The Promise (The 'Burg Series)

by Kristen Ashley

  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.

  He’d done the same the night before.

  He was used to the late nights.

  He was not used to that fucking couch.

  He just hoped he could sort things with Frankie in a way so he wouldn’t have to get used to it.

  He was pulling down his shirt at his stomach when he looked through the window at the top of the door and saw Frankie’s girl out there.

  He unlocked it, opened it, and greeted, “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she greeted back, her eyes traveling the length of him, catching on his crotch and staying there too long. They jerked up and he could swear he saw pink tinge the chocolate skin of her cheeks.

  Used to that from women (without the blush, and the blush was cute), he bit back a grin and stepped out of the way, inviting her inside nonverbally but saying, “I’ll go wake her. Then I’ll make coffee and bring you both a cup.”

  She was in by the time he was done speaking, so she turned to him, offering, “I’ll make coffee.”

  He gave her a nod. “Have at it. Kitchen’s in the back. Make yourself at home.”

  She dipped her chin and made a move to the back hall.

  Benny closed the door and made his own move to the stairs.

  “Uh…Benny?” she called when he had a foot on the first step.

  He stopped and looked at her standing halfway down the hall. “Yeah?”

  Her eyes went to the ceiling, then to him. “Figure you’re the kind who isn’t real big on interference, but…” She jerked her head toward the ceiling. “You know what you’re doin’ with her?”

  She was right. He wasn’t the kind who was big on interference. Further, he didn’t know her and he was really not the kind who was big on interference from someone he didn’t know.

  What he did know was that she was up early on a Saturday to come and hang when her girl was taking a shower. Same with her bein’ late to work the day before. So he didn’t know her, but he respected that.

  He also knew from her question that Frankie had shared.

  Not surprising. Women did that and that was a big part of what he didn’t understand about them. Why they would talk to their girls about their men in an attempt to understand their men when their girls were fucking girls and couldn’t begin to understand how a man’s mind worked, he did not get. Or, more to the point, get the concept that a man’s mind didn’t work at shit. Most men did what they did and that was it.

  Trying to explain that to a woman was like slamming your head repeatedly into a wall.

  But since Frankie shared and this woman had Frankie’s back, he was forced to do what he normally would not do with respect to the last.

  “I know what I’m doin’,” he assured her.

  “Frankie’s not right,” she told him.

  “Yeah,” he agreed quietly. “She just got shot. That shit’ll shake you.”

  “That’s not why she’s not right.”

  He knew she was not wrong.

  But he didn’t agree with her. He just stated “I’m seein’ to her” in a way he hoped didn’t invite further discourse but didn’t do it in a way where he came off sounding like a dick.

  She held his eyes, and while she did, he had to give her more respect. This coming from the fact that it was clear she gave more than a passing shit about Frankie and he already knew she did that just from her going out of her way to take care of their girl.

  So he gave her more.

  “I have not done right by her. I’m rectifyin’ that.”

  She nodded and he had a feeling she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. Her ending their conversation indicated she was showing him respect, and with that, he respected her more.

  She moved back to the kitchen.

  Benny moved up the stairs.

  When he hit his bedroom, he saw Frankie on her back, covers resting at her hips, one leg slightly hitched at the side under the sheets, one hand resting low on her belly, her other arm cocked on the bed at her side, her mass of dark hair everywhere.

  Beauty sleeping alone in his bed.

  Fuck.

  She was not snoring, which was surprising.

  Another surprise: he hated snoring. His pop snored and did it so loud, it filled their house at night growing up. That shit would wake Benny, and hearing it constant, he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep.

  Frankie doing it, for some insane reason, he thought was cute.

  But now she wasn’t.

  He sat on the bed above her hitched leg, bent low, and whispered in her ear, “Frankie, baby, wake up. Your girl’s here.”

  He lifted up and saw her eyes flutter open, still not believing those lashes were that thick and curly without aid of makeup. He’d discovered this impossibility when she was in the hospital. He’d liked it and wondered if that was a dominant trait, say, one she’d give to her daughters.

  But right then, her eyes open, he saw that she seemed disoriented and the pain instantly tightened her mouth, which, in turn, made him tighten his.

  With no warning, she did an ab curl to lift up and he heard her mew of discomfort. When he did, he moved quickly. Getting off the bed, then carefully shoving his arms under her, he lifted her and put her to her feet. Keeping an arm around her waist, he held her close to his side and lifted his other hand to her jaw.

  She tipped hazy eyes to his and he looked into them with more than a little concern because she should be getting better day to day. Instead, she seemed far more out of it this morning than she was yesterday.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she muttered.

  “Sure?” he pushed.

  She held his eyes, hers remaining hazy, but she nodded.

  “Bathroom?”

  “Yeah,” she agreed.

  He dropped his hand at her jaw and guided her to the bathroom. Just like the day before, he didn’t loosen his hold until she had a steadying hand on the counter.

  “You seem fuzzy today,” he observed as, just like the day before, she stared at her hand on the counter with zero focus.

  When he spoke, she tilted her head back to look at him. “I’ll shake it off, baby.”

  His gut tightened.

  Definitely fuzzy. She’d called him “baby.”

  And Benny liked it, so he grinned at her, gave her a squeeze, and dropped his mouth to touch it to hers. Not her cheek this time. She had to get used to taking his mouth and she might as well start now.

  Her eyes were still hazy when he lifted his head and looked down at her, at the same time lifting his hand to her jaw so he could brush his thumb over the soft skin of her full lower lip.

  “Coffee, a pill, and your girl, comin’ up,” he said.

  “Okay, Ben,” she murmured.

  Looking in her eyes that were no less hazy but also crazy-beautiful, he whispered, “Sweet.”

  Something moved through her gaze he didn’t quite get, but it was the good kind of something. So he left her with whatever thought was working behind that look and headed out of the bathroom.

  Asheeka was filling a glass with water when Benny hit the kitchen.

  She looked to him when he got there. “Coffee’s brewin’. Not quite done.”

  “I’ll bring up some mugs when it is,” he told her. “How do you take yours?”

  “Milk, one sugar,” she said, grabbing the pill bottle on the counter and making to move out. “She good?”

  “Hazier this morning. Keep an eye.”

  Her mouth twisted like she wanted to smile but wouldn’t let herself. She nodded and headed out.

  Benny moved to the counter, put his back to it, and rested his hips against it. He watched her w
alk out of the kitchen, then watched where he last saw her when she was gone, settling in and listening.

  Less than five minutes and the shower went on.

  He grinned slow.

  Then he took in his kitchen, and as he did it, the reason he bought this house came to him.

  It had been in a time when he knew he needed to quit dicking around with his life and start living it. Not living it just to work to make money, buy shit, go out and have a good time, and get laid. Living it with meaning.

  He grew up knowing that Vinnie would take over the restaurant from Pop. Since he had no intention of seeing to the front of the house, his life was his own.

  Then he actually grew up and Vinnie twisted that notion, going his own way—that way being the wrong way—and Benny knew his younger brother Manny did not have what it took to run the kitchen for the long haul. Manny being social and liking flash clothes, the front of the house was where he worked. But the kitchen took something else, and with Vinnie out, Benny had to step up.

  This was not an edict and it was not an expectation, not from Pop, not from Ma. They made it known they wanted the restaurant to remain in the family, but they didn’t lean on any of their kids to make this so.

  But the home they provided through hard work, and the love they gave that they showed was never hard work, meant it meant something to them and it meant something to their kids.

  Which meant Benny didn’t want to do it, but with Vinnie out, he had to make a choice and there was only one right one.

  It wasn’t a hardship. If he didn’t fuck that shit, taking over the restaurant, he knew his life would be comfortable and he could give that to his family like Ma and Pop gave it to him.

  So he made the right choice.

  That thought in his head, his eyes drifted to the calendar tacked to the wall. It was three years old, arrested in time on the month of April.

  Seeing it, it came to him that he didn’t think on his future much. He just knew, whatever he did, he wanted to give the kind of comfort his ma and pop gave to him to his family. A big one. At least three, maybe four kids. The house always full, loud, comings and goings, a calendar on the wall in the kitchen like his ma kept that was completely marked up. Little League practices and games. Dance recitals. Parent-teacher conferences. Barbeques, sleepovers, and birthday parties. The woman he’d eventually claim keeping the schedule, pinning him down to sign a birthday card to one of their kids’ cousins, a text coming to remind him she was picking their girl up from dance so he had to get their boys from the baseball diamond.

  Until that moment, he didn’t realize that that was the only dream he had for his future. All he had to do was find his way to put money in the bank to make sure his family had what they needed. But the goal was to treat them more than occasionally to what they wanted. Not to mention, have times when he could afford to pile them in a car or on a plane to go see his sister, Carm, in California. Or take them to a beach where the kids could play in the sand and he could fuck his woman with the sounds of the surf coming through the window.

  Wanting that—only that—he did not get where his brother went wrong. With the way they grew up, he couldn’t wrap his head around why the fuck anyone would want more.

  Since Frankie got shot, he’d had to come to painful terms with why he’d been such a dick to her and then make a plan to sort that out.

  But in that time, he had not given headspace to figuring out why Vinnie threw his life away.

  Frankie, so fucking gorgeous, absolutely perfect…it was easy to go there. To twist it so it came down to her, Vinnie doing everything he could to give her everything she wanted in order to keep her. But Frankie never gave any indication she wanted anything but love and a solid life that she was right there, happy to help create.

  So it was Vinnie who’d had something to prove.

  Benny just did not get what there was to prove. Their pop was not a pushover, but he was not a driven man, driving his kids along with him. Their ma was definitely not a pushover, but she gave no indication she had great expectations, outside of hoping her sons wouldn’t knock up some girl too early or come home from carousing after the blood dried on their clothes so it was harder to get the stains out.

  Both his folks just wanted their kids to be happy, however that came about.

  Kids were kids to them. They had no choice but to mature and, if they were smart, learn along the way. His folks could and did provide support, advice, and, on occasion, showed disappointment in order to nudge their children to learn the right things, but neither of them did this with a thundering hand.

  So Benny didn’t get it. He didn’t get his brother having that growing up, then getting what was right then naked in Benny’s shower, and fucking up so fucking huge and losing it all so fucking early.

  And the shit of it was, he knew he’d never get it. That would always be a question mark in his life that his mind would go to in order to pick at it, find an answer, erase that mark—a mark that would never go away.

  Vinnie left him with that. He left his folks with that. And he left Frankie with that. Wondering why he was like he was. But worse, wondering if there was something one of them could have done to stop it.

  He couldn’t deny this pissed him off. What he’d quit denying was that he was pissed at his dead brother, not the woman upstairs. It was not comfortable having that feeling about a brother he loved who could no longer make explanations or amends. That wound was arrested in time, gapping, sore, bloody, no way to heal it. And it was arguable, but Benny thought that might be worse than Vinnie turning to the dark side, working for Sal, and losing his life in a violent way doing it.

  On that thought, he heard the coffeemaker beep that it was done. He had the mugs ready by the time the shower went off. He delivered them, setting them on the nightstand, then rapped on the bathroom door with his knuckles to communicate that fact. He came down the stairs and was walking back into the kitchen at the same time his parents walked in the back door.

  “Caro,” his mother greeted, coming direct to him, giving him a distracted kiss on the cheek, then moving straight to the coffeepot.

  “Ben,” his father greeted, looking not at Benny but at the ceiling.

  Apparently, Vinnie Senior was done waiting to sort things out with Francesca. Eyeing him, Benny thought his father might be done waiting, but he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  “She’s just out of the shower, Pop,” he told his old man, and Vinnie Senior’s eyes came to him. “That means you got at least an hour and forty-five minutes while she does her hair to get some coffee and come to terms with the fact that she’s Frankie. She never changed and she’s not gonna make you work for it.”

  “I told him that,” his ma put in. “He’s decided to worry.”

  Vinnie Senior directed a dark look to his wife, then he changed the subject by directing an order at her. “Coffee, woman.”

  She turned to him, pot in hand, two mugs already on the counter in front of her. “You know, just like every time the last forty-one years I’ve been near a coffeepot, I already got your mug ready. And just like every time the last forty-one years you tell me to get you coffee instead of asking for it, I want to throw your mug at you. Now, after hearing that for forty-one years, I’m wonderin’ why I held back.”

  “You do because, for forty-one years, you have not once filled up your gas tank. You take the good, Theresa, you gotta take the bad.”

  “You fill up my tank maybe once a week. Maybe. I fill up your coffee mug more than once a day. I’m beginning to see this doesn’t balance out,” his ma returned.

  Jesus. They’d been there two minutes and they were already at it.

  “Right,” Benny cut in. “You wanna bicker, do it after I get a cup of coffee.”

  At that, Theresa’s eyes went right to her son. “Caro, you’ve had no coffee?”

  “Pot just got done. I just got done deliverin’ it to the women upstairs. So, no.”

  His mother’s face softened
when he mentioned doing something for Frankie. What his mother didn’t do was move out of the way of the coffeepot or pull down another mug.

  So he moved into her to get his own mug.

  “I got it, I got it,” she mumbled, shooing him away before stating, “I take it you haven’t made Frankie her eggs and bacon.”

  At this, Benny hoped like fuck that he could sort shit out with Frankie, and soon. Then he hoped like fuck what he figured they could have was what both of them wanted. And at that moment, he hoped this so that kitchen would cease to be his kitchen and, instead, it would be Frankie’s. That way she could battle it out for supremacy with his mother and Benny could quit doing that shit.

  “Ma, you know Frankie likes sweet in the morning,” he reminded her.

  “Then I’ll make pancakes,” his mother replied.

  Benny looked to his father.

  His father had his mug and was seating himself at Benny’s kitchen table. He also caught his son’s eyes and shrugged. Then he took a sip of coffee and leaned back in his seat, one leg stretched out, like he owned the fucking table and the house it was in.

  No help there and it wasn’t worth the hassle to take it any further. Frankie would eat Theresa’s pancakes, even if she preferred coffeecake or wanted to switch it up and have him haul his ass to a donut shop.

  “Caffè, mio figlio,” his ma murmured.

  Benny looked to her and saw her extending a mug.

  He took it and went to the table.

  His mother went to the fridge.

  He was downing the last of the cup, listening to the hair dryer upstairs going on and off (and on and repeat), hoping that meant Frankie had shaken off her daze. At the same time, he was hoping his mother brought her clothes that would cover her up, like turtlenecks and massive sweatshirts, when the doorbell rang.

  His mother turned to face the kitchen door, his father’s eyes came to him, and Benny got out of his chair.

  He wasn’t expecting company, but Frankie was in his house. Word would be making the rounds.

  Manny had his own amends to make, but Manny would no way be there that early. Manny had settled on a woman, they’d been together over a year, and Ma was biting her lip that they’d moved in together two months ago with no ring on Sela’s finger.