He carried the dog under his arm to the kitchen, held him while he warmed Frankie’s coffee, warmed his own, and then sat with their puppy at the kitchen table.
Gus didn’t need a shoe if Gus had Ben’s chest, neck, jaw, and hands, so Benny leaned back, stretched out, and gave them to him.
“This weekend, I’m tackling the dining room.”
This announcement was made by Frankie, and Ben’s eyes went from the dog on his chest to his woman.
“Come again?’
“No, the office. I think I should start there because half the shit in the dining room will end up there anyway,” she went on.
“Uh…come again?” Benny repeated.
She looked over her shoulder at him, stirring the batter in the bowl. “We’ll have to go get some hanging files, maybe a small filing cabinet or some shelves to put expanding files. Your pick, but it has to be something other than different piles all over every surface and the floor.”
“What are you talkin’ about, Frankie?”
She turned to the prepared tin and started pouring in batter.
“You have a big house and use only four rooms because the rest of them are junk rooms. And half the crap I’ve seen in them are just that, junk. So I’m startin’ with the office, movin’ to the dining room, then the den, and the junk drawers in here.” She stopped pouring and threw out a hand to indicate the kitchen. She started pouring again and kept talking. “When you were at work last time when I was home, I ventured into your basement. I took one look and escaped before anything attacked me. That has to be seen to too. There might be squatters down there.”
Ben grinned and caught Gus trying to take a flying leap off his chest to the floor, then bent and put him on the floor, saying, “I don’t have squatters down there.”
She put the bowl on the counter and asked, “When’s the last time someone’s been down there? 1977?”
He wasn’t going to tell her but that could well be. He looked at it when he viewed the house, and the place was packed to the rafters, but he couldn’t say he’d been down there since, even to check to see if the shit was removed before he moved in. Mostly because he didn’t need that space so he didn’t bother.
“That’s your project,” Frankie continued. “Clean that up. The Little League stuff can go down there opening up a bedroom for a guestroom.”
“Don’t need a guestroom.”
“Uh…yeah you do,” she informed him. “Vi and Cal and the girls might be up and want to stay. Which means you should probably have a futon or something in the office.”
“I’m not makin’ a guestroom on the off chance Vi and Cal come up and need a place to crash. Mostly ’cause Ma would lose her mind if they crashed here and not with her.”
She’d been putting the tin in the oven. When he was done talking, she closed the door, turned to him, and put her hands on her hips.
“What about when Enzo comes to town? Or my brother, Dino, and his family?”
These words made Ben go still and stare at her.
“We need a guestroom,” she declared.
Fucking shit.
She said we.
She looked to the floor, saw Gus was dragging the rug in front of the sink to an alternate location he preferred, and walked to him, bending, picking him up, and cuddling him close as she used her bare toes to move the rug back, and she did this all while talking.
“So I’ll tackle the office first. And you need a computer with Internet, Benny. You may wish to be choosy about how you communicate in this modern age, embracing only your cell phone, but you’re missing out on easily accessible game times, movie times, up-to-date weather, my flight statuses, so we’ll have to get on that.” She leveled her eyes on him and didn’t shut up. “I’m not saying you get a computer and immediately start your Facebook profile. I figure, if you tried to type in your profile information on Facebook, your fingers will catch fire. I’m just sayin’, in this day and age, a house isn’t a home without a computer.”
A house isn’t a home.
Jesus.
Jesus.
Frankie kept bossing.
“You do the basement. But while I’m sorting stuff, I’ll need you around to ask questions if I find something I don’t know if I should toss or keep.”
She finished this, moving Gus close to her face to give him a snuggle, and the puppy showed his appreciation by licking her jaw.
Benny’s voice sounded gruff when he asked, “Where’m I gonna be?”
She looked at him. “What?”
“You said you’d need me around. Where would I be?”
“I don’t know, pullin’ a man stunt and disappearing when shit work needs to get done you don’t want to do, as evidenced by the fact you’ve lived in his house for a long freakin’ time and you haven’t done it.”
“What are we doin’ here, baby?” he asked quietly, and her brows shot together.
“Talkin’ about makin’ your house a home, Benny.”
Fucking shit.
“For me or for you and me?” he pressed, and her face went blank.
That was when he knew she had no idea what it meant, all she was saying.
He had an idea of what it meant. He just hoped like fuck he was right.
So he kept pushing.
“You movin in with me?”
Her voice was breathy and her hold on Gus was close when she replied with a question.
“You askin’ me?”
“Take you today, you could swing it,” he answered.
“Benny,” she whispered, face soft, eyes now just holding marvel and love.
A lot of love.
Christ, she was all the way across the kitchen and she had so much love shining out of her eyes, he felt it warm every inch of his body.
He took that as a yes.
And there it was. His birthday just kept getting better.
“You gonna be able to swing that?” he asked.
“I…I have a lease.”
“When’s it run out?”
“October.”
“Then you move in in October,” he declared.
“Ben, I work in Indianapolis,” she said quietly.
“You travel half the time, they got no problem with you workin’ from here. Ask ’em if you can have a home office in Chicago and conference in for meetings. You in my bed, my house, got no problem with clearing out that basement, gettin’ a computer with Internet, and givin’ you a guestroom so your fucked-up family can stay, drive us crazy, and we can celebrate when they get the fuck out.”
She stared at him but said nothing.
“You think they’ll go for that?” he asked.
“I think, come my one-year anniversary, which is the same month my lease runs out, if they don’t, then I’ll quit and find a job in Chicago.”
Jesus.
Jesus.
“Come here, Frankie,” he growled.
“No. I do, you’re gonna get busy with me and the cake will burn.”
“Come here, cara.”
“No, I can tell by your face you’re happy and I’m super happy and all that happy is gonna translate into ruined birthday cake.”
“Baby. Put the dog down and come…here.”
She bent to put Gus on the floor and came to him. When she got close, he guided her ass in his lap and rounded her with his arms. As he did this, Frankie wrapped hers around his shoulders.
When he had her where he wanted her, he said softly, “Best birthday ever.”
Beauty saturated her features, more than he’d ever seen from her, and he’d spent decades seeing a lot of beauty from Francesca Concetti.
“My awesome Benny,” she replied in a whisper, her arms tightening, one hand finding his neck and curling around, but her body melted into his.
“You’ve made me happy, tesorina.”
“I’m glad.”
“Kiss me, Frankie.”
“Okay, Benny.”
She put her lips to his, but it was Benny who took h
er mouth, leaning into her, bending her back, and drinking deep, one of his hands going down, then up her shirt and down again in her panties to cup her bare ass, both her hands diving into his hair.
He broke the kiss but didn’t move far away and waited for her eyes to slowly open, giving him crazy-beauty before he said, “Love you, Francesca.”
“Love you too, honey.”
He grinned, held her closer, but ordered, “Now go make frosting.”
She rolled her eyes, but she also pushed up, he went with her, and she climbed out of his lap.
After that, Gus under her feet, tripping her up, and her not minding, Frankie made frosting.
* * * * *
“Okay,” Frankie said, skip-walking into his bedroom that night.
It was after the dinner she’d made him (roast beef tenderloin, boiled new potatoes, asparagus coated in oil and toasted sesame seeds, and rolls Mrs. Zambino bought the day before from the bakery). It was after cake. It was after he told her he wanted her ass upstairs because he wanted to see another nightie. She showed him and wore it for about five minutes before he took it off so she could sit on his face and he could have his mouth on her while she used hers on him.
She’d put the nightie back on (red satin with a sheer panel around the hem and matching panties that had sheer at the ass, sweet but nowhere as sweet as the plum one) and gone back downstairs to grab his presents from where she’d hid them.
Now she was back, hands behind her, hiding the presents from view.
She hopped on the bed, walked on her knees to him, and flopped down to a hip before one arm came out and she slapped a mostly square, thin, large wrapped package on his chest.
“That one’s the goofy one,” she declared. “You get the good stuff second.”
He’d already had the good stuff.
She knew that so he didn’t tell her. He just opened the present and he did it with her talking.
“The first one may be goofy, but it was way harder to find. I had to order it off the Internet since they don’t sell them this time of year. I also had to find one you’d like, but they kinda don’t make those things for guys. Or, not guys like you. Still, it isn’t about tits and ass or muscle cars, which would be something I wouldn’t want to look at, but it isn’t too girlie, which is something you would toss in the trash, so I think I did all right.”
The paper off, he turned it in his hands and saw a calendar for that year, its theme: photos of Lake Michigan.
There was no cellophane on it. It had been opened.
Ben held it in his hands, stared at it, and stopped breathing.
“See? Totally goofy,” she stated, not sensing the change his mood was making in the room, just reaching out to pull the calendar from his hand and babbling. “Yours is, like, ten years old. Crazy. So it’s kind of a joke but kind of not.” She started flipping through and found what she wanted, showing him a month that had her writing in the little squares and flipping to the next, which had more of her writing. “See, I wrote all the birthdays in: Man, Sela, Vinnie Senior, Theresa, Carm, Ken, and the kids. I put Vi and Cal and all the girls in there, and Manny and Sela’s wedding date.”
Benny’s eyes looked at the calendar and his heart started jackhammering.
“And here,” she said, flipping back. “I put all my travel schedule in that I have set, all the times and flight numbers and hotel stuff and everything. You can write in the stuff that comes up.”
She stopped yapping, finally looked at him, and when she did, she went visibly still.
They stared at each other a couple of beats before she said hesitantly, totally not reading him, “The other present is a lot better, Benny.”
“Only one thing I want in my life,” he declared.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
“All my life, didn’t have big hopes and dreams. Only one thing I wanted.”
“I…” She swallowed, kept her eyes locked to him, and asked, “What was that, honey?”
“A life that meant I’d have a calendar on my kitchen wall filled in with birthdays and anniversaries and parties and practices and special occasions. All the shit that makes a good life scribbled in the blocks printed on glossy paper hangin’ on a wall.”
Her eyes grew bright and her breath grew shallow.
“You gonna give that to me?” he asked.
“Yes, Benny,” she responded instantly.
Instantly.
Yeah.
She was going to give that to him.
And he was going to give it to her.
The…best…fucking…birthday…ever.
“No lip, no shit, come here right now, Frankie,” he ordered.
She tossed the calendar aside to land on the bed and she came to him immediately.
And Ben crushed her in his arms, rolled her to her back, and found reason again to get rid of her nightie.
In the end, she slept beside him in a hot pink one with black lace.
Her second present was an expensive, handsome watch that had an inscription on the back that said, For Benny, Love Frankie.
It was fucking kick-ass.
But it wasn’t better than the calendar.
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Twenty
Swingin’ in the Breeze
“You okay?”
I looked from the computer screen, on which I was obsessively watching the time change in the bottom right corner, to Tandy standing in the doorway of my office.
The answer to her question was, no, I was not okay.
It was Monday after spending the weekend with Benny for the sake of spending the weekend with Benny, as well as being there for the family celebration that consisted of him blowing out birthday candles on a pizza pie that he made and everyone on staff getting to suck back quick sips of Chianti while they worked. Ben opened presents in between making pies and getting out orders. Theresa, Vinnie, Manny, and Sela all were around, mostly being loud, giving Ben shit, and getting in the way.
I hung with Ben the entire night in the kitchen, my ass taking up counter space since I sat on one with a wineglass in my hand, and alternately gabbed with my man, gave him my own shit, and communed with what he called his “kids.” I took this time to get to know them, something I liked a whole lot since they were good kids and fun to be around.
In fact, Ben ran a fun kitchen. It was work, definitely—hot work with the ovens going and the stoves on, people rushing around, always busy.
But I’d been in those kitchens when Vinnie ran them, and although he wasn’t an asshole, he was a taskmaster.
It was strange knowing a father’s way and then seeing his son’s.
They both took what they did seriously. They both communicated that. But Ben was far more laid-back about it and the kids responded to it.
Watching him work, firm in woman-in-love mode, I fell more in love, my already immense pride at being Benny’s woman growing, watching him run his kitchen. His kids liked him. He organized chaos without any apparent effort. He wasn’t about shouting and bossing. He was about quiet words and direction. And every pie or dish put on the warming shelf to be taken out looked mouth-watering because I knew it was.
It wasn’t like he was organizing a disaster relief effort.
Still, it was awesome.
Saturday during the day and Sunday before I left to drive home, Ben and I tackled his office. On Friday, Ben had called the cable company to have Internet jacks installed. On Saturday, we went out and bought a filing cabinet, shredder, and a desktop computer. It took us hours, but we got a system down that might (might) make the rest of our efforts throughout the house easier. We tossed a bunch of crap, filed some away, and in the end, the office looked more like an office and less like a dump. The kind of room you’d find in a home, not a bachelor’s pad.
In other words, I thought every minute was worth the effort.
The cool thing in doing this was that I found Benny wasn’t a hoarder. He just didn’t bother to throw shit away when
it should have been thrown away. There were no battles about keeping stuff. He also didn’t get into the project for fifteen minutes, then get sick of it and try to find an excuse to escape. Except for me giving him guff about being a lazy ass and Benny grinning through it, we worked beside each other in harmony.
It was kind of fun.
Domestic bliss, Frankie and Benny style.
So now it was Monday. The Monday after being awed by Benny’s kitchen prowess and gaining another promise from Benny that a life at his side would be good, seeing as I wasn’t buying one with a hoarder or someone who would dump all the crap work on me and go his merry way.
It was also the Monday after I gave Benny what I considered lame birthday payback and he considered it something else entirely. And the something he considered it made me fall even deeper in love with him, because as simple as it was, it was everything to Benny and I liked that. A whole lot.
And last, it was the Monday after I gave a goof gift I expected Ben to laugh at and toss aside and it would be me who tacked it on the wall in the kitchen and wrote stuff on it, but it was very much not.
I liked that it wasn’t. Actually, I liked why it wasn’t.
It was a gift I had a feeling changed both our lives.
Because, unexpectedly, we’d made plans to move in together.
But when I gave him that calendar, we’d made plans to spend the rest of our lives together.
I was down with that. I didn’t think twice about it and I knew I didn’t in a way that I never would.
This was because Benny Bianchi was always going to be a promise at the same time Benny Bianchi was the prize at the end of a crazy life.
So there was no reason to think twice about it.
And I was also never going to feel stupid about my goof gifts again.
Now it was Monday and I had a four o’clock meeting with my boss to ask if there was a possibility the company would consider letting me work from a home office in Chicago starting in October.
I was nervous because I expected the answer to this would be no, since everyone who was management worked from our head office in Indianapolis.
I liked that job. I made great money. My reps (all but one) were awesome. They did good, and in doing it, they made me look good. And I had a great assistant. I didn’t want to lose any of that.
The Promise Page 42
