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.

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.