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 walk 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.