a possibility the company would consider letting me work from a home office in Chicago starting in October.

I was nervous because I expected the answer to this would be no, since everyone who was management worked from our head office in Indianapolis.

I liked that job. I made great money. My reps (all but one) were awesome. They did good, and in doing it, they made me look good. And I had a great assistant. I didn’t want to lose any of that.

Further, job hunting sucked.

So a lot was riding on this meeting.

If they said no, I still was going to quit. I just was really hoping I wouldn’t have to do that.

“I’m fine,” I answered Tandy on a lie.

“You seem weird,” she noted, walking in, eyes to me. She sat across from me and went on, “I know it’s nosy, and it’s cool if you don’t answer, but Friday you seemed to be in a really good mood. But you went back to your guy this weekend and now you seem, well…not in a good mood.”

She was so sweet.

It would suck if I had to lose her.

Another reason for me not to be okay.

“We’re fine, Tandy,” I assured her, and at least that was the truth, though it was an understatement.

“Okay,” she replied, sounding like she didn’t buy it.

“I just have this meeting with Lloyd on my mind,” I explained. “Once I’ve had the meeting with him, I’ll give you the full story.”

She tipped her head to the side and I didn’t like the look on her face when she did it.

“Should I be worried?” she asked, explaining the look.

“No,” I said quickly, reaching a hand toward her and tapping it stupidly but hopefully comfortingly on my desk. “Absolutely not. It’s not about you.”

She suddenly looked evasive (thus, clearly the desk tapping didn’t work) as she murmured, “I just thought you might have found out…” She trailed off, twisted her neck to look to my wall of window, then back to me, but she said no more.

“Found out what?” I prompted.

“Nothing. It’s stupid. It’s probably not anything,” she stated.

“What’s probably not anything?” I pushed, not getting a good feeling about her manner, which wasn’t like her at all.

She drew in a breath, then rocked her ass in her chair like she was settling in and leaned toward me. When she spoke again, her voice was lower, quiet, conspiratorial.

“It wasn’t a big deal. I told Lloyd and he took care of it, so I really didn’t want to worry you, but Thursday, when you were taking a personal day up in Chicago, Mr. Bierman came and asked me to give him a copy of your schedule. He asked how many times you’d been up to Chicago on company business and how many days off you’ve taken.”

Oh my God.

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “And I didn’t give it to him. I told him to talk to Lloyd if he had questions about your schedule. He got kind of dicky, as is his way, and Heath saw it happening. He came out and intervened. Mr. Bierman backed down and took off, but Heath told me I should report it to Lloyd and went with me when I did. When I told him, Lloyd looked really pissed off. He promised me he’d take care of it. Then he and Heath were in his office forever and it didn’t look like the conversation was happy. Later, Sandy told me when Heath was in San Francisco last week, Mr. Bierman asked for the same kind of information about him.”

Sandy was Heath’s assistant and Sandy was like Tandy in the sweet, smart, on the ball, and very pretty department.

I also had a feeling Heath was nailing Sandy, which wouldn’t be good, dipping your toe in the company pool with someone who worked under you. But if he was, she wasn’t talking and, obviously, Heath wasn’t. If she was talking, Tandy would tell me.

That said, they had a lot of closed-door meetings where you could see through the windows that they were smiling at each other and laughing a lot. In these times, Heath was not looking at her like he thought she arranged his flights to Seattle so well, it was worthy of a belly laugh but, instead, like he enjoyed having her in his office the same way that he would enjoy sharing a glass of wine with her later and getting a blowjob from her after that.

However, at that moment, I couldn’t think about Heath and Sandy.

I could only think that I was getting pissed at Randy Bierman, resident dick.

“For freak’s sake, why?” I snapped.

Tandy rubbed her lips together uncomfortably, then leaned further toward me and said, “Through the grapevine, he thinks you’re both underperforming.”

“We’re both exceeding our numbers,” I pointed out.

“I know that. Lloyd knows that. Mr. Berger knows that. But the girls have been talking and we actually think it’s not about you and Heath. It’s about Lloyd. He’s targeting you guys to undercut Lloyd.”

I felt my eyes get wide.

“What? Why? Lloyd is awesome.”

This time, she scooted forward on her chair so she was leaning into my desk when she whispered to me, “A while back, after Dr. Gartner was murdered, Lloyd asked for some details about Tenrix that he couldn’t find on the servers, the usual stuff that he as a director should have access to. Important stuff, I guess, though I don’t know what it is. But it wasn’t there. He needs it, seeing as he has to guide you and Heath in guiding your reps to sell the product so he should have access to it. Mr. Bierman told him he’d find it and give it to Lloyd. He didn’t. Lloyd’s asked, like, a million times. Before Miranda took off to production, she told Jennie who told me that she heard Mr. Bierman and Lloyd arguing in one of the back conference rooms, Lloyd telling Mr. Bierman if he didn’t provide that information in twenty-four hours, he was going to Mr. Berger.”

“Did he provide it?”

She nodded. “Yes, but this is where the weird comes in.”

Oh shit.

More weird.

“What weird?” I asked.

“Kathleen said that the dates on the computer files were that day.”

Kathleen was Lloyd’s secretary, but even so, Lloyd got his email directly and confidential documents would not go through her.

“How did she know that?”

Tandy started looking uncomfortable. “She, uh…kinda looked over his shoulder and saw it.”

I let that go and pushed, “This means…?”

“Frankie, those files should have been saved by Dr. Gartner, like, months ago. Some of them years. They were all saved on the same day and that day was that day.”

Oh no.

I had a feeling I knew what that meant and there was no way it was good.

“Someone amended them?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. It didn’t escape Lloyd’s attention and Kathleen told me he went to Mr. Bierman about it. Mr. Bierman explained it, but, Frankie, it’s fishy. Everyone thinks so.”

I did too.

What I also thought was that perhaps the assistants were sticking their noses a bit too far into something that might not be real healthy.

So I advised, “You need to be careful, honey.”

She looked to her knees.

“Tandy,” I called and she looked back to me. “You need to be careful. I get he’s a dick, he’s being more than his usual dick, office politics are getting nasty, he’s acting weird, and you guys are curious. But I’m not thinking any of this is good, so whatever you do, you gotta do in a way I can protect you. Lloyd or Bierman or anyone finds out you guys are nosing around this, bottom line, it isn’t any of your business and this information is probably confidential. Because of that, what you’re doing will be hard to explain and might be grounds for, at best, a written warning, at worst, dismissal. It also means, if you’re found out, those are serious transgressions and I can’t protect you.”

What I didn’t tell her was that Dr. Gartner, whose files had been amended, was dead, something she knew, but she might not know what that could mean.

And what it meant was that if one had to do with the other, I really couldn’t protect her.

“Let it play out,” I said to finish it. “I’m lookin’ after you when I tell you to do your job, stay safe, and let whatever’s gonna happen, happen. Lloyd isn’t stupid. He’s been with this company for six years. He’s invested. He’s not Bierman’s biggest fan. Let the big fish prove who has the sharpest teeth.”

She rubbed her lips together in a way that didn’t give me warm fuzzies. These feelings turned downright prickly when she avoided my eyes for several seconds. But I felt better when she looked back to me and nodded.

“Okay, honey, share that wisdom with Sandy and Jennie and whoever and be smart, okay?”

“Okay, Frankie.”

I smiled at her.

She gave me a small, weird smile back that also didn’t give me the warm fuzzies and left my office.

I looked back at my computer and saw I had seventeen minutes until my meeting.

This meant I snatched up my cell, found Benny’s number, and connected.

He answered with, “Yo, cara, I thought your meeting wasn’t until four?”

“Ben, Bierman is targeting me and my colleague Heath in an effort to make my boss look bad, and the way he’s targeting me is by trying to get information on my trips to Chicago and my personal days.”

Ben was silent a minute before he muttered, “Fuck.”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

“You covered on that?” he asked.

“Time off isn’t accrued very quickly in your first year, but you do get some. I have three sick days and another personal day accrued so that’s kosher. My reps are producing so that’s kosher. And there isn’t a trail to find where I was incommunicado while I was in Chicago because I was never incommunicado when I was in Chicago. That said, Bierman is moving from dick to total asshole. I don’t know how total assholes act and office politics can get ugly. It’s not unusual for team members to get targeted in order to take down a higher up, and those team members are the first to fall.”

“So you think it’s not a good idea when he’s lookin’ at your time in Chicago to ask to work from Chicago,” Ben surmised.

“No. I think that you and I both need to be prepared for this to get ugly. And the you part of that is, if this gets ugly, you’re gonna have to listen to me rant and put up with me regularly freaking out. Because I work my ass off for this company, and if they say no to me workin’ from Chicago, so be it. But if I get targeted by an asshole with a vendetta against my boss, I am not the kind of girl who goes down without a fight.”

There was a smile in his voice when he said, “That’s my Frankie.”

Yeah. That was what I was.

Benny’s Frankie.

Suddenly, I wasn’t nervous anymore.

“There’s more,” I told him.

“The way you say that doesn’t sound like you wanna tell me you’re in the mood to call me tonight after I get home from the restaurant so we can have phone sex.”

At this, I made a mental note to set my alarm so I could wake up and call Benny when he got home from the restaurant so we could have phone sex.

Then I said, “No, babe, that’s not the more. The more is, my assistant, in cahoots with several of the other assistants, found out there’s more weird shit goin’ down to add to the seriously weird shit already goin’ down with Bierman.”

“Stay out of it, Frankie,” Ben ordered, and my back went straight.

“I am,” I hissed. “But my assistant isn’t and I like her. I told her to drop it, but she assured me she would in a way that didn’t give me warm fuzzies.”

“She puts her neck out there, that’s her problem, not yours.”

“Ben—” I started.

“It’s not yours, Francesca,” he interrupted me. “You told her to stand down. She doesn’t, her decision, her consequences.”

When he said the word “consequences,” my stomach started to turn.

“Babe?” Benny called.

“What?” I asked.

“You with me on that?”

“She’s a good gal, Benny. I like her. And what’s she’s uncovered is not good.”

“So report it to your boss,” Benny advised.

“If I do, he’ll know she and her crew have been snooping around.”

“Her consequences,” Benny repeated. “If it’s not good, you report it to him and let him deal with it.”

“He already knows it, I think,” I muttered.

“Right. Then that’s good. Let it lie.”

I drew in breath and looked down at the clock on my computer.

Fourteen minutes until go time.

“I gotta go,” I said to Ben. “I need to mentally prepare for the possibility I’ll be instigating a job search tonight, something that’s on my list of favorite things to do just above having all my hair pulled out by the roots.”

There was laughter in his voice when he advised, “Eyes to the prize, babe.”

Yeah.

Eyes to the prize.

“Okay, honey,” I said softly.

“Call me when you get out of the meeting,” he ordered.

“I will.”

“Good luck, tesorina,” he said softly.

“Thanks, Ben,” I whispered.

“Love you, babe.”

“Right back at you.”

I heard his chuckle before he said, “Later,” got my “Later” in return, and we disconnected.

I was able to concentrate on replying to two whole emails before I sucked in breath, got out of my chair, and headed to Lloyd’s office.

***

It was past five by the time I got out of Lloyd’s office.

Not because we had an in-depth strategy meeting about how I could continue to do my job but from a home office. Instead, because Lloyd took our meeting as an opportunity to get briefed about absolutely everything I was doing.

He was checking up. Not because he had any issues with my performance. So he could get his ducks in a row because he was bracing for impact.

Tandy was gone by the time I got back to my office. I checked email, sorted some stuff on my desk, then I closed down, grabbed my cell, and took off. I didn’t hit Go on Benny until I was in the elevator and I only did it because I’d entered the elevator alone.

“What’d he say, babe?” was his greeting.

He wanted good news for me. He also wanted my ass in Chicago.

That made me happy.

My news did not.

“He said he has no problem with it, but it’s unprecedented, no one has done it, and he’d have to talk to Mr. Berger,” I told him. “He also said he’d do that this week and get back to me.”

“With his ‘no problem,’ did he really seem like he had no problem with it?”

Ben’s question said Ben wasn’t stupid, but I knew that already.

“He wasn’t exactly doing cartwheels and congratulating me on the progression of my relationship with the man I love.”

I heard the smile in his voice, even if what he said next was serious. “So you have no idea if he’ll back your play.”

“I only know he likes me and doesn’t want to lose me. How that’ll be communicated when he approaches Berger, I have no clue.”

“So no answers, just a step closer to them,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“You gonna wait it out or plan ahead?”

“Tonight, I’ll be trolling through online want ads while eating my Lean Cuisine.”

Ben sounded surprised when he asked, “You eat Lean Cuisine?”

I grinned at my phone as the door to the elevator opened. “No, honey. I’ll probably stop at Arby’s.”

There was a moment of silence before he murmured, “Need my baby home so I can feed her better.”

Now, that gave me the warm fuzzies.

“Minute by minute, Benny,” I said softly, walking through the parking lot to my car.

“Minute by minute, babe,” he replied. “Gotta get back to the kitchen.”

“Okay, Ben.”

“Later, cara.”

“Later, honey, love you.”

“Back at you.”

I grinned as I disconnected. Then I opened my car door, maneuvered myself in, holding my phone in one hand, purse over my shoulder and my computer bag in my other hand.

I got settled, put the key to the ignition, and looked unseeing through the windshield. But at what I saw, I focused and didn’t turn the key.

This was because Tandy, Sandy and Jennie, with freaking Miranda (who was supposed to be at the production facility) and the IT geek guy, who came up and set up my computer on my first day (his name escaped me), were all standing in a huddle beside a blue Honda CR-V.

And the huddle didn’t look like Tandy was letting things go.

I had half a mind to get out and go have a chat with them, but that half a mind was taken when my phone rang. I looked at it, sitting on the top of my purse in the passenger seat, and saw it said Cat Calling.

Cat was back, though that didn’t mean we had girlie chats every day about what we wore, what hot guys we’d seen, and how our men were treating us.

Still, hearing that she and Art had dried out and why, I was glad for her and I’d always be glad to have her back. The family was growing like crazy, but Cat and Art not drinking and giving a shit about their marriage, their future, and the kind of future they could give their family made me a lot more excited about the possibility of them bringing more Concetti blood into the world than the tangled webs my brother and father were weaving.

I grabbed my phone, took the call, and greeted, “Hey, babe.”

“Welp, it happened. Dad’s bitch popped out our little sister. Get this, her name is Domino.”

I blinked at the windshield, then asked, “Domino?”

“Affirmative,” she answered. “Dom…in…fuckin’…o.”

Oh God. I couldn’t even begin to enumerate how many ways mean kids could make fun of that name.

What were they thinking?

Cat cut into my thoughts. “You want more?”

What I wanted was to know why Chrissy hadn’t called me to share the good news, and more importantly, why she hadn’t consulted with me on names.

I didn’t get the chance to tell Cat that.

Cat kept talking.

“Ma’s latest dude dumped her and she’s out fifteen thousand dollars because she bought the dress and can’t get any of her deposits back on all the other shit.”

My mouth dropped open, and for a few seconds, I didn’t say a word. This was because I couldn’t believe it. None of Ma’s other men bailed on her pre-wedding. Post, yes. Pre, never.

I got myself together enough to ask, “He dumped her?”

“Apparently, she didn’t share there were four before him and he wasn’t feelin’ the love for the writing he saw on that particular wall.”

“Oh God,” I whispered.

“She’s freaked,” Cat continued. “Told Nat he was the love of her life and that she can’t be around him, so she’s movin’ back to Chicago. Nat told Enzo, who’s currently holed up in a bunker somewhere to escape all the crazy bitches in his life, but now also to escape Ma. He told me about Ma. And we all know this translates to the fact she’s fucked up money-wise, and needs to mooch off someone seein’ as she was livin’ with the guy with him footin’ the bill.”

Suddenly, I was wondering if Benny would move to Indianapolis, at least temporarily.

“Needless to say, I’m not takin’ her calls,” Cat carried on.

“Probably a good idea for a while,” I muttered, meaning for about eight months.

“She could change plans and head to Indy, so this is your friendly, sisterly heads up to avoid that shit at all costs.”

“She can’t stay here because I’m not gonna be here in a few months,” I told her.

“What?” she asked.

“I’m moving back to Chicago, shackin’ up with Benny.”

This brought silence that I thought I could read.

Therefore, I decided to tackle that later and start at the beginning.

“And Cat, Chrissy is not a bitch. She’s really nice. I think she loves Dad and I know she’s excited about that baby. So, she named her a weird name. We’ll call her Minnie or somethin’.”

Cat didn’t reply.

“But I’m with you on Ma,” I went on. “You have to focus on makin’ a baby with Art that I hope you won’t name Solitaire, and I’ll back that play with Ma if she calls. And Ben will not ever in this lifetime let her live in his house. He’s not Ma’s or Dad’s biggest fan so, luckily, I can throw him under that bus and he won’t give a shit if I do. He takes my back on everything, but tellin’ Ninette to move on along, I think he’ll actually enjoy. Nat takes her on, that’s her gig.”

Cat said nothing.

I ignored what I was sure that meant and kept babbling.

“This is what we’ve got to work with: a growing family of craziness that’s annoying half the time, whacked all the time, but under that, we love each other. I never really got that until recently. I know we could have had it better. We could have all made better decisions. But I think everyone on this planet can probably say the same thing. We have what we have, and if we accept it no matter how insane it can get, set boundaries to how much we can deal with, and remember that in that mix there’s a whole lot of love, we’ll be okay.”

Cat didn’t reply.

So I called, “Cat?”

“He takes your back on everything?” she asked, and I smiled at my steering wheel.

“Yeah. He’s awesome like that.”

And a lot of other ways besides.

I stopped smiling and started to feel different kinds of warm fuzzies when Cat’s voice came at me again.

Actually, it wasn’t just what she said. It was the way she sounded when she said it.

“You’ve been swingin’ in the breeze, Frankie, for so long, it is not funny,” she said quietly, but her voice was trembling. “Even with Vinnie, he let you swing in the breeze. They all thought you were behind his shit, but he let them think that. He should have stepped up on that, got that straight, not let you carry his burden. He didn’t. That pissed me off. Then he dealt the ultimate, leavin’-you-swingin’ ’cause he got whacked.” She paused and I held my breath. “I’m glad you finally got someone who isn’t gonna let you swing in the breeze.”

This was not what I expected her to say.

Not even close.

It was a whole lot better.

And it reminded me of why I loved my sister and why it was always worth the crazy.

“Thanks, Cat.”

“You’re welcome, darlin’. And, just to say, my boundaries are gonna be a whole lot less flexible than yours are gonna be.”

“I get that.”

“And sayin’ that, I’m okay with it, because I’m thinkin’ that yours are gonna be flexible but Ben’s are not.”

She was not wrong.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

I heard her take in an audible breath before she asked, “Chrissy isn’t a bitch?”

“Nope.”

“She seemed pretty much not there the couple times I met her,” Cat noted.

“The couple times you met her, she was around one or all of us, and when that happens, no one is there but us and our big mouths.”

“I see your point,” she muttered.

“She’s nice,” I reiterated.

“You like her?”

“Yeah. I mean, we’ve chatted occasionally. It isn’t like I’ve written her in my will, but she’s pretty cool.”

“They all are.”

She was not wrong about that either.

“Well, this one has our sister so I figure she’ll be around for a lifetime, one way or another,” I pointed out.

“Even if she’s nice, this does not make me want to jump for joy, ’cause Enzo Senior is gonna fuck that shit up and we both know it.”

“A baby sister, Cat,” I reminded her of what would come out of that particular craziness for her and for me, at the same time mentally hoping I could get Chrissy to text me photos. I was also thinking it was time to mend fences with Dad. And lastly, I was wondering how I’d talk Benny into not losing his mind if I did that.

“Whacked and annoying, but we love each other,” Cat said. “We’re totally messed up.”

“I’m thinkin’ so is everyone else. They just deal with it better or cut each other a lot more slack.”

“Yeah,” she said softly.

“Now go home, get laid, make me a niece or nephew, and call me in a month with good news.”

“I’ll ask Art how he feels about the name Solitaire,” she joked as I turned the ignition.

“You do, I’ll still love her…and you,” I did not joke.

“You’re a pushover,” she stated, but her voice was softer and kind of husky.

“Whatever,” I replied.

“And a dork,” she went on, not sounding soft or husky.

“I’m hanging up now.”

“And if you think I’m gettin’ mushy, just to say, that’s another boundary I won’t cross.”

“I’ve already hung up,” I lied.

Her voice was smiling when she said, “Later, Frankie.”

“Later, Cat.”

I ended the call, tossed my phone to the seat beside me, and looked through the windshield.

Tandy, Sandy, Jennie, Miranda, and the IT guy were gone. So was the CR-V.

I put my car in gear while hoping that was Tandy, away from prying eyes, telling everyone to stop doing shit that could get them fired and start being cool, even as I had a feeling Tandy was doing the exact opposite.

Then I reversed out of my spot to go to Arby’s, get home, and start searching want ads.

***

“I’m givin’ up,” Cheryl decreed, leaning into the bar toward me.

I didn’t know what she was talking about, but I’d given up too.

On want ads.

I had also given up on waiting around my house alone the hours it would take for me to go to sleep, wake up when Benny got off work so I could phone him, and listen to him saying words that would give me an orgasm.

So I’d changed into jeans and a blousy, drapey, yet still clingy tee, strapped on fabulous spike-heeled sandals, fluffed out my hair, and took myself out to J&J’s Saloon, the local bar, a bar owned by Feb.

Feb was working. As was Cheryl.

This was good since I knew no one in Brownsburg but Vi, Cal, Kate, Keira, Angie, Colt, Feb, and Cheryl, plus a few more friends of Vi’s (who were also friends of Feb and Cheryl) that I had met at the wedding and bonded with over Bellinis. They were all married, most of them with kids, so we had yet to do what we promised to do at the wedding: hook up for a girls’ night out. So I didn’t count them. And Angie didn’t count either because she couldn’t yet cogitate. And since Vi and Cal were still in Virgin Gorda, and Kate and Keira were not of age to go to a bar (and they were still in Chicago), this left me fortunate that Cheryl and Feb were both working that night so I didn’t end up looking like a stylishly dressed barfly.

Once I got there, I wished I hadn’t left it until that late in my sojourn in Brownsburg to go.

Granted, I was more the subdued lighting, fabulous décor, every-drink-served-in-a-martini-glass type of establishment kind of girl, and this was not that. It was mostly made out of wood, rough and worn with age, and undoubtedly had more than its fair share of bar fights. There were pool tables in the back, and pool tables usually heralded a joint that was not my scene.

I still liked it.

Maybe it was because I walked in, Cheryl and Feb looked my way, and both of them called out greetings, Feb’s being, “Hey, babe! Cool you finally showed,” and Cheryl’s being, “Yo, Frankie, how’s tricks?” and that felt good.

After being away from everything I knew and found familiar all my life, to walk into a bar and have the women behind it give me a smile and a greeting, it made me feel home in Brownsburg for the first time since I’d been there.

It felt better gabbing with them both as I drank glasses of chilled white wine and people watched.

Though, now, I didn’t know what Cheryl was talking about.

“You’re givin’ up on what?’

“Men,” she decreed.

We’d been discussing the best brands of extra hold hair spray.

How did we get here?

“Uh…why?” I asked.

“’Cause, see, I’ve been livin’ in this ’burg for, like, ever, and the minute I hauled my shit over the city limits was the minute that commenced a dry spell unprecedented for me. And I work in a bar. That shit’s impossible.”

“A dry spell?” I asked.

“Babe, a dry spell. As in, I haven’t been laid…in forever,” she shared.

Clearly, as she barely knew me outside of us being in a waiting room for a joyous event and us mingling at a wedding reception during another one, she had to get this out. And as a sister, even without years of bonding over martinis (or tequila) and discussions of the best beauty brands of anything, I had to let her.

“That sounds like it sucks,” I noted, though I didn’t share with her that I had possibly the world record in dry spells after Vinnie, so I knew her pain like no other.

“It does,” she agreed. “And it does more, seein’ as you been in this bar once, and Tanner Layne has been checkin’ you out. From the moment he walked in the door, his eyes went to your ass and his eyes have been strayin’ your way the last twenty minutes.”

“Tanner who?” I asked.

She jerked her head along the bar and my eyes went to the other end, where a very good-looking, dark-haired man was sitting, smiling, and talking with Feb.

“Tanner Layne. Now, I’d go there,” Cheryl announced. “I’d go there the last four times he’s been in. I’d go there when my radar pinged when he moved to town not long ago and I’d never even met him, I just sensed his off-the-charts ability to provide quality orgasms. I’d go there right now in the bathroom or the office. But he only looks at me to order a drink. You, though…”

She trailed off so I said, “I’m taken.”

“Yeah, you’re you and that’s all a’ you,” she replied, rounding my head with her hand, including my big hair. “And your man is way hot. But he’s in Chicago. You look like you, Tanner Layne looks like him, your man is in Chicago, shit happens.”

“I gave him a calendar for his birthday with my schedule written in it, family birthdays, shit like that, and he told me that’s all he ever wanted. A life reflected in the busy family times written on a calendar stuck on a wall in the kitchen. He asked me if I was gonna give that to him and I said yes. So that guy is hot and Benny might be in Chicago, but that shit is also not gonna happen.”

I finished my pronouncement and Cheryl stared at me but did it saying, “He said that’s all he wanted out of life?”

“Yep.”

“And that doesn’t freak you?’

“Absolutely not.”

“What do you want out of life?”

“A man who wants a calendar on the wall in his kitchen written all over with busy family times.”

“Then you’re sorted,” she noted, her eyes lighting, her lips curling up.

“Yep,” I agreed, knowing my eyes were lighting and my lips had curled up.

“’Cept you live here and he lives there,” she pointed out.

“My lease is up in October and then I’ll live there.”

To this, her eyes got big, her mood deteriorated, and she surprisingly snapped, “What?”

“Well,” I started hesitantly, uncertain of her sudden mood swing. “I’m movin’ in with Ben.”

“Great,” she bit out. “Finally, you stroll in J&J’s and I’m ready to groom you to be my wingman. Feb can’t do it ’cause she’s taken and has a baby, and Colt would lose his badass mind if I took her out carousin’. Vi used to do it, then she got hooked up with Cal, and he’s arguably more badass than Colt and would definitely lose his mind if Vi went out carousin’ with me. And I know this for fact ’cause I asked, she told him I asked, and he lost his mind. You look like you’d be a good wingman and you’re the only semi-kinda-single woman I know in the ’burg that I like. Now you’re leavin’?”

I felt for her. A good wingman was hard to find.

Still, I answered, “Yep.”

“Freakin’ awesome,” she said, not meaning it. “Now how’m I gonna get laid?”

“We could go carousin’ while I’m still here. You’ve got a coupla months.”

“What you doin’ Wednesday?” she asked instantly, and I grinned.

“Carousin’ with you,” I answered.

That was when she grinned.

Feb moving caught my eye and I looked down the bar to see that Tanner Layne was now taking a phone call.

He really was hot.

But Benny was so totally hotter.

This thought and the man’s age made my eyes go to Cheryl and I asked, “Tanner Layne have kids?”

“Yep, word is two boys.”

“One named Jasper?” I asked.

“No clue, seein’ as he hasn’t fucked my brains out so we could get down to the pillow talk of sharin’ how many offspring we might bring to a Brady Bunch scenario.”

I smiled at what she said but kept eyeing Tanner Layne as I muttered, “I wonder if he’s Jasper’s father.” I said this as I hoped he was because those genes would undoubtedly be dominant and that would mean, once Cal lifted the ban, Keira would get a live one.

“Who’s Jasper?’ Cheryl asked, and I looked back at her.

“The boy Keira has a crush on.”

She jerked up her chin high on an “Ah.” Then she said, “I’ll find out,” and moseyed toward Feb.

I sipped my wine, and after a couple of minutes, Cheryl moseyed back.

“Jasper is the oldest,” she confirmed. “His other one, Tripp, is younger. Neither have been picked up doin’ stupid shit by Colt or anybody as far as Feb knows. But she’s willin’ to interrogate Colt about Jasper’s suitability for Keirry.”

“That’d be good, seein’ as Cal’s reluctant to give her the go-ahead to make her play with the kid because, according to Kate, he’s a high school player.”

“I’ll get Feb on it,” she said.

“Thanks,” I murmured, then we both went silent since Tanner Layne was throwing some bills on the bar and he was doing a chin lift to Feb.

He walked the length of the bar, eyes on me, and when he got close, his head tilted slightly to the side, his lips tipped up, and his eyes got lazy. Then he walked right on by and out the door.

I had to admit, my nipples tingled a little, but then again, that was an automatic female response to a hot guy head tilt/lip tip.

I also had to admit it was nice to know I had it in me to be sitting on a barstool and get the hot guy head tilt/lip tip.

But mostly, it was just a pleasant thing to happen while I passed the time until I could phone Benny.

***

“You okay?”

This was Ben’s greeting that night at 12:45.

“Please tell me you’re close to a bed,” I replied, my voice sleepy and throaty. The first because I’d just woken up and called Benny. The second because I was multitasking so I’d already engaged my vibrator.

Ben’s voice was no longer concerned but something a whole lot better when he demanded, “Tell me you’re serious, cara.”

“I’m very serious, Benny.”

“How far gone are you?” he asked.

“You still got work to do, honey,” I answered.

“Fuck, baby,” he growled and there it was. That was all I had to hear. Benny got to work.

Luckily, that wasn’t all Benny gave me. He gave me a whole lot more and he did it until he heard me come. Then I set my vibrator away, rolled to my side, curled up, and in my throaty, quiet, post-orgasm voice, I gave him a lot more until I heard him come.

I was silent a moment for him to come down before I whispered, “I miss you, honey.”

“Comin’ to you this weekend.”

I blinked at my pillow. “What?”

“My turn.”

“So soon?” I asked, my heart leaping, hoping he would confirm that yes, he was coming back to me and soon.

“Done with this shit. I’m down there or you’re up here every weekend.”

Even though I loved that I idea, it worried me.

“That’s a lot for you at the restaurant.”

“Two months. They’ll cover me.”

I knew that was a sacrifice for Benny.

But it made me happy, and not just because I’d see him more, also because he wanted to see me more and he was a man willing to make that kind of sacrifice for me.

“Cheryl is gonna have to make do with a weekday wingman,” I muttered, thinking that’d work for her because she probably worked most weekends.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Nothin’,” I answered.

“Cheryl’s wingman?” he pushed, and I pressed my lips together because I had a feeling Ben was a man of the Colt and Cal variety. “Frankie,” he prompted in a warning, not throaty, sexy, post-orgasm voice, but in a growly, sexy, getting-pissed, post-orgasm voice.

Yep, Benny was a man of the Colt and Cal variety.

So I gave it up. “Cheryl asked me to be her wingman.”

“And you said yes?” Ben asked, like I told him Cheryl asked me to help her bomb the Canadian embassy.

“She needs to get laid,” I explained.

“Seen her, figure she can accomplish that feat on her own,” Ben returned.

“Every girl needs a good wingman, Benny,” I shot back, my voice not throaty, post-orgasm anymore either, mostly because I was kind of getting pissed.

“Maybe. It’s just that hers isn’t gonna be you,” Benny declared, and I stopped kind of getting pissed and just got that way.

“Why?”

“You and your ass, hair, legs, tits, and smile do not need to be out on your heels with fuckin’ Cheryl, gettin’ attention and gettin’ into trouble.”

“Benny Bianchi, do you think in a million years I’d do anything to jeopardize the promise of you?” I snapped.

I got silence from Benny for a moment before he asked quietly, “The promise of me?”

“Yes,” I hissed. “The promise of you.”

“Babe, I’m yours. How am I a promise?” he asked, tone now cautious, and my belly did a dip at the “I’m yours” business.

But still.

“Every day is a new promise, Ben,” I told him sharply. “Every night I go to sleep knowin’ it’s a promise, every day I wake knowin’ in some way it’s gonna be fulfilled. And repeat. For…hopefully…ever.”

“Frankie,” he whispered but didn’t go on.

I ignored the depth of meaning behind that whisper and stated, “So don’t tell me I can’t go out with Cheryl. She’s funny. She’s edgy, but she’s nice. I know Vi wouldn’t let her close to her or her girls if she didn’t have a heart of gold, but just sayin’, Cal wouldn’t either. So I’ve got two months left in the ’burg. The whole time I’ve been here it felt like I was in limbo, not at home, away from everyone I love, primarily you, and that really hasn’t felt great. So I’m gonna go out and have fun with one of the few people I know and you aren’t gonna stop me.”

“Okay, baby.”

I blinked again at my pillow. “Okay?”

“Yeah, go out and have fun.”

“As easy as that?” I asked dubiously.

“Pretty much,” he answered.

I didn’t trust it.

“Does this mean you’re gonna play some guy’s wingman while I’m away?”

“Francesca, when do I have time to be some guy’s wingman? I work, and when I’m not workin’, my ass is with you.”

Oh yeah.

Right.

“But, are you sayin’ you can and I can’t?” Ben went on.

“You’re hot,” I pointed out. “Girls like hot.”

“You aren’t butt-ugly,” he returned.

I had to admit, this was true.

He kept going.

“And do you think in a million years I’d do anything to jeopardize the promise of you?”

God.

Benny.

Suddenly, I was not pissed at all.

“No,” I whispered.

“I’m not Enzo,” Ben declared.

“I know you’re not.”

“And you aren’t Ninette.”

“I know.”

“So are you done pissin’ me off after you got me off?” he asked.

“I think so,” I answered. “But just to say, you started it.”

“Fuck,” he muttered.

“Ninette’s fiancé dumped her, by the way,” I told him to change the subject.

This got no response.

“She’s heading up to Chicago to find someone to mooch off of,” I shared.

“That will not be you and me,” Ben stated firmly.

I knew it, and because I did, I smiled.

I also kept at it.

“And Chrissy had the baby.”

Another non-response.

“They named her Domino.”

That got a response.

It was, “Jesus.”

“We’ll call her Minnie.”

“Puttin’ my foot down right now, babe, our kids are not gonna be named stupid-ass names.”

Our kids.

God.

Benny.

“I was thinkin’ Solitaire,” I lied.

“You’d be thinkin’ wrong.”

“Spade?”

“No.”

“Club?”

“No.”

“Monopoly?”

He chuckled through his “Fuck no.”

“How about John?”

“John I’ll consider.”

I grinned at my pillow, and through my grin, I said softly, “Love you, Benny.”

“Love you back, Frankie,” he replied softly. “Now go to sleep with the promise of me, and tomorrow I’ll make certain I do somethin’ to fulfill it.”

God.

I fucking loved Benny Bianchi.

“Okay, honey.”

“’Night, Frankie.”

“’Night, Benny.”

I waited and he waited, then I let him off the hook and disconnected first.

After that, I brought my phone to my lips like it was him and I could touch my mouth to his as a goodnight.

In a couple of months.

Then I’d be full-on happy.

I set the phone aside, snuggled up, and fell asleep.