The Promise

by Kristen Ashley

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  “Okay.”

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

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

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  “Immediately,” Ben finished.

  I stared into his eyes.

  Then I turned and walked quickly to my bedroom.

  Ben followed me.

  * * * * *

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

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

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

  Way better than a picture.

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

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

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

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

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

  “You didn’t fight that too hard.”

  He was right.

  Still, I glared at him.

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

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

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

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

  “I know.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  I smiled.

  * * * * *

  “The next one’s gonna be a boy.”

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

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

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

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

  Vi’s eyes got huge.

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

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

  “He’s got me,” Keira told her sister.

  “You aren’t a boy,” Kate pointed out.

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

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

  “Joe!” Vi practically yelled.

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

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

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

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

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

  Happiness.

  Goodness.

  Everywhere.

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

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

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

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

  “Joe!” she cried.

  “No,” he repeated.

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

  “Yeah? He still with her?” Cal asked.

  “Um…no,” Keira muttered.

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

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

  “Then, no,” Joe said firmly.

  Keira slumped in her seat.

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

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

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

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

  And the reason he was was because of me.

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

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

  He was wrong. Benny’s pies were better.

  Still, it was amazing.

  So I resumed eating.

  * * * * *

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

  “Yep,” Ben whispered back.

  “My turn next,” I reminded him.

  “Yep,” Ben agreed.

  “I’ll get on that immediately.”

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

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

  Ben kissed me back.

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

  I stood there and waved as he pulled away.

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

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

  * * * * *

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

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

  I hit Go and put the phone to my ear.

  “Cara,” Ben answered.

  “Guess what?” I asked.

  “Tell me,” he ordered.

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

  “No shit?” Ben asked.

  “No shit,” I answered.

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

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

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

  “Flight lands at 7:45.”

  “At night?”

  “Yep.”

  “Drive up on Saturday,” Ben commanded.

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

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

  “I can hack it.”

  “Bet you can, but you aren’t.”

  “Benny.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  He grew silent.

  I closed my eyes and pulled in a deep breath.

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

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

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

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

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

  “Well, I’m happy,” I told him.

  “Good,” he replied quietly.

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

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

  “I’m a phone call away, honey.”

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

  “You work through dinner,” I pointed out.

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

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

  “Right. Talk to you later.”

  “Absolutely. ’Bye, Ben.”

  “’Bye, baby.”

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

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

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

  But now he looked ticked as in ticked.

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

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

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

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

  So him looking ticked surprised me.

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

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

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

  I took the call.

  * * * * *

  “Hey, baby.”

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