The Promise

Chapter Five Drawer in the Bathroom

I stood at the door of my own apartment while Benny inserted the key.

At least he shoved open the door and stepped back for me to go in first.

“Thanks,” I snapped.

He grinned.

I rolled my eyes, walked into my apartment, and instantly felt weird.

I’d moved into that place six months after Vinnie died, leaving the semi-deluxe condo Vinnie put us in when he started to make decent money with Sal. Sal told me he’d cover the rent on my old place, but I said no because I thought that was weird. Anyway, it would pinch, but I could afford it on my own.

The real reason I left the condo was because I couldn’t be in our place anymore. It had memories of Vinnie everywhere. Sometimes I could swear even the smell of him would hit me, making it all come back, pain so immense I couldn’t breathe.

I was so desperate to get out I’d signed the lease on the first place I looked at. It wasn’t a great place, but it was in a good neighborhood. You walked into the dining area from the corridor. Kitchen off to the side. Living room off the dining area. A balcony off that with views of the city. Down a hall, two bedrooms, both with balconies to that view. Guest bath in the hall. The master had a bath and walk-in closet. A big utility closet for a washer and dryer, and storage in the hall.

It was everything I needed.

It just had no personality.

Well, it did when I’d done it up, made it a place I liked coming home to, a place I liked to spend time in, mostly because I spent a lot of time in it.

But bare bones, it had no personality.

Now, it was almost back to that, seeing as it was weird walking into my place because I hadn’t been there in weeks. It was also weird walking into it because a lot of it had been boxed up in preparation to move. Nothing on the walls. Ready to be void.

Shaking off the weird, I looked to Benny to see he was throwing the door closed behind him, but his eyes were on the boxes stacked three deep, resting against the dining area wall.

He didn’t look happy.

“I’ll just be a minute,” I told him, and his gaze cut to me.

“Grab what you wanna wear to dinner tomorrow while you’re at it,” he ordered.

I gave him a look to tell him how I felt about him ordering me around and then I stomped down the hall to show him how I felt about him ordering me around. I did the last without looking at him, because when I gave him the look, he stopped looking ticked and started grinning.

Once in my walk-in closet, I slapped hangers across the rail, looking for a dress that wouldn’t make Benny hard (knowing this was a fruitless endeavor; I was me, I was about impact, and apparently, he really liked me and my impact) and wondering why I agreed to have dinner with him.

I wondered, but I knew.

He was being persuasive in the way only Ben could be, which was bound to be successful.

In other words, he was fighting his own good fight and he was a lot better at it.

A date with Benny.

I couldn’t say no.

I wanted to. I even fought it. But I caved.

I also wanted to make my boundaries clear by not lying in bed with him and watching TV.

But did I manage that?

No.

Instead, I not only lay in bed with him, I lay cuddled in bed with him, Benny playing with my hair, which felt so nice, I couldn’t describe how nice it felt. I even eventually fell asleep against him watching TV, Benny playing with my hair.

The good fight was not working, being quiet, giving in to get my way in the end. Because giving in meant being around Benny who was showing he was a lot more than gentle, could take direction, do the dishes, and make a great pizza.

He was protective. He was honest. He had control. I mean, seriously, what went down with Nat? It was a miracle he kept hold of his shit through that. I’d been in my own tizzy, but I’d watched him and I knew what it took for him to do that. It took a lot. He still kept his shit.

And my usual fight of being loud and full of attitude didn’t work either because Ben thought it was “cute.”

I was screwed.

And I knew just how screwed I was when I found the exact dress I was going to wear to dinner with Benny tomorrow night. And then I found and grabbed the shoes.

A dangerous dress.

Straight-up treacherous shoes.

I still grabbed them, carefully folded the dress, and put it and the shoebox in my wheelie overnight bag.

I also grabbed other shit that did not say, “Back off, Benny Bianchi,” but said, “Do you mind if I have a drawer in your bathroom?”

God, I was on such rocky ground, it was like experiencing an earthquake.

I just couldn’t find it in me to fight my way to solid ground.

Making matters worse, I grabbed a dress for that day that was out of necessity, since I really didn’t have anything that wasn’t about flash and impact and I had no choice.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t one of my choices that had more impact than most. It was just more subtle.

I was totally insane and totally going to hell.

Knowing this didn’t mean I didn’t move to my bathroom to change.

Asheeka had been over that morning and Asheeka had done the whole shower thing.

This was, of course, after Ben woke me, got me to the bathroom, was sweet, gentle, and gave me a lip touch.

The good news about this was that finally I’d woken up with less pain. It was there, but it wasn’t as bad.

I always woke up a little hazy, even before I’d been shot, and I kept the haze for a while. But today, it was better, more like my normal hazy. I knew it and I knew it made Benny feel relief, not only because he showed it with grins and lip touches, but he’d told me flat-out.

Asheeka took off to get to church and Benny put me in his SUV.

But he didn’t take me directly to my place. He took me directly to Glazed and Infused where he bought two dozen donuts.

This was not just for Cal, Vi, and the girls.

This was because Ben knew I loved donuts. My sweet tooth knew no time restrictions so it reared its ugly head in the mornings (and the rest of the day).

He was fighting the good fight and he was so much better at it.

He also bought two coffees and opened the box the minute we got back into his SUV.

I wasn’t proud of it, and I was trying to forget I did it (even though it happened less than half an hour ago), but I ate three of those donuts on the way to my apartment.

What was done was done.

Now I was doing worse.

It was September but still warm, so I’d grabbed an oversized, royal-blue tee tunic dress with three-quarter sleeves and a short skirt that fit tight. The top was blousy and fell off my shoulder, the waist cinched in so the tunic top could flow slightly over the skintight skirt. It was the kind of dress that made a girl feel good wearing it because she knew a man might get hard seeing her in it.

I was no longer on dangerous ground.

I was playing with fire.

The problem with this was that I liked Vi, I loved Cal, and I was looking forward to seeing them both when I wasn’t running for my life or bleeding (near) to death. I was also looking forward to meeting Vi’s daughters, seeing the family Cal found himself after years of drifting through life when shit went down in his that was too painful to even think about, and that shit didn’t even happen to me.

And I was Francesca Concetti. So I wasn’t going to do it in jeans or yoga pants.

This was the least sexy thing I had that wasn’t one of my business outfits (and those had short, tight skirts too).

There was nothing for it.

Even with the mental war I’d waged over the dress, I didn’t consider not strapping on the stiletto-heeled bronze sandals.

This was because, unless I was working out, I didn’t do flats. Ever. Not with jeans (of which I only owned two pairs and wore them rarely). Not with shorts (all of which were the dressy kind; my brand of casual was also about flash and impact). Certainly not with a dress.

I might have been shot, but a lot worse would have to happen to me before I’d consider giving up my heels.

Strangely, straightening from the bed after putting on my shoes, with my hair big, makeup on, in a dress that looked hot but was comfortable, and my usual heels, I felt better than I had in weeks.

Finally, I felt me.

I closed my suitcase, put its wheels to the carpet, and rolled it out, walking down the hall with more pep in my step than I’d had in ages, calling, “Okay, done with that. And I saw we’re running out of Fanta Grape, so on the way home, we should stop by…”

I trailed off and stopped dead when I hit the living room/dining room area and saw Ben in the corner of the living room, standing by a set of shelves that I had not yet packed.

He turned to me and then he stopped dead, but I didn’t really notice it because I saw what was in his hand: a heavy, expensive, beautiful glass frame that I knew contained an eight-by-ten photo of me with the Bianchis at Christmastime years before.

We were all in front of the tree. Carm was home with her husband and kids so we were all scrunched together to fit in the frame. Manny, Theresa, and Carm’s husband, Ken, were even kneeling in order to fit us all in.

Everyone was smiling so big, it wasn’t hard to read every one of us was laughing.

And we were.

The thing about that picture was, Vinnie Junior had claimed Carm’s little toddler girl and was holding her in his arms, her little girl leg tucked to his chest, her little girl hand to his throat, his arms tucking her safe and tight to his tall body.

This left me free.

And I remembered that Christmas. I remembered taking that photo. I remembered that it seemed entirely natural that Benny and I would find each other, and we did. I could not say if I was the one to make the move, or he was, it was that natural. We just gravitated to each other.

So in that photo, everyone scrunched together, I had my front tucked to the side of Benny’s front, my arms tight around his middle, head on his shoulder. He had one arm around my waist, the other arm tight around my shoulders, and you could even see his fingers at my top, squeezing in.

If anyone looked at that picture who didn’t know, they would easily think I was Benny’s, not Vinnie’s. Carm and Vinnie Senior were between us. I was nowhere near Vinnie.

But I was tucked tight to Benny.

That was the only photo of Vinnie I kept out on display. A photo that included all of the Bianchis.

And I kept it out on the shelves in my living room that stood beside my TV.

This meant I saw that photo every day.

My eyes flew to Benny’s and I started, “I—”

I didn’t get another word out.

If I had it in me to guess, I still would not have been able to guess what I would read in his expression when he saw that picture.

But when I looked at his face, I knew he wasn’t thinking about the picture.

And I let go of the handle of my bag and was able to retreat three steps when he set the picture aside and rushed me, acting on what he was thinking.

It was only three steps because he caught me, turned me, and I had no choice but to press against the wall because his body wasn’t giving me one.

I looked up to see his face right there, a look in his eyes that made my stomach dip in a way I’d never felt in my life.

“Ben—”

His hands came to me, one at my hip, the other at the side of my neck, and he cut me off to ask, “Are you serious right now?”

“I—”

His voice was a growl that made my knees get weak when he stated, “’Cause I’m serious right now.”

Suddenly, I loved that he was serious, even though I wasn’t entirely certain what he was even talking about.

“Baby,” I whispered and I had no fucking clue why.

“Yeah,” he whispered back, his fingers on both hands digging in, his face getting closer. “You’re serious right now.”

That was when he kissed me.

No lip touch this time. He kissed me. Fingers digging in, mouth opening up, tongue thrusting inside, kissed me.

I didn’t make that first protest. Not even one.

No.

I tasted the hot, sweet magnificence of Benito Bianchi, felt his hands on me, smelled his aftershave. My hands lifted to his neck and slid up, diving into his thick, fantastic hair, and I held him to me.

When I did, Benny tangled his tongue with mine in a delicious way that made my toes curl in my sandals. He slid one hand in my hair, the other one over my ass to cup it, hauling me into him.

I pressed closer.

Benny kissed me harder.

God, he felt good. He tasted good.

I hadn’t had a kiss since the last one Benny gave me.

I was drunk then, but I still remember it was good.

This one was better. Much better. Too much better. Too dangerous.

Too amazing.

I had to have more.

So I pressed closer and whimpered that need into his mouth.

This had the unfortunate result of Benny breaking the kiss, his hand moving from my ass so he could wrap his arm around my waist, his other hand gliding down to wrap around the side of my neck again. He dropped his forehead to mine.

“Jesus, shit,” he muttered, and I opened my eyes to see his closed.

God, he was beautiful—close, far, eyes closed, annoying me, being gentle with me, being protective of me, after kissing me.

Always.

I slid my hands down to where I could press my palms in the muscle of his neck under his ears, but I kept my fingers in that fabulous hair.

His eyes opened.

More beauty.

“I hurt you?”

And more beauty.

“No,” I whispered.

“That dress, baby,” he whispered back as explanation for the kiss.

“It’s the least sexy one I have.”

His eyes closed again and he repeated, “Jesus, shit.”

Seeing as I’d lost my mind with that kiss right then, I wanted to smile. I felt it fighting inside to get loose. And I wanted this because it felt so fucking good to know all I had to do was put on a hot dress and I could make Benito Bianchi lose control.

It wasn’t a healthy thought. It wasn’t even rational, considering my frame of mind about all things Benny and me.

But I had it.

I beat it back, but just barely.

“You said you wouldn’t kiss me until Monday,” I reminded him, and his eyes opened.

“I didn’t know that on Sunday I’d get that dress.”

“I really don’t do jeans,” I shared.

“Just sayin’, tesorina, I’ll wanna kiss you, even if you’re in jeans.”

“I’m getting that sense,” I muttered, my gaze drifting to his lips.

“Baby,” he called, and I again focused on his eyes. “That picture.”

With those two words, I was torn painfully out of my happy just-been-kissed-by-Benny-Bianchi zone and thrown into my usual zone. A zone I didn’t like much normally, but hated right then.

I dropped my chin and pressed my forehead to his chest, saying, “Don’t.”

“You were mine, even when you were his.”

He was right. It was whacked. It didn’t even make sense.

But I’d always loved Benny. We were tight. We got along. Of all Vinnie’s family, I was closest with Benny. It made me happy being around him.

I was Vinnie’s, but with each passing week as Vinnie did stupid shit, I was also drifting away.

And I was Benny’s. Then when we lost Vinnie, I fucked up and he pushed me away.

I closed my eyes tight and slid my hands down to his chest, curling my fingers in his tee.

“I gotta say this.” He was speaking into my hair.

“I’m not ready.”

His fingers at my neck gave me a squeeze. “This has to be said, cara. I get you’re vulnerable right now. That kiss came as a surprise…to both of us…but what I gotta say isn’t about that.”

“What do you gotta say?”

“I’m pissed at him.”

That was such a surprise, I tipped my head back and looked into his eyes. “What?”

“Vinnie. I’m pissed at him. Spent years pissed at you so I wouldn’t feel the way I feel right now about my brother. I look at that picture…” He shook his head. “What came back raw, after seein’ it clear what I did to you, why I did it, so I wouldn’t feel how I’m feelin’ about him right now…I look at that picture and I’m fuckin’ pissed he didn’t feel what I felt when we took that photo—Christmas, family, laughin’—and know he had everything in his life he needed.”

I let his tee go and my hands slid right back up to curl around his neck, hating every word he said, at the same time, but for a different reason, loving them.

And he was sharing. Honest. Putting it right out there.

It was my experience not a lot of men shared—not about their feelings, certainly not what was behind them. Vinnie hadn’t. He bottled everything up. He never talked to me about important shit, which meant I never understood when he did stupid shit.

Benny sharing touched me…deep.

Digging in there…deeper.

“Ben,” I whispered.

“Should have my ass kicked, not givin’ this emotion to him at the time. But I didn’t. So, not only did it mean I fucked up and hurt you, it feels like I lost him all over again.”

I held on tighter and got up on my toes to get close and kept whispering when I said, “Honey. Stop.”

“How?” he asked.

I didn’t have a clue.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But there’s no purpose to you being pissed, Benny. He’s gone. You can’t change anything.”

“I know that, babe, and it doesn’t help.”

“Then how’s this?” I went on. “You get it. You get what’s in that picture is everything in life you need. And Vinnie making that lesson clear, you’ll never forget it. It sucks how he gave you that lesson, Ben, but at least he gave you something and you cannot deny it was important.”

He held my eyes as his hand at my waist slid up and he started idly stroking my side.

It felt nice. Casual. Natural. Benny.

And the ground under my feet continued to rock.

I just didn’t care.

“She’s sweet, spicy, and smart,” he muttered, his lips tipping up slightly, his words and the lip tip telling me he was letting go of the heavy.

I gave a slight shrug.

“That was a great Christmas,” he said quietly.

“Yeah,” I agreed just as quietly.

“Miss those cookies you make, the ones with the dough around the Hershey’s Kisses.”

“Chocolate-filled snowballs.”

“Yeah.”

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

I knew he liked them. I knew this because, if he heard word I was making them, he was over, sitting on a stool at the bar, shooting the shit with me while I made them. And he’d also eat them warm, the second I finished rolling them in powdered sugar and putting them in the tin.

And I knew right then this was why I made them every year.

Two batches.

Sometimes three.

I was so going to hell.

“We’re connected,” he pointed out the obvious.

“I know.”

“I want us more connected, baby.”

“I know,” I repeated softly.

“Can you kiss me like that and then think you can convince me you don’t wanna go there with me?”

I closed my eyes and dropped my chin again to put my forehead to his chest.

Benny kept at me.

“I know I’m pushin’, cara, but seriously.”

“Can we talk about it at dinner tomorrow?”

He was silent and he was that way awhile.

So I breathed a sigh of relief when he gave me a squeeze and said, “Yeah.”

I tipped my head back and, again, slid my hands down to his chest. “They’ll be here soon and we need Fanta.”

“Babe, they’re comin’ up from Brownsburg with two teenaged girls. Teenagers don’t get out of bed on a Sunday at the crack of dawn and it’s a four-hour drive. They won’t be here until noon, earliest. We got an hour and a half, at least.”

I felt my brows draw together. “Cal didn’t text you to let you know when they’d left?”

My question made him smile huge. It was white. It was gorgeous. And it made his eyes warm with humor in that way I liked so much.

Witnessing that up close and personal for the first time, I had no choice but to wrap my arms around his middle and hold on.

“I’m not sure Cal does the text thing, Frankie. More, I’m not sure it’s humanly possible for Cal to check in with anybody about any of his activities.”

“He’ll have to learn. He has a woman in his life.”

His smile stayed white and gorgeous, and even as I felt the ground quake beneath me, I kept right on enjoying it up close and personal.

“Strike that,” he stated. “I’m not sure it’s humanly possible for Cal to check in with anybody about any of his activities unless that anybody is in his bed and he likes what she gives him there.”

My eyes drifted to his ear. “This is probably true.”

Ben gave me a squeeze and regained my attention.

“You got everything you need in that bag?” he asked.

“Yep,” I answered.

“Now’s the time to stock up, babe. We’re here.”

“I’m stocked up.”

“Right,” he said, then bent in and went deep. I held my breath and kept holding it when he brushed his lips against my neck.

I also kept holding on because I had to in order to stay standing.

Then I had to let him go because he let me go. He moved away but caught my hand, the handle of my bag, and he pulled me to the door, rolling my bag with us, saying, “We get home, I’ll clean out a drawer in the bathroom.”

My eyes hit the ceiling.

Lord, I hope you’re paying attention, I silently prayed. That was Benny’s idea.

Ben kept speaking.

“And in the dresser in the bedroom.”

My hand spasmed in his.

He ignored it and pulled me out the door.

***

Likely speeding up my trip to hell, an hour and a half later, I was curled on my side on Benny’s couch, head to his thigh. Benny was sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, eyes to a game on the TV.

Incidentally, a TV that was eighty inches.

Eighty.

The thing was so huge, it took up nearly the whole side wall of his living room.

And the surround sound rivaled those found in cinemas.

Even so, Theresa could be heard over the surround sound, banging around in the kitchen.

I had learned when I was with Vinnie that Theresa didn’t do this because she was making a point that she wanted you to get off your ass and help her. She didn’t. She wanted you nowhere near her when she was cooking or cleaning up after. She wanted no disruptions or distractions because only she could do whatever she was doing in a way she liked. If you tried to help, it only messed with her mojo and put her in a bad mood.

Theresa in a bad mood was not good.

So, even if I hadn’t been shot in a forest a couple of weeks earlier and Theresa was banging around in the kitchen, I would have stayed in the living room.

Though how I got in my current position, I was still hoping God was paying attention because I didn’t put me in it. Benny did. And when I’d protested, he muttered, “Quiet.”

I didn’t think it was the right thing to do, lying with my head on his thigh, not ever. But with his parents in his house, and after I had participated fully in the kiss he laid on me, definitely not then.

I also didn’t think it was the right thing to do to get into an argument about it with his parents in the house.

This was something we’d come home to an hour ago. They were in the kitchen as we came through the back door—Vinnie sitting at the table drinking a cup of joe; Theresa bustling around a bevy of grocery bags on the table, bags whose contents I had no idea where she would put, seeing as Benny’s fridge was decidedly full.

Vinnie had fallen on the donuts like he didn’t have the huge-ass breakfast I knew Theresa cooked him before they went to church.

Theresa had shooed us out nearly the minute we got in the door and definitely the second Benny dumped the donut boxes on the counter.

Not long after, I found myself lounging with Benny on the couch.

In the end, his jeans were soft, his thigh was hard, so I told myself I was being polite and I’d give Benny hell later.

But in reality, it was just that I liked where I was.

“Ben, your ma wants to know where your casserole dish is,” Vinnie Senior said, and I shifted my eyes to the side of the couch (but did not lift my head from Benny’s thigh) to see Ben’s father come to a stop there.

“I don’t have a casserole dish,” Benny answered.

Vinnie looked in the direction of the door that led to the foyer, muttering, “That’s not gonna go over too good.”

“She wanted to cook, she should have brought over what she needed,” Benny noted. “I was gonna get takeout barbeque.”

Vinnie’s eyes sliced back to his son and he hissed, “Jesus, don’t let her hear you say that shit.”

“Why?” Benny asked.

“’Cause family’s gonna come callin’. Boy, you know you don’t serve takeout barbeque to family comin’ callin’.”

“I’m a single guy, Pop. They’re lucky I thought about feeding them at all,” Benny returned, and I couldn’t hold it back, my body started shaking with suppressed giggles.

Feeling it, Benny’s hand that was resting on my waist gave me a squeeze.

“Go in the kitchen and help her find somethin’ she can use to assemble the lasagna,” Vinnie ordered.

“Pop, I don’t own anything she can use to assemble the lasagna,” Benny replied.

“Then get your ass to the store and buy something she can use to assemble the lasagna,” Vinnie kept ordering.

“That shit is just not gonna happen,” Ben growled.

My body started shaking harder.

“Vinnie!” Theresa shouted from the kitchen. “I got the noodles laid out! Where’s my dish?”

“Ben doesn’t have one!” Vinnie shouted back.

“What?” Theresa yelled in a borderline screech. “I got the noodles laid out! What am I supposed to do with noodles and sauce and cheese and no dish?”

I lifted a hand, curled it around Benny’s thigh, tucked my face in it, and snorted.

“Jesus, shit, I’ll go to the store,” Benny mumbled testily. I felt his thigh muscles tense in preparation to get up, even as I felt his hand glide to the back of my neck to nonverbally tell me he was getting up.

I lifted my head and looked up at him, grinning.

He was not grinning.

“It’s good you’re amused, babe, but this shit is not funny,” he stated right when the doorbell went.

I turned my head and aimed my eyes over the back of the couch.

“They’re here!” Theresa shrieked from the kitchen.

I lost purchase on Benny’s thigh, then I lost purchase on the couch when Benny lifted me up and set me on my sandals.

We turned and I saw Vinnie was already at the door, huge smile on his face, opening it.

Ben took my hand and started us toward the door when Theresa showed, arms up in the air, mouth shouting, “Happy day!”

I heard, “Uncle Vinnie! Aunt Theresa!” shouted back in teenaged girls voices, but I couldn’t see them.

Ben and I made it to the foyer and waited in it for a full three minutes while Theresa pushed out to the stoop and grabbed everyone’s face, jerking their head back and forth to give them kisses before they were allowed to come in to get handshakes (Cal) or hugs (Vi and the girls) from Vinnie.

I watched as Cal took his kisses from Theresa like he’d rather wrestle an alligator. But Vi gave her kisses back and a hug, and Vi’s gorgeous daughters acted like Theresa’s signature dramatic welcome was a delight the like they’d never experienced.

The girls hit the foyer and practically bowled Cal and their mother over to rush Benny, shouting, “Benny!”

He let me go just in time to get hit by them both. He went back on a foot, steadied, and put his arms around them, murmuring something I didn’t catch because I was completely drawn in by the scene.

This was because something about it didn’t strike me right. It was beautiful watching Ben give affection to Vi’s gorgeous girls, downright dazzling.

But I was under the impression that Vi and Cal were relatively new, so I wondered how the girls were so tight with everyone so quickly.

“Hey.” I heard.

I turned my head to see Vi close and I completely forgot about watching the dazzling display of Benny Bianchi giving affection to two young girls.

“Hey,” I replied, looking into Violet’s eyes.

I didn’t think about it, her visit, except to look forward to seeing her, like she was a close gal pal who lived a few hours away, and thus, we didn’t have cocktails every Friday night but instead had to make plans for special occasions.

Looking into her eyes right then, seeing her in normal circumstances for the first time ever, it hit me that the last time I saw her, Daniel Hart was pointing a gun to her head. The entire time I’d made her acquaintance, our lives were in danger or we were running for them.

Together.

She did not let me separate from her when it probably would have been prudent.

And I did not let her separate from me when it probably would have been prudent.

We’d stuck together.

And we’d made it through.

Looking at her beautiful face in the foyer of Ben’s home, I felt it happening, my face crumbling, as I watched it happen to her. And then we were in each other’s arms, holding close, so fucking tight, my face shoved in her neck, hers in mine.

“I’m sorry,” I cried into her neck, my voice thick and clogged, muffled by her hair.

“No, I’m sorry,” she cried into mine, her voice the same.

“I’m an idiot,” I told her, holding tight and still crying.

“I’m a dork,” she told me, holding tight and also still crying.

“No, you aren’t,” I blubbered.

“You aren’t either,” she blubbered back.

“Jesus.” I heard Cal mutter.

“Shut up, Joe,” Violet snapped but did it in my neck, not moving a centimeter away from me.

We just held on.

For my part, I held on because she felt good. She felt alive.

And we’d made it through.

Suddenly, Vi’s body jerked and she asked, “Am I hurting you?”

I lifted my head, she lifted hers, and we caught each other’s eyes.

“I’m fine,” I whispered.

“I’m glad,” she whispered back, and I knew she meant she was glad I was fine in more ways than just enduring her hug.

I smiled at her. She smiled back.

Seeing it, I felt my face start crumbling again, but I beat it back and gave her a shake. “You fine?” I asked.

“Absolutely,” she answered, then asked, “You wanna meet my girls?”

“Absolutely,” I answered.

Her smile came back and she kept hold of me with one arm but turned us toward her daughters. I swiped my hand on my face as I saw one girl was hanging on Cal. The other one was hanging on Benny. Both had eyes to their mother and me and both sets of eyes were wet.

“Katy, Keirry, come here and meet Frankie,” she urged.

They moved forward cautiously, undoubtedly knowing I was convalescing.

I threw out my free arm and they came a lot faster, but they didn’t knock me back to a foot.

What I figured was the older one, Kate, got there first. Vi let me go so she could give me a light hug and say close to my ear, “Cool to meet you.”

When she would’ve let go, I held tighter and said, “Same here, honey.”

She turned her head, looked into my eyes, and her lip quivered, but she held it together and smiled.

I let her go and Keira came forward.

Her hug was just as light, but I knew things were going to go bad when she said in my ear, “Thanks for taking care of Momalicious.”

Then her arms spasmed and I knew she’d lost it.

I tightened my arms around her and my eyes moved to Benny, who was watching us with a warm intensity that would have taken my breath away if Keira was letting me breathe.

I tore my eyes from Ben, turned my head, and whispered in her ear, “My pleasure, baby.”

Keira’s body bucked with her sob.

Kate slid in beside her mom and I heard her whimper. So I caught her eyes and grinned at her.

She, again, held it together and grinned back.

Suddenly, Cal was there, hand wrapped around the back of Keira’s neck, and he asked in a gentle, quiet voice I’d never heard from him in my life, “You wanna let me in there, Keirry?” His voice was so beautiful, if Keira was letting me breathe, again, it would have made me stop.

She let go abruptly, almost like she was embarrassed, nodding and wiping her face.

Vi claimed her and Cal claimed me. He didn’t hold on tight, but he did communicate a lot with his hug and I felt myself begin to lose it again.

I took in a shuddering breath and held it together as Cal leaned away, looked down at me, and asked in a voice meant only for me, “You good?”

I knew what he meant.

“I’m thinkin’ I need to get off my feet,” I answered because all that hugging felt great, but at the same time, it didn’t feel real great against my wound.

Then Cal, Vinnie Junior’s best friend in the world, did something weird.

He let me go but did it leaving a hand in the small of my back whereupon he gently, immediately, and firmly pushed me direct to Benny as he said low, “She’s gotta take a load off.”

That was when Benny claimed me, arm around my waist, turning me to the living room and moving us in, saying, “Let’s get settled.”

Company followed, but I couldn’t see how they did because Benny deposited me in the corner of the couch and instantly bent in, one hand to the seat beside me, one hand to the armrest, his face an inch away.

“You need a pill?” he asked.

“No, I’m gonna tough it out. It might get better when I’m not bawlin’.”

His head went back a bit, his eyes moved over my face, and he said, “Right. You need somethin’, you tell Pop or Ma.”

I nodded.

“Now, I gotta go to the store and get a fuckin’ casserole dish.”

I felt my lips quirk before I nodded again.

He watched my lips quirk before he looked back into my eyes, grinned, and winked.

Then he was gone.

But his grin and wink remained and I found I didn’t have to tough out the pain.

A grin and wink from Benny Bianchi was the best medicine a girl could have.

***

“School is awesome, the best part about it being Jasper Layne.”

It was after lasagna, which Theresa served at Benny’s dining room table after spending nearly the entire time the lasagna cooked in his dining room, shifting what looked like three years of discarded junk mail from the top of the table and attacking the old-fashioned, definitely hand-me-down eight-seater with Pledge.

We were in the living room. Vi, obviously not knowing she should leave Theresa alone, was in the kitchen with Benny’s mother, helping her do the dishes.

I was back on the couch, sitting up again but not in the corner. Benny was in the corner and I was tucked to his side, his arm around me. Kate was down the sofa from us. Vinnie Senior was in Ben’s recliner. Cal was in an armchair. Keira was on the floor and she was the one who was talking.

I was surreptitiously watching Cal, who was not surreptitiously watching Benny and me tucked into the side of the couch. He had a small smile playing at his mouth, the warm light of humor in his eyes, but with both of these, he also had a knowing look on his face.

And I did not get that. He and Vinnie Junior were the same age, close as brothers. He’d tried to talk Vinnie out of working with Sal but was one of the few who intended to take Vinnie as he came. That was how tight they were. He didn’t like that Vinnie was on Sal’s crew, but he didn’t intend to lose him because of it.

So the way Benny was holding me, which was not with brotherly affection, I would have thought would anger Cal, or at the very least perturb him.

It obviously didn’t.

He obviously liked it.

Which was strange.

Stranger, Vinnie Senior had no reaction to it either.

This was making me uncomfortable, and with all that was going on in my head, not to mention having company, I didn’t have the time to sort out why.

“Jasper Layne is hot, no doubt about that, but he’s also a dawg.”

That came from Kate, and the instant it did, Cal stopped grinning knowingly at Benny’s foot, which he’d tangled with mine in an intimate way that felt nice but I knew I should not allow (though I did, bent on earning my first-class ticket straight to hell), and his attention cut to Kate.

“He is not,” Keira snapped.

“Total player,” Kate declared.

“He is not!” Keira’s voice was rising.

“Keirry, he’s had three girlfriends already and we’ve been in school, like, a month,” Kate told her.

I quit surreptitiously watching and started openly watching, and also openly grinning (huge), as a dark, protective, dad look moved over Cal’s face.

He loved Violet. I knew that when he pulled out all the stops and made a miracle happen when he found us in the middle of nowhere in a forest and took a man’s life to save hers.

He also loved her girls.

And I loved that.

“So, he’s lookin’ for the right one,” Keira shot back.

“He’s lookin’ for somethin’,” Kate muttered.

“No Jasper Layne,” Cal decreed, and I watched Keira jerk her gaze to Cal.

“Joe!” she cried.

“No Jasper Layne,” he repeated.

I felt Benny give me a squeeze and I looked at him to see him smiling big at his cousin.

My attention went back to the scene when Keira exclaimed, “He’s cute!”

“He’s off-limits,” Cal proclaimed.

“Joe!” she repeated loudly.

Cal scowled at her. Then I stopped grinning at him and started staring at him when I saw it begin.

I couldn’t believe it might happen.

Then it happened.

He caved.

“How old is he?” Cal asked.

“He’s a sophomore,” Keira answered—Keira, incidentally, being a freshman.

“You wait until you’re older, he’s older, then we’ll see.”

I watched Keira study her “Joe.” Then I watched her face get soft and her eyes light. It was then I knew she knew she had the big, rough man who was Joe Callahan wrapped around her finger.

That had to be why she said much calmer and definitely sweeter, “Okay, Joe.”

“You do know this is hilarious,” Benny put in at that point.

“Shut it,” Cal growled.

Ben chuckled, I giggled, and Vinnie Senior laughed outright.

Cal’s face took on another dark look, this one annoyed, so I quit giggling and looked at Keira. “Sometimes, those are the best ones,” I shared my womanly wisdom.

“What are the best ones?” she asked me.

“The wild ones. You let them get it out of their system and you get them when they’re tame. That can be the best,” I told her, and Benny’s arm got tight, but this time it didn’t loosen.

“Tame doesn’t sound fun,” Keira noted. Cal sighed audibly and I smiled, but only so I wouldn’t laugh.

Cal had his hands full with this one and I thought that was hilarious.

“It’s not tame tame, it’s the good kind of tame,” I explained. She looked confused, so I went on. “I’m just sayin’, listen to Cal. You might not get it ’cause you’re young, but you’ll learn. And he’s tryin’ to make sure when you learn, it isn’t the hard way.”

“Right,” Keira whispered, eyeing me, eyeing Cal, and sucking my womanly wisdom in like a sponge.

“So,” Kate said, and I looked to her. “It’s like Joe bein’ the Lone Wolf, and Mawdy and us gettin’ in there, and he’s still hot and cool, but he’s got us.”

“Something like that,” I replied, smiling back at her.

“The Lone Wolf?” Benny asked.

“Shut it,” Cal growled.

I giggled again.

“What are we talking about?” Theresa asked, and I looked over the back of the couch to see her and Violet joining us.

“Something we’re not talkin’ about anymore,” Cal answered.

I gave Vi a big smile as Kate exited the couch to go sit on the floor with her sister so Theresa could sit in the corner. Violet scrunched next to me.

The minute she did, she grabbed my hand and held on.

I rested our hands on my thigh and held on tighter.

“I made cannoli and Benny bought enough donuts for an army. Anyone in the mood for something sweet?” Theresa asked.

“Me!” Keira cried.

“Totally!” Kate exclaimed, already getting back to her feet.

Theresa, barely just sitting down, got back up. “Let’s go make coffee and get something sweet.”

“I could use some coffee and somethin’ sweet,” Vinnie Senior muttered, hefting himself out of the recliner and following them.

“Ben, a word,” Cal said.

I felt Benny tense against me. I looked at him to see he was giving a hard look to his cousin. Then he looked to me and that look softened.

“Be back, cara,” he said quietly.

“Right,” I replied.

He carefully shifted from beside me and got to his feet.

The men left and I looked to Vi.

“Do you know what that’s about?” I asked.

Violet was looking over the couch, watching the men depart, but at my question, her eyes came to me. “Joe obviously has something on his mind. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shared with me what it is.”

I looked over the couch and saw that whatever it was took them out to the front stoop. In other words, where no one could listen in.

I turned my gaze back to Violet. “Is everything cool?”

She nodded. “Police found the carnage Hart left in his lake house. He shot you. Both Joe and Benny’s guns were registered. The cops were in the know we’d been kidnapped, and they knew all about Hart and his obsession with me. So, to end, they didn’t press charges against Joe for blowin’ a hole in his head. And, obviously you know, the same with Benny for shooting him in the stomach.”

I knew all that. Sal had explained it to me in the hospital.

So I clarified, “No, what I mean is, you, the girls, the drama.” I leaned closer. “They’re beautiful, Vi,” I said softly. “So sweet. Amazing. But they seem—”

She gave my hand a squeeze. “They lost their dad, their uncle, and almost me and Joe to Daniel Hart. They latch on to family, having lost all that. Joe and I are keepin’ an eye on it, but I reckon it’s better they latch on to love rather than acting out.”

“You’d be right about that,” I replied.

She tipped her head to the side as she lifted her eyebrows up. “You and Benny?”

“Long story,” I muttered, and she grinned.

“You two look good together.”

I caught her eyes direct. “I looked good together with his brother too.”

She held my gaze for long seconds before she asked cautiously, “Do you like him?”

“He’s the commissioner of the local Little League.”

Her lips twitched and she murmured, “You like him.”

“He’s also my dead boyfriend’s brother,” I noted for the fucking gazillionth time in three days.

She assessed my face and remarked, “I’m sensing you don’t wanna talk about this.”

“Since Ben made it clear what he was thinking about this, it’s pretty much the only thing I think about, we talk about, and I talk about with other people. So yeah, I could use a break.”

Violet nodded. “Right. So you ever need to talk it through with someone who’ll just listen, or you ever need to talk anything through with someone who’ll just listen, or you ever just want to shoot the breeze, you call me. Okay?”

That was so nice, I grinned at her, declaring, “I just knew you were the shit.”

She grinned back and replied, “I knew you were the shit when you jimmied up that window so we could escape.”

I shrugged. “Figured Hart was shooting people in the other room, it was time for us to take a stroll.”

She started giggling and through it said, “You were so right.”

I started giggling too and we did this for a while until we both sobered, our eyes glued to each other’s, our hands clutching tight.

“You’re up, talking, you look gorgeous, but are you sleeping? Dealing? Healing?” Vi asked in a whisper.

“One good thing about Benny throwing down with me is that I haven’t really had a chance to have a proper freak out about that whole thing with Hart. But we’re here, he’s not, so it all worked out in the end.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“You?” I asked.

“I have Joe,” she answered, and I smiled. She had Cal. Cal had her. And obviously, that was all she needed.

“You’re good for him,” I told her.

“He’s good for me,” she told me.

Excellent response.

“He loves your girls,” I told her.

“They adore him,” she told me.

Another excellent response.

“Thanks for making him happy,” I whispered.

“That, honey, is not a hardship,” she whispered back.

We smiled at each other again. Then, being women and thus, prone to do crazy shit for no reason whatsoever, we burst out laughing.

***

Hours later, when everyone was gone, I walked out of the bathroom in another one of Gina’s sexy-cute nightgowns to see Benny with bare feet, in his t-shirt and jeans, stretched out on the bed.

His eyes came to me, dropped to my body, and he muttered, “Jesus.”

That made me feel awesome and irked me at the same time.

“You could avoid the torture by watchin’ TV downstairs,” I remarked.

His eyes lifted to mine. “I could.”

That was all he said.

I sighed, went to the robe at the foot of the bed, shrugged it on, tied the belt, and climbed into bed.

Benny was in that bed and I should be throwing a conniption about it, but I needed to climb in. It had been a big day with lots of hugging, moving around, and sitting up. It felt good to do it. It felt better I made it through. It wasn’t too much too soon, but that didn’t mean I didn’t need to take a load off.

I turned my eyes to the TV to see Benny scrolling through the guide like a man would stand in front of a refrigerator—that was, not paying a whole lot of attention, not knowing what he wanted, not liking what he saw, and willing to do it for the next half an hour, thinking something would magically appear that would ease a craving.

“What’d you talk about with Cal?” I asked.

“He wanted to make sure you were good,” Ben answered, eyes to the TV.

“He could have asked me,” I pointed out, eyes to Ben.

“He didn’t. He asked me,” Ben told me what I already knew.

“Did this require you being on the front stoop where no one could hear?” I pushed.

“Yep, since it happened on the front stoop where no one could hear,” Ben stated, and that didn’t feel awesome. It just irked me.

“Benny!” I snapped, and he looked at me.

“Ask what you wanna ask, baby,” he said gently, reading me and knowing I was beating around the bush.

So I quit beating around the bush.

“Cal doesn’t seem to have a problem with the idea of you and me,” I noted.

“He doesn’t, since he’s told me, repeatedly, after that shit went down with Hart, to get my head outta my ass and sort out you and me.”

My mouth dropped open.

I snapped it shut to declare, “There isn’t a ‘you and me.’”

His eyes did a sweep of me in his bed, they came to rest on mine, and he said quietly, “Babe.”

Shit.

“We’re talkin’ about this tomorrow,” he reminded me. “Right now, I can tell you had a big day and you need to kick back.”

He wasn’t wrong about that. What he was was attentive, noticing it.

Another good thing about Benny.

“Come here,” he ordered.

“I’m good here,” I said, turning my eyes to the TV.

“Frankie, come here,” he repeated.

I looked to him. “I’m good here, Benny.”

“Babe,” he stated firmly, but said no more.

“I’m comfy.”

“Come here,” he said yet again.

“Ben, I’m fine where I am.”

“Come here.”

My eyes narrowed. “Seriously?”

“Francesca, come…here.”

“Are you gonna repeat it until I do it?” I snapped.

“Yes,” he replied.

“You’re annoying,” I told him.

“Come here.”

“Now you’re more annoying.”

“Come here.”

I glared at him as I informed him, “I really wanna hit you with a pillow right now.”

“Come here.”

“Benny!” I shouted.

Then I was no longer reclining on my side of the bed.

I was tucked tight to Benny’s side on his side of the bed.

It felt good. Natural. Right.

I clenched my teeth.

Then I unclenched them to say, “You’re totally freaking annoying.”

“And you’re all kinds of cute.”

I clenched my teeth again.

Ben settled on some television show set in a prison.

“I don’t watch prison shows,” I declared.

Ben said nothing but didn’t change the channel.

“Or war shows,” I went on inanely.

Ben didn’t move and the channel remained the same.

“Ben, find something else,” I ordered.

“Please?” he said that one word as a demand.

I tipped my head from its place on his chest to glare at him.

He grinned at me.

Then he offered me the remote.

Yes, Benny Bianchi, a man who was all man handed me the remote.

To the TV!

Yet another good thing about Benny.

Tentatively, like the woman I was, a woman who was entering previously uncharted territory and needing to do it cautiously, I took it.

Even more tentatively, I found a cooking show I liked.

Benny said not a word and I marveled as he lay there watching a cooking show with me, not saying a word.

And again, he showed me another good thing.

The problem with that was that I was thinking, when it came to Benito Bianchi, it was all a good thing.