The Promise

Chapter Seven Minute by Minute

At six forty that night, I stood in Benny’s bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror.

My hair was bigger than its normal big, by a lot.

My makeup was deeper, smokier, hotter.

My dress was black with a silver shimmer. In the front, it covered me from throat to mid-thigh, including long sleeves.

But it was skintight. Everywhere.

And there was no back. None. From the small to my shoulder blades, all bare.

It was a dress that demanded a woman not wear underwear. A bra was an impossibility, but I’d bested the challenge of the panties, finding a sheer black thong that was only noticeable if the dress shifted in a particular way. So under the dress, I had on nothing but that thong.

But on the outside, I’d included chunky drop earrings that nearly brushed my shoulders and a thick rhinestone bracelet over the gathers formed by the material at one of my wrists. On the other hand, I had a ring at my middle finger, on which delicate, shimmering chains were attached that dangled up the back of my hand to another bracelet linked around my wrist.

And on my feet were silver sandals that had a platform, a four-and-a-half-inch heel that was thin as a pencil, a slim wraparound strap at my ankle, and two slender straps over my toes.

I needed a manicure and a pedicure.

Other than that, top to toe, I was all I could be for a first date.

The bummer was that I was also a little tired. The day, the conversation with Benny, the trip to Lincoln’s and back, and my efforts in the bathroom took it out of me.

But I was not going to miss that night.

I’d made Benny a promise. Stick with him. Minute by minute.

I was going to keep it.

I didn’t know if it was right.

I did know that day we threw a lot of garbage out there and none of it fazed Ben, not in the slightest.

I also knew that pretty much everybody—from Cindy the nurse, who had no real idea of the history; to Cal, who totally did; to Theresa and Vinnie, who were intimately involved; to old lady Zambino, a not-so-casual observer—didn’t think it was wrong.

It was only me who did.

So I was going to stick with Benny, take this minute by minute and ride it out, God help me.

Which meant, even though I was tired and a bit achy, I was tricked out to extremes in order to go to arguably the most romantic restaurant in Chicago with Benny Bianchi.

I turned to the door, opened it, switched off the light, walked out, and stopped dead.

This was because Ben had his neck bent forward, his side to me, and he was shrugging on the jacket of a black suit. Shrugging it on over a shirt so deep blue it was midnight, that had subtle dark gray, deep burgundy, and navy stripes. His hair was partially tamed, and once he got the jacket settled, the ends brushed the collar.

My stomach dipped and my mouth went dry.

His eyes came to me and he went completely still.

Then those eyes got dark in a way that made my legs start trembling and my clit pulse.

I braced for him to rush me.

He didn’t. We just stood there staring at each other. Benny’s look was carnal. I had a feeling mine was the same.

After this lasted awhile, Ben whispered, “Crazy-beautiful.”

My heart squeezed, and when it did, it felt fucking good.

“Always were,” he went on quietly.

I forced myself to find my voice, but when the words came out, they sounded husky. “You look good too.”

Some of the dark went out of his eyes as sweet settled in and he ordered, “Come here, Frankie.”

For once, I did as I was told and walked to him.

The instant I got close, he pulled me gently into his arms, holding me loosely, and dipped his head to touch his mouth to mine.

When he lifted it, he asked, “You ready to go?”

I nodded.

He grinned, gave me a light squeeze, then let me go. He did the rounds to turn the lights off on the nightstands, then came to me and took my hand. He held it all the way down to the kitchen and only dropped it when he nabbed his cell off the counter and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket.

We were at the door when he asked, “You want your purse?”

I looked up at him. “It doesn’t go with my outfit and I didn’t think to grab one when I was at my place.”

“You need me to carry anything for you?”

I went silent and stared up at him, wondering if he was for real.

It was strange and unsettling to compare him to his brother, but even so, the fact remained that Vinnie not only never offered to carry anything for me, there were times he bitched when I asked.

Though, it was more. As my experience with men was limited, my girlfriends had reported the same thing.

“Babe?” he prompted.

Again in unchartered female territory, I cautiously answered, “My lip gloss.”

His eyes dropped to my dress and he asked with more than mild incredulity, “You got it on you?”

I shook my head. “I left it in the bathroom.”

“I’ll get it,” he muttered and moved that way.

“Ben, you wanna know which one to grab?” I called to his back.

He turned and looked at me. “Babe, you think I don’t have that shade committed to memory, you’d be thinkin’ wrong.”

My heart squeezed again.

Ben disappeared.

He returned, got close, and waved the tube of lip gloss at me. “This it?”

He was a miracle man.

“Yep.”

He shoved it in his inside jacket pocket and asked, “Anything else?”

“Nope.”

He grinned, grabbed my hand, and pulled me out the door.

We were in his truck on our way to Giuseppe’s when something occurred to me.

“Do you know where my car is?”

“What?”

I turned to look at him. “I left my car in front of Daniel Hart’s house.”

“Yeah, right. Manny went to get it.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Man,” Ben stated. “Police gave us your purse at the hospital, told us where your car was and that it was okay to move it. Gave Man your keys, he took it to your pad. It’s parked in the spot with your apartment number on it in the parking garage.”

That was nice.

“Said you need a tune up,” Ben continued. “Sweet ride, babe, 280Z with a T-top. But you gotta take care of it.” He made a turn and finished on a mutter, “I’ll get it in my garage, get under the hood.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told him, turning to face forward. “Got a guy who specializes. With things crazy because of the new job and the move, I haven’t gotten it to him. I was gonna do that before I went to Indy.”

“I’ll do it,” Benny said.

“He specializes, Ben,” I replied.

“Know my way around a Z, Frankie.”

I shut my mouth because I knew he did. Not because he’d owned one, but because he’d had a girlfriend once who owned one.

This brought me to remember something I forgot that I’d always thought was sweet about Benny, actually about all the Bianchis. When he’d had her, he’d taken care of that car for her. Vinnie had done the same for me. You had a Bianchi man, mechanics and oil change shops were a memory.

I also remembered more.

I remembered that she’d lasted longer than any of the other women Benny was with, over two years. It was when I was with Vinnie so I knew her. Her name was Connie. She was very beautiful and very sweet. The whole family was hoping it would go somewhere, including me.

It didn’t and Vinnie, as Benny told it true, had a big mouth, so I knew why it didn’t.

She was too sweet. A pushover.

“My brother’s a man who needs a challenge, babe,” Vinnie had said. “A woman’s gotta stir his blood in more ways than one. You dig?”

At the time, I didn’t dig. I’d liked Connie and I’d thought Benny was crazy for letting her go.

I knew now Connie would come right there when Benny demanded it. And I knew now that might be okay, for a while. Then it would bore him stupid.

These thoughts made me feel warm and weird at the same time.

I didn’t know if it was right, if it would make me feel less weird or more, or make Benny feel weird at all, but I still asked, “How is Connie?”

“Married to Tommy Lasco. Two kids, another on the way. They moved to Calumet City three years ago,” he stated indifferently.

As he was talking, my eyes got big and I turned to him again. “Tommy Lasco?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Yep,” Benny agreed.

Tommy Lasco was a bully in school who turned into an asshole out of it. He was good-looking, not as good-looking as any of the Bianchis, including Manny. Vinnie and Benny were strikingly handsome in a way that caught your attention and did not let go. Manny was hot and had it going on, but he was not quite that.

But being an asshole always made a man less attractive.

I turned my head and told the windshield, “I don’t like that for her.”

“She’s happy.”

Again, I looked at him. “You’re sure?”

I saw his shoulders shrug. “They fit. Makes no sense to me, but he loves her. Treats her like gold. He’s a massive dick to everybody else, no exception, but thinks the world of her, their kids. Somehow, she saw her way past the dick he was to the guy he could be with her, and somehow, he found his way not to be a dick to her.”

At least that was something.

I looked back to the road, murmuring, “How did I not hear of this?”

“They live quiet. She likes it like that. He gives it to her.”

Another shocker about Tommy Lasco. He was the kind of asshole who liked to spread his asshole-ness around, loud and proud.

“That’s nice,” I remarked.

“Yep,” Benny agreed.

I rubbed my lips together, thinking about it, then I went for it. “Does that make you feel weird? You guys were together for a while.”

“Nope,” Benny replied immediately. “Glad she’s happy. She wasn’t for me. I burned her bad and that sucked. Didn’t like doin’ it to her ’cause she was sweet, but she wasn’t for me. Sayin’ that, she found what she needed in the end and nothin’ to feel about that but happy for her that she got what she needed.”

He did burn her bad. She was devastated when Ben broke it off.

But it was coming clear that shit happened, and when it was done, Benny put it behind him. He did that firm and he moved on, leaving it there and not looking back.

And this was something to consider.

Ben made a turn and we were on the street that led to the alley that held Giuseppe’s.

“Gonna drop you at the door, honey,” he said. “May have to park at a distance and don’t want you walkin’ that.”

And more good from Benny.

“Okay,” I said softly. “But I need a refresh of lip gloss.”

He dug into his jacket and handed me the tube. I flipped down the visor and did my swiping as Ben made the turn into the alley. I flipped the visor up, watched as Ben drove down the alley, and I saw it.

Two scrolled, wrought-iron railings coming up from a short stairwell that led to the bowels of the building. A sign dimly lit by two arched lights over it that said only Giuseppe’s. Planters attached to the brick of the building from street level all the way up and over the recessed door to the restaurant, dripping with flowers and greenery, same with two tall, attractive planters on either side of the railings. Deep-seated benches on each side of the door beyond the planters where people could sit and wait for tables or go out and have a smoke and not stand around loitering. The benches were lit with more of the arched lights, two for each bench.

Total class.

Ben stopped and put the Explorer in neutral. I had my door open, but he was at it before I could get a foot to the running board.

I didn’t ever get a foot to the running board. Hands at my hips, he lifted me out of the SUV and put me on my feet. Without me asking him, he slipped my lip gloss from my fingers and tucked it in his jacket. And after that, even though the steps were four feet away, he led me there, hand in hand.

He stopped me at the top and I looked up at him.

“Be back,” he said, then dipped his head and touched his mouth to my freshly glossed one with no apparent aversion to this fact. I watched him saunter back to his truck with his thumb at his lips, rubbing away my gloss. Something strange but not unwelcome shifted inside me at the casual way he did this. Then I watched him slam the passenger side door he left open, round the hood, angle in, and drive away.

I kept my eyes to the alley for a while before I turned and looked down the steps.

Vinnie had never taken me there.

In the early days, before it got exclusive with Vinnie, I’d had a date with a guy who took me there.

The instant Vinnie found out some guy had taken me there, he pressed for exclusive. He knew what it meant when a guy took a woman to Giuseppe’s.

Why he never took me there himself, I would never know.

But right then, I couldn’t go in. Not alone. Instead, I moved to a bench, sat and waited for Benny.

It didn’t take long for him to show, and when he strolled into the dim light, I saw his eyes narrowed on me.

I gained my feet and he was right there.

“Why didn’t you go in?” he asked.

“Waitin’ for you,” I answered.

He studied me a second before he took my hand and, without a word, led me to the steps.

Then we were in. Music playing so soft you could barely hear it. A faint hum of conversation that made you think every patron was whispering. Muted noises of silverware clinking on china or crystal tinkling against glass. Candlelight on the tables and in some sconces on the walls. A fresh, extraordinary, but understated bouquet of roses at the hostess station.

Love in the air.

Its silken feel glided down my throat as Ben stopped us at the hostess station and Elena appeared before us. She wore a trim, black sheath dress that skimmed her knees and a pair of delicate, black slingbacks with peekaboo toes, her hair pulled back in a soft updo.

“Frankie and Benny,” she said quietly, her lips curved up in a slight smile, her hands held out low to her sides.

Elena was ten years older than me, maybe a bit more. I knew her not because I’d eaten at her restaurant only once, but because she went to the same church as my family, she lived in the ’hood so I saw her around, and, even having her own eatery, she’d come to Vinnie’s Pizzeria more than once (because everyone in the ’hood had been to Vinnie’s more than once).

She was like her restaurant, like her father was before her and, if rumor served, her grandfather was before him. Pure elegance.

She came to me first. Grabbing my hands, she leaned in and touched one cheek to mine, then she moved to touch the other one before she kept hold of my hands and shifted away to catch my eyes.

“You’re well?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“So brave,” she said softly.

She’d heard. This wasn’t a surprise. She was from the ’hood. Not to mention, it was on TV.

“Thanks,” I replied.

She squeezed my hands before she let me go and turned to Benny, giving him the same treatment but without the hand-holding. Instead, she let her hand rest lightly on his upper arm.

She moved from Benny and said, “Let’s get you to your table.”

Not waiting for us to respond, she started to glide through the restaurant. Ben put his hand to the skin at the small of my back and guided me after her.

With the shortness of time when Benny made the reservation, I was surprised that Elena led us to a premier spot—a corner table, even quieter and more private than any of the other tables due to a strategically placed planter. She stood to the side, smiling with approval as Ben proved further how awesome he could be when he shifted around me to pull back my chair.

I sat. He scooched me in, rounded the table, then he sat.

Elena moved in and floated a hand low across the table, saying, “Someone will bring your menus shortly. If you require anything, just ask.” She dipped her chin and finished, “Buon appetito.”

With that, she glided away.

I watched her do it, saying, “She’s the shit.”

I heard Benny chuckle as he agreed, “Yeah.”

I looked to him. “You been here before?”

“Yep, Ma and Pop’s thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. They hired out the back room. And brought a couple of women here.”

“Oh,” I murmured as a young woman in a fabulous but refined black dress swooped in and handed Ben and me our tall, leather-bound menus.

We said thanks and she’d barely moved away when a waiter wearing a white shirt, black tie, black trousers, and a pristine, long, white apron arrived with a pedestal bucket of Champagne he placed on the floor behind Benny’s chair.

“Compliments of Elena,” he murmured. He put two flutes on the table, popped the cork, and expertly poured. “I’ll be back for your order or to answer any questions you may have,” he stated while shoving the bottle back in the ice, then he drifted away.

The Champagne was a surprise. Then again, it wasn’t every day a girl from the ’hood survived a kidnapping and being shot, this making the news, and a couple of weeks later goes out with the man who rescued her.

All of us surviving that situation was worthy of celebration. It was very like Elena to think the same and do something about it.

I reached to my flute but saw Ben’s fingers close on the stem before I got near it.

He took it away and I looked to him.

“When was your last pill?” he asked.

“This morning,” I answered.

“You gonna need one to get through the night?”

The pain was nagging, and from experience, I knew it was likely to get worse. So the answer to that was yes.

Therefore, I gave him that answer.

“Yes.”

“Frankie, read the leaflet that came with your meds. No alcohol.”

I blinked. “But I’m at Giuseppe’s.”

“Yeah. And I’ll bring you back and you can drink all the Champagne you want then. Now, you be safe.”

I made a grab for my glass, saying, “I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

Ben pulled back the glass, saying, “I’m not, so you’re gonna be safe.”

I focused on him. “Ben, just a glass.”

“Francesca, no.”

It was then I glared at him and declared, “Already this is not a fun date.”

This did not perturb him in the slightest and I knew that when he stated, “It’ll be less fun you have a seizure or go to sleep and don’t wake up or start gettin’ sick or whatever the reason is they put on that leaflet you shouldn’t drink while on those pills.”

“It’s probably not that dramatic.”

“Babe, you’ve been shot. Against all that’s holy in a Chicago that is not the bootlegging, roaring twenties, your man decided to become a wise guy and ended up whacked. Your brother is about to go bankrupt due to the child support he’ll be payin’, or his story will be a made-for-TV movie when all those bitches he’s tagging or recently tagged lose their minds and turn on him and/or each other. You’re a drama magnet. You wanna flirt with that, proves you’re the nut I know you to be. But you aren’t gonna do it on my watch.”

“How is it that you can make being rational and protective so incredibly annoying?” I asked on a snap, and he grinned.

“It’s a gift.”

I rolled my eyes.

Benny took a sip from my Champagne glass.

I snapped my menu open and proceeded to study it with the intention of memorizing every word, even if it took me all night.

Unfortunately, it would be rude to make the waiter keep coming back to the table to ask if we were ready to order. So the first time he showed, I ordered the fried calamari, the spinach salad, and the lobster risotto, the last being the most expensive thing on the menu.

I ended my order with, “Later, don’t trouble yourself with offering us a look at the dessert tray. Just bring it.”

He bowed his head to me and looked to Benny, who placed his own order and ended it with, “Your bartender got it in him to make a virgin Bellini?”

I pressed my lips together because I loved Bellinis. They were my favorite. Benny obviously remembered and it was sweet that he did.

“I’m sure he does,” the waiter replied.

“Right, then bring my girl one and be certain she doesn’t have an empty glass.”

The waiter nodded, took his menu to add to the one he’d divested me of, and swept away.

Ben looked at me. “Good to know Lincoln’s didn’t shave the edge off that appetite.”

I grabbed my napkin, snapped it out to my side, and put it on my lap.

Benny continued as I did so, “Also good to know I’ll need to give myself a raise so I can take you out occasionally and be able to afford it.”

I crossed my legs under the table and moved a hand in order to arrange my cutlery so it was meticulously positioned around the plate sitting in front of me, even though it was already meticulously positioned.

“Francesca,” he called.

I cut my eyes to him. “What?”

“I’d buy you a plate piled high with sapphires and be happy sittin’ across from you as you picked through them, even if you were doin’ it pissed at me for being rational and protective.”

My stomach dropped, my heart squeezed, and I leaned into him to hiss, “Stop bein’ awesome.”

He threw his head back and laughed, showing me he didn’t intend to stop being awesome because he looked good and sounded good doing it.

When he was down to chuckling, his hand darted across the table and closed around mine. Twisting, he forced his fingers to lace through mine and rested our hands on the table.

Once he’d accomplished that, he looked into my eyes and stated, “Been waitin’ years for this, baby. Thanks for makin’ it worth the wait.”

“You’re still bein’ awesome,” I informed him.

“Yeah, and it’s cute as fuck that annoys you.”

“Now you’re bein’ awesome and insane,” I shared.

His head cocked slightly to the side. “A man likes what he likes. I’m a man who likes you and your attitude.”

“Whatever,” I muttered, even though I liked that he liked that and I liked it a lot.

“What makes you happy?” he asked suddenly, and I felt my body jolt at the question, not just because it was sudden, but because it was unexpectedly weighty.

“What?”

“What makes you happy? What do you want outta life?”

“I…” I started, then changed what I was going to say. “Why do you ask?”

“’Cause I wanna know if it’s in me to give it to you.”

God.

Benny.

“Ben,” I whispered.

“I want kids. Three, four. Boys and girls, but however they come, doesn’t matter to me,” he put out there. “That’s it. I’m good at the restaurant. Comfortable with the money I got in the bank. I get the kids, eventually gotta buy a bigger house. And told you the woman I wanted. So there it is. That’s what I want outta life. That’s what would make me happy.”

He gave me that. No coaxing, no bullshit, no games, no holding shit back, waiting to see where I was and if I fit.

What he wanted was simple.

And beautiful.

When I said nothing, he pushed, “You want kids?”

“Yeah,” I replied.

“How many?”

“Don’t really care, but more than one.”

His fingers tightened in mine for a moment before he went on, “You like your work?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna keep it or be a stay-at-home mom?”

“I don’t know. I figure I’ll know when the first kid comes.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Do you want your kids’ ma to be stay-at-home?” I asked.

“Want her to be happy,” he answered. “So don’t give a fuck just as long as she gets that. Whatever way it turns out, we’ll deal.”

More awesome.

“I’m moving to Indianapolis, Benny,” I blurted, my hand tensing in his. “I have to. I—”

His hand gave mine a light jerk. “That’s not the next minute, baby.”

I shut my mouth.

“That’s on your mind, I’ll say this,” he went on. “You want that prize, you gotta work for it. And if there are obstacles in your way, you deal with them when you hit them. You find a way. We wanna work at this, we’ll find a way.”

It was a big obstacle to face.

In light of that, it was also the perfect thing to say.

“Okay,” I said softly.

His thumb moved, stroking the side of my hand, and he asked, “You good with our talk earlier?”

“Mostly,” I answered.

“Which part are you not good with?”

“All the parts that are still awkward and uncomfortable,” I told him, meaning the whole of it.

His head cocked to the side again. “Vinnie bring you here?”

I shook my head.

“I brought Connie here.”

My breath stuttered and I stared into his eyes.

“You have a past, I have a past,” Benny stated. “You loved a man. I had a woman who meant something to me. That was then, Frankie, this is now. It’s just that your man was my brother. We can make that an issue or we can decide to let it go.”

“It’s easy for you to let it go?” I asked.

“No, but not because he had you. Not because you were in my life in a different way and I had to watch you love him and lose him. Because he didn’t do right by you and that pisses me off. That said, I figure that’ll eventually fade too.”

“You wanted to go out with me in high school,” I noted, not even knowing why I did it, but Ben must have known because his thumb stopped stroking and his fingers got tight in mine again.

“Loved my brother, thought you were the shit, you were with him, didn’t let my mind go there. Last couple of weeks, I let my mind go there. I held no jealousy at the time. That doesn’t mean when it started with you two it wasn’t a blow because I fucked that up back in the day. You were around and available and I didn’t do shit for years about it and Vinnie got in there because I was dickin’ around. But when you were with him, that went away because it had to. Bottom line now, it brings me no joy you lost what you lost when you lost him. That doesn’t change the fact that I’m glad I got my shot. I could feel guilt about that, but that’s not on either of us. That’s on Vinnie. And in the end, it’s just the way it is.”

“But you said you were thinkin’ of makin’ a move on me when I was with Vinnie,” I pointed out.

He nodded once. “Could have guilt about that too, but that isn’t on me either. He made his choices and he was my brother, but I knew you deserved better. It got to the point where shit was not right with you two and it wasn’t gonna get better. So it got to the point where I started to realize I wanted to give it to you.”

I looked away, but his hand shaking mine made me look back and he kept going.

“You were not with Vinnie but some other asshole who didn’t do right by you, I woulda done the same thing. I woulda moved in. Some might say that would be a dick move, brother or not, but I don’t give a fuck. I would not have any guilt about that either. It’s the same fuckin’ thing, except that asshole happened to be my brother. Take Vinnie out of the equation, Frankie, and you end up with a man who treats you right. That is not wrong. You could spit fire or talk at me for a year and you wouldn’t convince me it was.”

“Do your parents understand what this is?” I asked in a voice that was barely a whisper.

“Yes,” he answered in a voice that was not.

“And they’re okay with it?” Now my voice was quiet but squeaky.

“They got more years than us. They know you’re a good woman. They want you to be happy. And they sure as fuck want me to be happy. They’ve done enough judging when it was not their place and the judgments they cast were fucked. They learned, honey. It is not lost on them that life is life and the goal is to gather as much happiness as you can while you’re livin’ it. Things mighta gone differently if I made a move while my brother was alive. They mighta frowned on that. Then again, they knew in their guts he was doin’ you wrong so they might not. We’ll never know. Right now, there is no one to hurt in this scenario ’cause the one who woulda got hurt is dead.”

“You have all the answers,” I noted, but not in a sarcastic way. It was just that he did have all the answers, answers to difficult issues I thought had none at all.

“That’s because there are answers to be had.”

“Why do those answers come easy for you?”

“Because I’m not makin’ them hard.”

I felt my brows knit. “Do you think that’s what I’m doing?”

“I think you loved my brother and you think you’re betrayin’ his memory by lettin’ yourself have what you want, goin’ there with me. But his memory is a memory, baby. There is nothin’ to betray. It boils down to a decision you make about what you want. And I know I’m hammerin’ this point home, but it’s a point that’s there for me to hammer. That is, he betrayed you before he got taken from this world. So my question is, why, when he’s gone, would you keep the faith?”

“You’re very angry at him,” I whispered, not having a good feeling about what Ben was making plain and not having that good feeling for a variety of reasons.

“Yeah. ’Cause I loved him and I’m pissed he’s dead. I’m pissed why he’s dead. I’m pissed at myself for what I did to you after he died. I’m pissed at what he did to you and my folks and my family before he died. I gotta work through that and I will. But don’t twist that shit in your head to make what I want from you to be about that. I knew a girl in high school who was sweet and spicy and I pissed away my chance with her back then because I was young and stupid. Years later, after I learned not to be stupid, I got my shot, so I’m takin’ it. Vinnie just happens to be what happened to you in between. It sucks because it makes it harder for you, but that’s what it is to me. He made this complicated. But that’s it. Now it’s just you and me.”

Listening to him, letting all he was saying sink in, I felt my breath escalating, but in a way where it felt I was finally getting oxygen after ages where I wasn’t able to breathe.

“You’re saying all the right things.” I said this as a defensive accusation because I wanted to breathe; I’d just been living without oxygen so long I didn’t trust it.

“No, I’m not. I’m sayin’ things that are right.”

Instantly, his words forced a giggle to burst out of me that I couldn’t hold back.

Benny was grinning at me when he asked, “That’s funny?”

“It was the right thing to say,” I explained, grinning at him back.

Taking in my grin, suddenly, he tugged my hand across the table and I watched in utter fascination as his dark head bent over it, then felt the utter exquisiteness of his lips brushing my fingers.

He kept tight hold of my hand, even as his eyes lifted to mine.

“Coupla weeks ago, you trailin’ me back to Chicago, you pulled off to follow Vi, I felt fear, baby. Came out as anger, but it was fear that cut right down to the bone. Sal told me they got you, it carved out my insides. Couldn’t think, ’cause I knew if I did, I’d think of wastin’ my time, not sortin’ shit out with you. Hit that forest, saw you on the ground draggin’ yourself through those leaves. Only thing that stopped me unloading my clip in that motherfucker was Vi shoutin’, and you looked in my eyes and mouthed her words, makin’ a fuckin’ joke. Pure fuckin’ Frankie. I have never loved a woman, not in my life, not like that. Honest to Christ, you’re crazy-beautiful and I was into you, but I don’t know where that emotion came from. I just know that whatever that is I felt that day meant something and that something is huge. So I wanna know the good parts of feelin’ that. All I’m askin’ is for you to let me.”

I stared into his eyes, words clogged in my throat, thoughts crowding my head, feelings gathering around my heart, but before I could get a word out, in a quiet, deferential voice, our waiter said, “My apologies. The lady’s Bellini.”

With a practiced hand, even though Benny and I were both leaned into the table, he set it by my place setting and whisked himself away.

But both Benny and I had shifted slightly back to let him in, and as he whisked himself away, Ben stared at his back like he wished he had a knife he could throw at it.

“Ben,” I called.

He looked at me.

“Minute by minute, honey,” I whispered.

He closed his eyes, his hand still in mine squeezed hard, and I lost his face when he again dropped his head, lifting my hand, and touched his lips to my fingers.

Through this, I clenched my teeth, held his hand, and fought back tears.

He put our hands to the table, gave me his beautiful eyes, and whispered back, “Minute by minute, baby.”

***

Three and a half hours later, I came out of the bathroom to find Benny in the bed, eyes to the TV. As he’d been in a suit, in order to lounge, he’d changed into pair of gray, blue, and red plaid pajama bottoms with which he’d paired a white tee that fit loose at his belly, snug at his chest.

I bit my lip and headed to the bed.

“Pill’s on the nightstand, honey,” he muttered to the TV.

“Thanks,” I muttered to the covers I was pulling back.

I slid in, turned, saw the pill Ben brought up for me next to a glass of water he also brought up for me, and I took it, feeling warm and good, and it was pure insanity, but I also felt happy.

I settled in beside him but down in the bed, head on the pillows, because I was exhausted. I didn’t even have it in me to sit upright.

After the heavy, dinner went great. The food was phenomenal. Benny and I chatted and bantered and laughed and fell into what we used to have in a natural way, except it was what it used to be when we were friends, plus a whole lot more.

I was full and content (though, I would have been more content if I’d had a glass of Champagne) and we were both silent on the way home, but silent with Benny holding my hand against his thigh the entire way.

When we got in the kitchen, he turned me to hold me loosely in his arms, bent in, touched his mouth to mine, and said, “Go on up. I’ll be up in a minute.”

I did not argue this. I went up.

Now was now.

I would have preferred my first date with Benny Bianchi, where I’d begun to let go of what I was using to force a wedge between us, to end in a hot make out session. But from his words after his short kiss, I knew I’d be ending it likely cuddled in bed with him watching TV.

I’d take that.

After that day, I couldn’t take more.

And the good that was becoming awesome of all things Benny meant he likely knew that so he wasn’t going to make me.

“Babe, do me a favor?” he asked, eyes still aimed at the TV.

“Yeah?” I prompted when he said no more.

“Next time I take you out, a time when you won’t have a hole in you that’s healing, wear that dress.”

My lips curled up, but I said nothing.

He kept going.

“And I’m sure they’re sweet, but you got my permission to lose the panties.”

Of course, Benny Bianchi had the skills to spot the panties.

At that, I smiled inside but verbally muttered, “Whatever.”

He ignored my “whatever” and went on. “The shoes you can wear every day for the rest of your life and I’d be a happy man.”

Perhaps those shoes weren’t treacherous.

Perhaps they were miraculous.

I couldn’t hold back the smile at that, but I forced it to be small and trained it to the TV.

Five minutes later, when a commercial came on, Benny turned to me. He leaned in, lifting a hand to cup my jaw, and brought his face close to mine.

I looked into his eyes and held my breath.

“It’d make me happy right now I don’t have to sleep on that couch,” he said quietly.

I knew what he was saying.

It was too fast. Way too fast.

But after dinner that night, I didn’t care.

“So don’t,” I said quietly back. Though my voice may have been quiet, my heart was racing.

His eyes got soft, his face got closer, then his mouth was on mine. I only got a tongue sweep, but it was a tasty tongue sweep I liked a whole lot, before he pulled away.

Benny, not wasting an opportunity or time, shifted to slide under the covers. Then he shoved an arm under me and shifted me to cuddle into his side.

I slid my arm along his flat belly.

“Your checkup tomorrow is at ten,” he reminded me.

“Yeah,” I confirmed. I remembered.

“I’ll take you.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll also call Manny. After I bring you home, he and I’ll go get your Z so I can see to it.”

“All right.”

“Gotta get back in the kitchen, Frankie. You wanna call a friend to hang with you tomorrow night while I work?”

“That’ll be nice.”

He gave me a squeeze. “Right.”

After he finished squeezing me, his hand drifted up and into my hair. Then he started twirling a lock around his finger.

I don’t know why I did it, except that I wanted to do it and I didn’t get much of what I wanted, and a lot of what I wanted was right then stretched out beside me.

So I did it.

I turned my head and kissed his tee over his pec.

When I did, his fingers stopped playing with my hair and I felt his ab muscles get tight under my arm.

But when I settled my cheek back to his chest, his fingers started back up again and his body relaxed beside me.

“Nice night, honey. Thank you,” I told the TV.

“Yeah, baby.”

I gave him a squeeze and relaxed beside him, wondering if this was how it felt. If this was how it felt to get what you wanted for a lifetime. Have it stretched out beside you. The promise of it there all night so you’d wake up to it in the morning. The promise of it going to work the next day with you knowing it was coming back. A promise that would stay a promise—beautiful, forever there, beckoning, even as minute by minute it was being fulfilled, leaving you taking your last breath on earth knowing you lived a life filled with beauty.

If it was, it was weirdly serene.

You’d think something that magnificent would be about fireworks.

But if this was it, it wasn’t.

It was quiet, tranquil, comfortable.

Beauty.