I liked that.

“No,” I answered. “Had a problem with my apartment. Well…” I hesitated, “actually about seven thousand of them. Then I had a problem with how they didn’t seem to give a shit that I did when the shower didn’t drain, even after three days, and the garbage disposal didn’t dispose—it preserved, but not very well. After that went on awhile, I told them to go fuck themselves. One of our reps moved on to a job out of state and she was stuck in a lease. So I took over her lease.” I grinned at him, chip in hand halfway to my mouth. “Get this. My new pad is in Brownsburg.” I popped the chip in my mouth and chewed.

“No shit?” he asked, his brows up, his eyes smiling.

I shook my head. “No shit. Moved in two weeks ago. Vi and Cal are havin’ me over next week for dinner.”

“Then you know she’s expecting,” Benny noted, sandwich in hand, and after he said what he said, he bit in and half the meat hit his plate.

We needed forks.

And maybe knives.

Definitely napkins.

I shot him a happy smile at this news and answered him as I shifted out of the couch. “Yeah. She told me.” I put my plate on the coffee table, saying, “Gonna get forks and napkins.”

“No napkins, babe. Paper towel.”

Yeah. Right. He was a guy. Of course he wouldn’t buy napkins.

I came back, handed him his fork and knife and portion of paper towel, and had just settled back with plate in hand and chips at the ready when he asked, “Your old landlord give you shit for jumpin’ your lease?”

It was then I was seeing that I shouldn’t have started with that.

I put my plate on my lap and began carving into my sandwich.

“Frankie?”

I lifted a bite and put it in my mouth.

So good.

“Francesca.”

At my full name and the way he said it, I looked to him.

“They gave you shit,” he stated as a fact he now knew from the look on my face. Then his expression turned scary. “They still givin’ you shit?”

I chewed, swallowed, and mumbled, “Uh…no.”

“Cut their losses,” he guessed.

I looked back down at my plate.

He didn’t like my avoidance tactic and I knew this when he grinded out, “Frankie.”

I looked to him and said quickly, “I called Sal.”

His face went straight into a scowl and he demanded, “Tell me you did not.”

“Not to…uh, lean on them or anything. To see if one of his attorneys might put the fear of God into them. That, well…worked.”

“Putting the fear of God into them is leanin’ on them, Frankie,” Benny informed me.

I made no comment.

The scowl didn’t shift as Ben asked, “Have you lost your mind?”

That was a loaded question.

“Babe,” he clipped out when I didn’t answer immediately.

“They were jacking with my credit, Benny,” I said in my defense.

“So you got a mob lawyer to threaten them?”

I tipped my head to the side as my nonverbal “yes.”

“You do not get into Sal for markers,” Ben said low.

“Sal said it was a freebie.”

“That man keeps track of every-fuckin’-thing and you know it. You do not get into him for markers. You do not get into him for anything. And if I had my choice, you would not have one fuckin’ thing to do with him.”

“He’s family, Benny,” I reminded him quietly, because he was, in Ben’s case, actually blood.

“He’s a sociopath, Frankie,” he returned.

That probably couldn’t be argued.

Though he was a charming one.

I decided not to give that opinion to Benny.

I went back to my food, suggesting, “Maybe we shouldn’t talk about Sal.”

“Oh, we’ll be talkin’ about Sal,” Ben told me, and I looked back to him, chip in hand. “Just not now. He’s not top priority.”

Suddenly, I wanted to talk about Sal.

“Don’t look freaked,” Benny said, now gentle, and I focused on him to see his tone was written on his face. “We’re gonna eat. We’re gonna catch up. We’re gonna enjoy this. We can get into the heavy shit later.”

“I vote for next February,” I muttered to the chip bag.

“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.