“I am uncertain why you, your father, and your brother feel the need to include the f-word in every other sentence.”
At this point, Ben looked at me. “And there it is, tesorina—a woman askin’ a man ‘why’ when the answer doesn’t mean shit.”
I couldn’t hold it back.
I grinned at him.
The instant I did, I wished I’d held it back because his face changed in a way I wanted to remember for the rest of my life.
“The s-word is not much better, Benito Bianchi,” his mother snapped, but Benny didn’t look from me.
Instead, he came at me, bent in, grabbed me behind my head, and pulled me gently to him until I felt his lips on my hair.
He let me back and I tipped my head to catch his eyes.
“I’ll get to the restaurant so I can be back quick,” he said quietly.
“All right,” I agreed.
He gave me a smile and his hand cupping the back of my head gave me a squeeze before he let me go, straightened, and strode to the door.
“Are we done talking?” his mother asked his back.
“Yep,” he answered his mother by way of the hall.
She turned an exasperated look to me.
I grinned at her too and, again, wished I’d held it back.
Because her face took on a look I wanted to remember for the rest of my life.
“Later, Ma!” Benny yelled and, thankfully, the spell was broken.
“’Bye, Benny!” she shouted back, then looked at me. “Now, Frankie, is there anything I can get you before I call your doctor to make your checkup appointment?”
I shouldn’t have done it.
But I did it.
I looked into her eyes and, again, I smiled.
* * * * *
On his way home from the restaurant, Benny’s cell rang.
He leaned forward, pulled it out of his pocket, checked the screen, and took the call.
“Yo,” he greeted.
“She at your place?” Cal asked, and Benny shook his head at the windshield.
“Yep.”
“She spittin’ fire?” Cal went on.
“Occasionally.”
“Recuperating,” Cal guessed as to the reason it was only occasionally.
“Yep.”
“You’ll get it when she heals.”
He fucking hoped so. “Yep.”
“Vi wants a visit and the girls wanna meet her,” Cal told him.
Ben’s cousin’s woman had two daughters, Kate and Keira. Gorgeous. Sweet. Just like Violet. So Benny was not surprised by this request. He also wasn’t surprised by the fact that it wasn’t exactly voiced as a request. That was Cal.
“She just got through the reunion with Ma. Pop’s chompin’ at the bit. And she’s still got considerable pain, cugino. Doesn’t get ’round too good. Give us a few days.”
“You got until the weekend.”
At that, Benny grinned at the windshield.
Pure Cal.
“Just to say, man, it’s Friday so it is the weekend, or near on it.”
“I’ll rephrase. You got until Sunday.”
Suddenly, Benny wasn’t finding this amusing and he didn’t hesitate to get into why.
“You comin’ up to let your woman commune with Francesca, or are you comin’ up to make sure I’m not fuckin’ that shit up?”
“Two birds,” Cal replied.
Yes, he was no longer finding this amusing.
“Reminder, Cal, you let your life stay fucked for nearly two decades and it was only Vi pullin’ your head outta your ass that bought you what you got today.”
“Yeah, so, I learned. Now I’m makin’ sure a man who means somethin’ to me doesn’t waste as much time or more, and worse, lets the woman who should be in his bed waste her life waitin’ for him to pull his head outta his ass.”
Definitely not finding this amusing.
“I got this,” Benny said low.
“And I’m gonna give my woman time with the woman who kept her company during a serious-as-shit situation, let my girls meet the woman who kept their mother company and kept her alive, and rejoice in the fact that you got the other shit under control.”
Benny decided to shut this down. “We done talkin’?”
“Yep.”
“See you Sunday.”
Cal might have said something, but Benny didn’t hear it. He’d disconnected.
He parked in his garage and was walking up his back walk when he saw his mother come out the back door and down the stoop.
“Where you goin’?” he asked, his body tensing, hoping like fuck she wasn’t escaping because things went shit with Frankie.
“Frankie’s,” she answered, bustling to him, eyes to the massive handbag over her shoulder that she was digging into. She yanked out a sheet of paper and stopped just short of slamming into him, which was why he’d stopped one step earlier. She waved the sheet of paper at him. “I got a list. She needs to get back to normal, not be wanderin’ around in nightgowns. Gonna pick up some stuff.”
That he would allow. Frankie wandering around his house and lying on his bed in nightgowns was not conducive to him having patience through the delicate operation he was attempting. As was evidenced by his ludicrous overreaction to seeing her—all her hair, that body of hers, and her flawless skin—in his bed hours before.
“Right,” he said to his mother. “Her purse is in my truck.”
“Okay, caro,” she muttered, leaning up distractedly to kiss his cheek before she was bustling toward his garage.
“Ma,” he called. She stopped and turned back. “All good with you two?”
He watched her face get soft and she nodded.
Thank fuck. She wanted that and Frankie gave it to her.
That said a lot about Frankie. He couldn’t say he was in her shoes, he’d ever give that shit to anyone. They’d treated her like garbage, all of them, Benny especially, with Theresa not far behind. If it was him, he’d hold on to it until the day they died and then he’d spit on their grave.
It was good to know Frankie wasn’t going to put his folks through that. Fuck, it was just good to know she was the kind of woman who had that kind of forgiveness in her.
The tough stuff over, Benny got to the good stuff. “Cal and Vi are comin’ up on Sunday, bringin’ the girls.”
He watched then as his mother’s face lit with joy and Benny smiled at her.
After years of Cal’s distance that he took while he was nursing wounds most men would never recover from, having him back was good for his ma, his pop, him.
Having Frankie would be icing, a thick, rich layer of it.
But, hope to God, he succeeded in talking Frankie around to his way of thinking, Benny would be the one who’d get to eat it.
He watched his ma smile back.
The family all back together, healthy, happy, and growing with the addition of Vi and her girls. The only thing his mother ever wanted in her life she was going to get and Ben liked to see her get it.
“Good news,” she said.
“Yeah,” he replied.
Her smile got bigger. She waved and, again, started bustling away.
Benny moved to his house.
Frankie was not in the kitchen and he didn’t bother searching downstairs. He went upstairs and straight to his bedroom.
When he hit it, though, she wasn’t there. The bathroom door was open and he couldn’t see the whole of it, but he also couldn’t imagine her being in it for any purpose where she didn’t close the door.
He turned and looked down the hall, stopping when he saw the bathroom door open, as usual, one of the bedroom doors closed, as usual, and the other one open, not as usual.
He moved to the room he called his office, but it was just another room where he and members of his family dumped shit.
When he bought the house, it was four bedrooms. All the occupants of the bedrooms, when he filled them up one day, would need to share that hall bath.
&nb
sp; This meant the only thing he changed was converting the smallest bedroom, which was the size of a big closet, to a master bath.
He’d liked doing it. It reminded him of working construction, something he also liked doing. Building things. Using his hands, his body, seeing something form from his work. He also liked working days, having nights off to go out and throw back a few, shoot the shit with the guys, watch a game, pick up a woman who had promise, see how that panned out.
Working in the kitchen at the restaurant was hot and it was a pain in the ass dealing with the kids who worked with him. Kids who were more worried if the girl they texted would text back in a way that meant they’d soon get laid than getting the pies out of the oven or not burning the meatballs.
He’d often catch himself in that kitchen and wonder what the fuck he was doing there, working his ass off, killer hours, all of them so busy half the time he was on autopilot to get it done.
Then he’d get a whiff of the sauce his pop taught him how to make, sauce his grandmother taught his father how to make (and so on), and it was fucking crazy, totally insane, but he’d know why he was there. Not only that, he’d know there was no other place for him.
That was where he was meant to be.
These thoughts came to him as he walked down the hall and stopped in the doorway of his office, seeing Frankie sitting in his pop’s huge, old desk chair with its cracked leather. She was staring at the computer on the desk that she’d turned on.
He leaned a shoulder against the jamb and noted, “Not connected to the Internet, babe, so can’t send your SOS that way.”
She jumped at his voice and he tensed when she did, thinking random, jerky movements like that in her state were not good.
But he didn’t see the pain tighten her mouth or her eyes wince. Her head just shot to him. She looked him up and down and ended with his eyes.
“Ben, black screen and green cursor?” she asked.
“Told you it was Carm’s old computer,” he reminded her.
“From when?” she returned. “The second grade?”
He grinned and crossed his arms on his chest, but he didn’t reply. He just stood there, liking watching Francesca Concetti and all her hair, wearing a robe, sitting in his father’s old chair, giving him lip.
When he didn’t speak, she did.
“Is there any reason to keep this?” she asked on a flip of her hand to the computer.
“Nope.”
“Do you use it?” she pushed.
“Nope.”
“Not to play Asteroids or Space Invader?” she kept at him.
He grinned at her sass but repeated, “Nope.”
“So why’re you keepin’ it?”
He had no clue, outside of the fact that he never went into that room so it didn’t matter if it was there or not.
“That’s another ‘why,’ Frankie.”
She ignored that and kept pushing, “Do you have another computer?”
“Nope,” he said again and watched her light brown eyes, with their fans of thick, curling lashes, get wide.
“You don’t?”
“Nope,” he said yet again.
“How do you get email?” she asked.
“Don’t have email.”
Her eyes got wider.
He’d thought a lot of things about Francesca in the past, too many of them wrong—back in the day, most of them wrong for different reasons—but none of them were that she was cute.
But she was sitting right there, all kinds of cute.
“You don’t have email?” she pressed, sounding slightly breathy with disbelief in a way that made him wonder what other ways he could make her sound like that.
“Don’t need it.”
“Even for work?”
“I make pizza, Frankie. Why would I need email to make pizza?”
She swiveled the chair to face him, which was not good. It wasn’t bad because he could see her fantastic, long-ass legs. It was just that he liked what he saw, but he couldn’t do shit about it, which he didn’t like.
“I don’t know,” she started, attitude leaking into her words, the good kind, the kind that was about hot and spicy and Frankie. “To take pizza orders?”
“Folks can come in and give their order.”
“They could also email it in or, say, phone it in.”
“Restaurant never had a number that was listed and we’ve done all right.”
She said nothing to that because she knew it to be true. There was a line every night, no exception, and usually the wait was at least an hour long.
As much as he enjoyed standing there, seeing her in his father’s chair, having a good view of her legs and that hair, it was time to shut it down.
And he spoke the words why.
“You good with sittin’ up, cara?” he asked quietly.
“I have to get used to it,” was her not great answer.
“You don’t have to do it today.”
“I’m okay,” she told him.
“Come to bed,” he replied and watched it move over her face. He couldn’t get a lock on what it was, but since he brought her home the day before, he’d seen a number of expressions move over her face he couldn’t get a lock on.
Some of them he sensed were good, like the one she just gave him.
The others he sensed were not good. So not good they were bad.
“Come on, baby,” he urged when she didn’t move.
She seemed to force herself out of whatever thoughts she was having and swiveled to the computer, saying, “I gotta turn this off.”
At that, Benny walked into the room, bent to the outlet, and yanked the computer plug out.
He straightened, looked at her, and said, “Now it’s off. Let’s go.”
Her mouth moved like she was fighting a smile before she pressed her hands into the arms of the chair and carefully folded out.
Ben didn’t like seeing her move like that. She was always a bundle of energy. Electric. Francesca Concetti saw no reason to walk up stairs when she could jog up them or, more frequently, skip. Frankie Concetti went to the gym. She did spin classes, Pilates, Zumba. Frankie Concetti didn’t cook; she cooked, swaying around the kitchen while she did it. Even sitting down or lazing around, she seemed charged. Mostly because you knew when she got up, it wouldn’t just be getting up. It would be bursting.
Not like she just got out of his father’s chair.
Seeing that energy shut down made him want to relive that day in the woods and do it over. In other words, not aim at Daniel Hart’s middle, where he shot Frankie and where Benny shot him. But instead, aim higher, like Cal did, and take the motherfucker’s head clean off.
He stopped thinking this when Frankie started moving. He moved after her, following her to his room. She went to his bed and climbed up on the covers.
He headed to the other side and angled in beside her.
She immediately started, “Ben—”
“Quiet,” he ordered, twisting and leaning across her, to which she pressed herself into the pillows to keep well away, a move that made him grin to himself.
He nabbed the remote, laid back, flicked on the TV, then multitasked, maneuvering through the guide as he shoved an arm under her and maneuvered her closer.
“Ben!” she snapped.
“You rest on your back and fall asleep, you’ll snore and I won’t be able to hear the TV. Tucked up to me, you don’t snore,” he told the TV as explanation to the protest he didn’t let her voice.
“Then I’ll rest on my side not tucked up to you and I won’t snore. But if I did, you wouldn’t hear me anyway because you’ll be downstairs watching TV.”
He ignored that, found there was nothing on they both might like, and hit the buttons to get to Netflix.
“Benny,” she prompted, putting minor pressure on his stomach to push away.
He looked down at her. “Quiet and settle.”
She gave him squinty eyes. “I’ll be quiet and settle when you aren??
?t in bed with me.”
“We gonna have this conversation every time I’m in bed with you? That is, until you come to terms with the fact I’m gonna be in bed with you a lot?”
Her eyes got squintier and she didn’t hesitate with her response. “No, since that day is never gonna happen and this day and the ones close to it, you’re gonna stop climbin’ into bed with me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“You do know I’m in this for the long haul.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he kept going. “And, just sayin’, I get a kick out of it. It makes my dick twitch in a way I like, squabblin’ with you, that attitude of yours. So, baby, you gotta know, I’m happy with you keepin’ on with that for as long as you like.”
That did it. She clamped her mouth shut.
He looked back at the TV and smiled.
Then he asked, “You seen The Expendables 2?”
She said nothing.
Back to the silent treatment.
He could work with that too, seeing as he hadn’t seen that movie, had been meaning to, and Francesca shutting her trap meant he could see to that. So he hit the button to fire up the movie.
He felt her attitude clog the air in the room as the movie started to roll and he kept feeling it until she fell asleep.
When she did, he curled her closer.
He did this because he liked her closer.
He also did it because, when he did, he could hear those sexy-as-fuck noises she made when she was sleeping a fuckuva lot better.
They didn’t come often.
But when they did, Benny liked every one.
Chapter Four
Until Monday
The doorbell rang and Benny’s eyes opened.
He instantly felt the kinks in his body from sleeping on the couch.
He moved when he slept, which was why he’d bought a king-sized bed the instant he moved out of his parents’ house five months after he graduated high school. He’d had a tiny apartment and that bed took up nearly the whole bedroom, but he didn’t give a fuck. At his folks’ house, he’d had a twin and that shit was torture with the way Benny slept.
He forced himself to sitting and reached out to grab his jeans. He got up, stretching to get the kinks out, tugged them on, and nabbed his tee on the way to the door.
Frankie was out by nine the night before, so even though the kitchen took last orders at nine thirty, he went in to take over from Pop in order to supervise closing. He also went in to talk any of his kids down from quitting, seeing as his father was a drill sergeant in the kitchen and his kids weren’t used to that shit. This meant he didn’t get home until near on midnight.