Vinnie Senior, like Theresa, had “retired,” but the retirement part was a loose interpretation of the word. Ben told me he came around, stuck his nose in, even worked in the kitchen, helping Ben, or came in so he could have the night off. But he mostly left it to Benny.

Theresa, not one to kick back at night and watch games or cop shows, or kick back at all, had also retired loosely. This meant her form of retirement was still showing at the restaurant more than occasionally to work.

Theresa wasn’t on last night, but with his girl there, Man found his times to come to our table to entertain us.

Ben had also showed once to give me a kiss, the girls a welcome, and to ask Asheeka if she enjoyed the pie.

Asheeka had.

In fact, she told me, after eating the pie (and the fresh breadsticks, and partaking of her portion of the big salad with banana peppers, olives, homemade croutons, and a healthy dusting of freshly shaved parmesan cheese in a light oil-based dressing) that I didn’t owe her for shower duty. My marker was paid.

I got that. The food was that good, and the warm and welcoming feel of the red-and-white-checkered-tablecloth-table-filled room, with pictures of family mounted all over the walls, couldn’t be beat.

Still, I was going to do something more for her. I had to. I was me.

I’d woken up four mornings in a row in Benny’s arms to soft “heys,” nuzzles, and warm arm squeezes, but Benny didn’t push it any further. We kissed, often. No hot and heavy make out sessions, but he frequently laid one on me, either claiming my mouth in a sweet kiss, brushing his lips against mine, or taking his time to make it deeper, but there was no pressure. No pushing.

With other displays of affection, like hand-holding, turning me in his arms every once in a while just to give me a hug and touch his mouth to my neck, I had the feeling he was giving me the chance to get used to him. It wasn’t about making certain I was fit and healthy. It was about making certain I was fit and healthy, mentally. Ready to go there with him, take the next step.

It was like we were living together, but Benny was still giving me the dating-to-get-to-know-you-better part of the relationship and that was pure Benny. Thoughtful. Generous. Sweet.

Awesome.

So it had been a good three days.

No, outside of my own issues that messed up the first part, it had been a good nine days, made good by Benny from the beginning.

Minute by minute was working.

Fabulously.

Or it had been.

Until ten minutes earlier.

Now I was worried the minute-by-minute business was going to fail and do it miserably.

This was on my mind when I hit the alley behind the pizzeria and parked next to Benny’s Explorer, the only car in a lot that was used only by employees.

It was relatively early. The pizzeria didn’t open for lunch, dinner only. They started taking walk-ins at four thirty for orders of takeaway, but didn’t start seating until five.

But Ben had gone in because he had sauce to make. I’d learned in the last three days that he had kids who could make the croutons, whip up the homemade Caesar dressing they used, toss the salads, prepare the homemade pasta, assemble the casseroles, and roll the meatballs.

But the sauce and the pizza dough were made only by Vinnie or Benny.

I parked and got out, walking swiftly to the back door. I prayed it was open because I needed to get to Benny and not do it after pounding on the door, hoping he’d hear me. I tried the door, and for once, my prayers were answered.

I walked in and saw what I’d seen the hundreds of times I’d entered the pizzeria through the kitchen’s back in the days when I was with Vinnie. Stacked up in the space around the door were used kegs. Empty crates that had held vegetables. Discarded boxes.

There was a door to an employee washroom to one side, to the other, a big room lined in stainless steel shelves that held everything the pizzeria needed, from durum flour to toilet paper.

Down the hall I went, passing two more doors: one side, the door to what was now Benny’s office; the other side, a stainless steel door that led into a walk-in fridge.

I was curious to see how Benny had claimed Vinnie’s office, but I was on a mission fueled by a freak out so I kept going, past the last door, which was a walk-in freezer, then I was in the kitchen.

Stainless steel worktable down the middle with a shelf unit that had heating lights where they put prepared plates or pies. Three spindles hanging where they clipped orders. Utensils on hooks. More stainless steel tables around the walls. Big sinks. A back area where more sinks and the industrial dishwashers were. Stainless steel cabinets mounted on the walls that held plates, bowls, glasses. Lower cabinets that held pots, pans, skillets, trays, and drawers with cutlery. Smaller wire shelving under the wall cabinets that gave easy access to herbs and spices. Massive pizza ovens and three enormous restaurant-quality stoves.

Benny’s domain. His kingdom. Where he worked to pay his mortgage and did it in a way that his twenty-five employees could pay their rent.

I stopped just in the kitchen, suddenly not thinking of my problem but, instead, thinking of what could be the crushing weight of being the driving force behind a business where people depended on you to do a large variety of things right on a day-to-day basis. From scheduling correctly, to not over- or under-purchasing tomatoes, to making certain wait staff was trained right, to ensuring every pizza pie and breadstick went out with equal quality, making the dinner an experience to remember and leaving the patron always wanting to come back for more.

With these thoughts coming to me, I turned my eyes to the left to see Ben in his white t-shirt and jeans, standing at one of the stoves, stirring what was in one of two humongous pots there.

The air was filled with the mouth-watering smell of garlic mixed with a subtle hint of fresh cut herbs and I saw big cutting boards on the worktable behind Benny that had the residue of green on one, the juice and seeds of tomatoes on another.

“Babe.”

He spoke and my eyes went to him.

When they did, his gaze moved over my face, his head cocked to the side, and he immediately moved to me, saying, “Jesus, what happened?”

“You know minute by minute?” I asked. He came to a stop a foot away, holding my gaze and nodding slowly. “Well, the next minute is gonna be a lot harder than the last bazillion of them,” I declared.

“Talk to me,” he demanded.

“You’re working,” I replied.

His head jerked slightly in surprise at my words and he said, “Yeah, I am, and you’re here because you’re freaked so now I’m not. Now, I’m standin’ here waitin’ for you to talk to me.”

I shook my head. “What I mean is, you’re working. This is me. I’m freaking and you’re working and I should be good, have a mind to that, keep my shit together, and wait to discuss this with you at a time when you can focus on it, not at a time when you might burn the sauce.”

I watched his face set to firm before he said, “Sauce cooks for-fuckin’-ever and is in no danger of burnin’. But I wouldn’t give a shit if it burned. You got somethin’ on your mind, you talk to me and I’ll listen, even if it takes five hours. I can make more sauce.”

God.

Benny.

“What I’m sayin’ is” —I kept at it, thinking it imperative he heed my warning— “I’m about drama. That’s me and you need to know that. I tried to talk myself out of comin’ here. I knew you’d be working and it wasn’t cool that I interrupted you. That lasted about thirty seconds. Something’s bugging me, I’ll suck you in just to rant about what’s buggin’ me, but mostly, I’ll lay it on you because I want you to fix it for me.”

“Right then, Frankie, maybe it’d be good if you get to the rantin’ part so I can get to the part where I fix it for you.”

God.

Benny.

“This isn’t going to be ranting, per se, just so you know,” I clarified. “This is just gonna be freaking. Ranting is bad, but in some cases, Frankie-style freaking is worse.”

“Babe,” he said slowly, his voice getting lower, his own warning. “Talk to me.”

“I just got off the phone with my new employer,” I declared.

His body tightened and his eyes focused intently on mine.

He knew what was freaking me.

“They’ve given me until tomorrow to give them a definitive start date.”

I watched his chest expand with the deep breath he pulled in, then he erased the short distance we had between us, getting in my space and doing it more by lifting his hands to curl them around either side of my neck.

He dipped his head so his face was closer to mine and he said quietly, “Okay, baby. This isn’t a surprise. We knew this was coming. They weren’t gonna wait forever. Now they’re done waiting.”

I nodded.

They certainly were. They weren’t assholes about it, but they’d gone through a hiring process and those cost some cake. I was supposed to be in my new office in Indianapolis on Monday. They knew I wouldn’t be there then, but no one could put up with an indefinite delay. I’d been understandably cagey about my new start date because I’d never been shot or known anyone who had (who survived it). I had no clue how long it would take for me to get back to good, or good enough, to start a new job after moving to a different state.

The doctor had given me guidance on that but did so with the warning that I hadn’t only sustained a GSW, which was extreme enough, but the circumstances around that were also extreme. So I not only needed time for my body to heal, I also needed to sort out my head.

Thus, the cageyness, because I knew that I didn’t only have all that to deal with, but also the Bianchis.

Now was now. I was getting around better, the pain was fading, and all was well with the Bianchis, primarily the most important one who was right then standing in my space, his hands on me.

It was well, as in it was awesome, and I could do minute by minute when I was experiencing awesome.

But when something big was encroaching on that awesome, I couldn’t deal.

“I’m like this,” I whispered after these thoughts coursed through my brain.

“What?” Ben asked.

“Sometimes I can’t deal,” I admitted. “I’ve been looking out for myself for a long time, a really long time, longer than losing Vinnie, and I’m good at it. But that doesn’t mean sometimes I can’t deal.”

“Frankie, honey, there are times when anyone can’t deal.”

This confused me because Benny was “anyone,” and from my experience of late (not to mention even before), I’d not known a time when he couldn’t deal.

So I asked, “When are the times you can’t deal?”

His mouth stayed closed but his jaw flexed.

I watched it, knew that meant he could always deal, and whispered, “Right.”

“Okay, how ’bout this?” he started. “When my brother pisses away his life and hurts the people I love most in the world, I can’t deal, as evidenced by the fact that I blamed that shit on a good woman and did it in an ugly way that lasted seven years.”

Oh, right. Well, there was that time Benny couldn’t deal.

“That was a doozy,” I murmured, and he grinned.

“Yeah. So there are times when anyone can’t deal.”

I nodded again, feeling slightly better.

Benny spoke again and I felt not-so-slightly worse.

“You give up the lease on your apartment?”

I again nodded.

“Got a place down in Indy?” he went on.

“The company was putting me up in an executive apartment for October, which is still part of my offer. But yes, I went down and scouted a place and my apartment will be open on November first. The movers are all sorted to come, get my stuff, and bring it down the first weekend in November. ”

“Right,” he muttered, his fingers digging lightly into my neck.

He didn’t like this.

I didn’t like this.

I just knew minute by minute wasn’t going to work.

“Ben,” I said, his name coming out shaky.

His face got a smidgen closer so that he was the only thing I could see.

“You gotta go, baby. You got a job. You got a contract with that lease. You got responsibilities. You gotta go.”

I pressed my lips together, feeling the sting in my eyes, the tightness gathering around my heart, because he was right and I didn’t know what that meant for us.