Kristen Ashley - The Promise

Friendship and making him laugh.

Merrick took his mind off these thoughts when he greeted them both, ordered his beer, and joined them, standing close to Cheryl, shooting the shit with her, laughing at her jokes, giving shit back, and generally torturing her not having that first clue he was doing it.

An hour later, Merrick took off, Cheryl announced she had to go home or find a place to sell a kidney in order to pay her babysitter, and Ben loaded both women into his SUV so Cheryl wouldn’t have to pay for a taxi.

When he stopped in the driveway of her crackerbox house, which was crackerbox but still tidy and well cared for, he put his truck in neutral and angled out, even as Cheryl was saying her good-byes.

He caught Frankie’s eyes and said, “Walkin’ her to her door. Safe inside. Be back.”

That got him her look that said he’d fulfilled a promise he didn’t even know he was giving as her lips said, “Okay, honey.”

He grinned at her, closed the door, and rounded the hood, meeting Cheryl on the short, cement walk that led to her front door, a walk that was trimmed on each side with a thick, bushy, healthy line of what looked from the outside light to be little white flowers mixed with purple ones.

Probably not making enough cake to hire a gardener, he knew she did that and that was surprising.

It also said a lot about her that no man who would look at her would know.

“I can make it to my front door, you know,” she muttered, sounding vaguely annoyed.

“Figure you can,” was all the answer he gave her.

They made it to her short stoop, she opened the screen door, then the inside door, and that was when he stopped her.

“Smile,” he said, and her head tipped back to look up at him.

“What?”

“You are far from hard to look at. You smile and mean it, that ups significantly. You wanna get some, let a guy in. And to do that, all you gotta do is smile.”

She studied him before she said, like she was talking to herself, “Definitely a different breed of badass.”

He didn’t comment on that.

He said, “You give what you give to your girls, the love you got for your son, your sense of humor and whatever drives you to plant little flowers along your walk to some guy, Merrick’ll see you givin’ it and he’ll kick his own ass.”

Her lips parted, her face softened, and Ben instantly bent closer to her.

“That, Cheryl. Give that right there and a guy will get lucky, and not the way you want him to think he’ll be. The way he’ll just be, he gets that from you.”

Her face closed down and she stated, “Gave a guy that and I’ll hand you the understatement of the year that the results were not pretty.”

Benny figured as much.

So he straightened and shrugged. “Your call. But heads up, at our age, guys are no longer all about pussy. They want a woman they know can give them a smile like you got and the promise of what’s behind it.”

“I work in a bar, Ben, I know that shit’s not true,” she returned.

“Then you either got an eye for assholes or you aren’t payin’ attention. And, looks of Merrick, I’ll tell you straight up, it’s you not payin’ attention.”

She stared at him.

He ended it with, “’Night, babe,” and without her reply, he walked away.

He was backing out of her driveway, arm hooked behind Frankie’ seat, when she asked, “What was that about?”

“Your girl doesn’t wanna get laid,” he told her. “She wants to stop bein’ lonely. She’s got the tools to do that but she’s not usin’ ’em. I pointed that out to her.”

Frankie was silent as Ben put his truck into drive and headed them home.

Ben thought it was done until he stopped at a light and Frankie spoke.

“Have I told you you’re awesome today?”

He looked at her and grinned, replying, “Nope.”

His grin died when he saw her face lit by street and dashboard lights and he heard the tone of her words, saying, “You’re awesome, Benny Bianchi.”

At that, Ben lifted a hand, curled it around her neck, and pulled her to him, dropping his head and taking her mouth.

The car behind them had to honk to get them to break it off.

And that was all good, since where they were going, he could fully show his appreciation, and to be able to do that thoroughly was not in the time he had at a red light.

The next morning, sacrificing greatly for all the unknown people out there who might possibly get messed up by my company putting out a bad drug, I left Benny Bianchi in my bed and went to the office early.

I wasn’t the first one in.

Travis Berger was in.

So was Randy Bierman.

I hit my office, started my day, and every time I saw movement outside my window, I looked to see who it was.

So I saw it when Heath walked in about twenty minutes after I did.

I also saw it when Sandy walked in only two minutes after Heath did.

Heath was not stupid, and yet, he still was.

I gave them time to settle, Tandy coming in while I did this, but she was not first on my list that morning.

Heath was.

“Hey, honey,” I greeted Tandy, leaving my office and making a beeline to Heath’s.

“Mornin’, Frankie,” Tandy replied.

I threw a smile at her over my shoulder and didn’t miss a step.

“Hey there, Frankie,” Sandy said when I got close.

“Hi, Sandy.” I smiled at her but, again, didn’t miss a step and went right to his office. I saw Sandy open her mouth to say something, but by that time, I had a hand lifted and was knocking on the jamb of Heath’s door.

When he looked up, I asked, “Got a minute?”

Heath looked to me, out the window to Sandy, then back to me before answering, “Sure.”

I walked in, closed the door behind me, and moved directly to the chairs opposite his desk. I sat in one, then asked the more truthful question.

“You got more than a minute?”

He looked to the closed door before he studied me and asked back, “Is everything okay?”

I gave him more truth. “Not even close.”

He studied me more intently. “What’s not okay?”

“No way to put this out there and do it delicately,” I started. “So I’ll just put it out there. I know you and Sandy have something going on outside this office. I know it because neither of you are very good at hiding it. I also know it because a PI is watching you and he knows it.”

Heath’s face had grown pale as I talked. He’d also leaned forward before I was done.

Watching him react, it hadn’t escaped my attention that he was very good-looking. Sandy brown hair. Nice blue eyes. Trim and fit. Not exactly tall, but he wasn’t short either. He was just too lean and too classically good-looking for my taste. I liked them darker. Rougher. Bigger. The kind of man you looked at and knew he’d order a beer but hoped he wouldn’t mind drinking Champagne with you during happy occasions.

Heath probably drank martinis.

Nothing wrong with that, but I liked it that Benny ordered beer.

“I got nowhere to go with that lead in,” Heath replied, “except to ask what the fuck you want.”

I blinked.

Then I told him, “I don’t want anything except for you to go to Lloyd, share that you and Sandy are in a relationship, thus cutting off at the knees whoever hired this PI to get the dirty on you.”

“It wasn’t you?” he asked.

“Why would I do that?” I asked back.

“Why would anyone do that?”

Was he serious?

“Uh…Heath, maybe you need to look around and start paying attention,” I suggested.

“What?”

God, he was serious.

I leaned toward him. “I have no idea who hired him. I just know the PI was hired and what he found. That is, I don’t know who hired him yet. But Randy is riding your ass just as he’s riding mine, so I have my suspicions.”

“Yeah, because he’s a dick. Riding my ass at work because he’s a dick and gets off on swinging it around is one thing. Hiring a PI because I’m banging my secretary is insane.”

I had hoped he wasn’t just banging his assistant.

Obviously, he was.

“I’m not going to Lloyd and telling him I’m nailing Sandy,” he continued.

“Your call, but if you don’t, whoever’s behind this will, and he probably won’t go to Lloyd. He’ll go to Berger.”

“Whoever’s behind this…right,” he said snidely. “You want me to go to Lloyd and get my ass fired, so when Bierman takes Lloyd down, even though you got two less years than me in your chair, it’ll be you with a direct shot to Lloyd’s seat.”

I was seeing Heath was a dick too, he was just better at hiding it.

This wasn’t surprising, he was a salesman. Not nice to say about one of my people, but they were my people so I could say it.

He kept going.

“Ambitious. Driven. A slave driver to your reps so they’ll bust their asses to make you look good while you hang with your boyfriend in Chicago.” When I just stared at him, stupefied, and remembering how much I hated office politics, he said, “Yeah. Trey told me about it while asking me if I could swing a transfer for him into my territory.”

Trey was my rep in Chicago, and I wasn’t surprised about that because I already knew Trey was a dick. What I hoped was that he was only spreading that bullshit to Heath and not further.

Unfortunately, Heath wasn’t done.

“You probably don’t have a private dick, just makin’ your play to get me to swing my ass out there. Well, fuck that, Frankie. I’ll call your bluff.”