“You’re still with me then, baby, I’d give you that,” Benny told me.
I looked back to him hopefully.
“But, just sayin’,” he went on, “that might not be healthy.”
And my hopes were dashed.
“Now, just eat, honey,” he urged. “And tell me if you like your new job. Tell me about your new place. And I’ll tell you how Chicago survived the earthquake that was Ma when Manny gave Sela the diamond she wanted from Tiffany’s and not Aunt Mary’s heirloom ring, which, even me, as a guy who knows fuck all about jewelry, knows is butt-ugly.”
I giggled at Benny.
Then I popped my chip into my mouth.
After that, I told him about my job, my new place, and listened to him talk about his family.
***
“I travel for work,” I declared.
It was after dinner and after the minimal cleanup, the most taxing part being hauling all the chips back to the kitchen. Ben and I were back on the couch but arranged very differently.
That would be, me on my back and Ben on me.
Once he got me in this position, I’d decided I’d live, breathe, sleep and eat in it, if I could.
“I get that, you livin’ in Brownsburg and bein’ here,” Ben said on a grin, his hands, as they’d been doing since he got me on my back, were roaming.
“What I’m sayin’ is, I’m usually out of town at least once every two weeks. I’m rackin’ up frequent flier miles.”
That ratcheted the grin up to a smile.
He got me.
I lost his smile when he dropped his head so his lips could hit my neck, where he murmured, “Sounds promising.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly, deciding I didn’t like my hands resting on his back over his tee.
I dipped them low, then up and got skin.
Better.
“What’s on for tomorrow?” he asked my neck.
“Two meetings,” I told his ear. “Then I was supposed to fly back. But my secretary already got me on a Sunday flight.”
“Excellent,” he muttered.
I stopped talking when his roaming hand roamed over my ass.
But my mind froze when he whispered against my skin, “What freaked you?”
I knew what he was asking and I was freaking right then because I didn’t have an answer.
He lifted his head and looked down at me. “What freaked you that day in the bathroom, baby?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
His head tipped to the side as his hand moved from my ass, up my side, and in to curl around my neck, where his thumb started stroking my jaw.
Once he had his soothing touch on me, he asked, “No clue?”
“Theresa came,” I said quietly.
His mouth went hard.
I tightened my arms around him. “Don’t blame her.”
“No way she should walk into my house like that, she knows I got a woman in it or not. That said, she knew I had a woman in it.”
“It’s not her fault,” I pushed.
“Okay, maybe not,” he gave in slightly. “But that’s not the point. I’m a thirty-five-year-old man, and my ma lets herself in, shouts up the stairs she’s climbin’, when I got my woman hot for me in my bed and the bedroom door is open? That shit’s whacked, starting at the lettin’ herself in part.”
It kind of was.
It was also not so kind of Theresa.
“She won’t do that again,” Ben declared.
“I bet not,” I muttered.
“What about her showin’ tripped you?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe it was just…just…” I searched for it and found something. The problem was, I wasn’t sure if it was the thing. “It was just that we were taking the next step, a big step. Theresa showed, reminding me what I’d lost and got back, and I freaked. As in, Frankie-style freaked, making a huge deal out of it and doin’ stupid shit that hurts people.”
His focus got weirdly acute and his voice got weirdly cautious when he asked, “When’s the last time you Frankie-style freaked like that?”
“I do it all the time,” I told him. “You know that.”
“No, babe. When’s the last time you Frankie-style freaked, doin’ it and hurting people?”
I shut my mouth and thought about it.
“When, Frankie?” he pushed.
I opened my mouth. “I…I guess I don’t know.”
“Was there ever a time?” he asked.
Was there?
I thought about that too.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“Why’d you say that, then?”
Why did I?
Oh my God.
I stared into his eyes and whispered, “I don’t know.”
“Yeah,” he whispered back.
“You’re the only family I ever had, Benny,” I said, still whispering. “The only good one. The only real one. I lost you once. All of you. I just…panicked. And it was panic, honey. I wasn’t freaking. I was freaking and I was freaked.”
“Saw that,” he told me. “Even fuckin’ felt it.”
“Oh God,” I breathed. “I’m so sorry.”
“I am too, but not sorry about seein’ it or feelin’ it. Sorry that you wouldn’t even try to get a handle on it so I could see if I could get you through it.”
To that, I said nothing.
Benny did.
“That comes up again, Frankie, need you to plant it somewhere where it’ll grow, where you can get to it so you can find your way to gettin’ a handle on it, at least so I can see to you.”
“What if I can’t do that?” I asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know, cara. That’s why you gotta do what you gotta do to plant that deep.”
I decided to visualize, meditate, get crystals and talismans—whatever I had to do to plant that deep so I didn’t fuck us up again. Not to mention so I didn’t feel that panic again because it was not fun. And last, so I didn’t make Benny feel it.
His thumb gliding over my lips took me out of my thoughts, and I focused on him again just as he said gently, “You know, you’re not your ma.”
I closed my eyes.
“Babe, even before you hooked up with Vinnie, it was like you weren’t part of that family,” he continued. “Everyone said it.”
I opened my eyes.
“Enzo Junior’s the shit because the man is funny,” Ben told me. “He can hold his drink. He’s got a sixth sense when it comes to locating fine tail. And he’d drop everything if you needed him to have your back. But I know one of the things he’d drop is his woman, even if she was in the middle of her own shit, doin’ that so he could take his brother’s back. He’s a player. He’s in his late twenties and still says stupid shit when he sees a fat girl, which makes him a dick. And he’s the best of that crew you call family.”
“There’s Dino,” I told him.
“Dino’s an anomaly, proof that you weren’t switched at the hospital ’cause he shares your blood and he’s a good guy. But he’s a good guy because he got outta the mess you were bounced around in growin’ up. You’re you because of a miracle.”
His words made my breath catch as I stared into his eyes. “You think that?”
“Fuck yeah,” he replied. “Word is, Nat’s back with Davey, and she’s since hooked up with two other guys who are not Davey, he just doesn’t know about them yet. She’s also lost her job and found another since we last saw her, and the word about that is, she’s dancing.”
Oh fuck. That wasn’t good. That meant Nat, money, a lot of men, and not very many clothes.
Poor Davey.
“Cat has dropped off the face of the earth, which could mean anything,” Ben carried on. “Your ma, I don’t know and I don’t care. And in the time I was with you after you got out of the hospital, and our time earlier on this couch catchin’ up, you didn’t say a word about your dad and he lives fifteen fuckin’ minutes away. You fucked me over and sent me cookies. You make meetings on time and think about how to make an employee respect you. Your outfit today, babe…sexy, way too fuckin’ sexy…but admittedly, it was also don’t-fuck-with-me business. Sounds of it, you live in an upscale apartment building. You travel for your work in a way that they put you up in fancy hotels. Your future includes raises, promotions, the possibility of gettin’ a dog—but only the kind I want—and findin’ some way to do all that and circle back to a life with me. You are not them. You are nothin’ like them. You grew up fucked and you still grew up smart, strong, capable, funny, and loving. So yeah. Fuck yeah. That’s a miracle.”