Kristen Ashley - The Promise

I tried us on and we fit. You tried something on that fit and felt great, you bought it. You did not put it back on the rack and move on.

“But Indianapolis isn’t the moon,” Benny continued. “It’s four hours away. We got phones. We got cars. We got somethin’ worth workin’ on, gettin’ past difficult shit, findin’ a way. You feel up to it, you give them a start date. I’ll take time off, follow you down so you have your car, and I’ll have what’s bound to be your fifteen suitcases in my SUV.”

That made me smile, but my smile, too, was shaky.

Benny carried on, “I’ll stay with you a couple of days, make sure you’re settled, arrange things to come down again when your furniture gets there, help you move in.”

I licked my lips and nodded, feeling the heaviness move out of me and lightness ease in because Benny was making it better.

He kept right on doing that. “You got a new job, a lot to get used to, but somethin’ else you gotta do in between me takin’ you down there and comin’ back is you comin’ up to see me.”

“Okay,” I said softly.

“When are you gonna start?” he asked.

“I, well, would prefer to feel closer to one hundred percent and I still have stuff to pack to get ready for the movers. So, not next week. The, uh, Monday after.”

“Right,” Ben said, sounding businesslike. “I’ll sort shit with Pop and Manny.”

I stared at him for a moment before I whispered, “You make all this sound easy.”

“That’s because this is important to me so I’m determined not to make it hard.”

At that, I fell forward so my forehead hit his chest.

When I did, his hands moved. One to wrap around the back of my neck, one slid up into my hair to cup the back of my head.

And into the top of my hair, he murmured, “See, back to minute by minute. Easy.”

Easy.

Right.

God, Benny.

“We’re startin’ out and I got a new job in Indy I cannot leave, a lease on an apartment that pins me there for at least a year anyway, and you’ve got all this.” I threw a hand out to indicate the kitchen, even though I didn’t move my forehead from his chest. “Which means you can never leave.”

“That’s not the next minute, Frankie,” he reminded me.

I jerked my head back so his was forced to snap his up and his hands were forced to move, and they did, coming to rest just under my jaw.

“We have to think about it, Benny,” I declared, my voice rising.

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeated but didn’t allow him to respond. “Because it’s out there, waiting to strike, and we should plan for when it does.”

“Why?” he asked again, and I felt my eyes get squinty.

“Because, just like this, even though we knew it was coming, it came and now we have to deal and we should plan on how we’re gonna deal.”

“Here’s the drama,” he muttered, lips moving like he was battling a grin.

Wrong thing to say.

And grinning?

Uh…no.

So no, the wax and wane of my freak out waxed. I snapped and shouted, “Benny!”

That was when his face changed, his eyes changed, the bearing of his body changed, everything changed, and I pulled in a breath and held it as he stated, “Honest to Christ, Frankie, you think I’d wait since high school to get my shot at makin’ you mine and then I’d let a four-hour drive and a fuckin’ year lease beat me?”

My breath came out in a whoosh, but this time it was Benny who didn’t let me answer.

“No. I won’t. Puttin’ this out there, Frankie, in the end, Connie was practically livin’ with me. That’s how I burned her. She thought she was in there. But I woke up to her knowin’ I’d come home to a house she cleaned, dinner in the oven, her breakin’ her back to make everything easy on me when that’s my job.”

This particular piece of beauty made me suck in a hissed breath.

But he didn’t quit talking.

“Was a time I didn’t think on shit like that. Back then, what I thought was, for some reason, she didn’t make me happy. Simple. She just didn’t make me happy so I ended it. But the time I didn’t think on shit leaked into the dirt of a forest three weeks ago, Frankie. So I thought on it, and havin’ you in my house, in my bed the last week, it was about me seein’ to your Z. Me makin’ sure you got the Wi-Fi to do your shit on your computer. Me listenin’ to you bitch when you come back from a walk with old lady Zambino. Doin’ it with a gleam in your eye, tellin’ me you’re bitchin’, but you loved every minute she walked with you and busted your chops. So it boils down to this: I don’t want easy, Frankie. I had my shot at that. I wanna work at gettin’ the sweet, enjoyin’ my time with the spicy along the way, ’cause the sweet’s a fuckuva lot sweeter when you gotta earn it.”

“Ben,” I whispered, but didn’t get out another word because he wasn’t done.

“Babe, you cannot plan life. You can pull out all the stops to plan for everything and life will find a way to fuck with those plans, sock you in the gut, send you scrambling. Through that, you either have the balls not to back down and the strength to know what’s important and hold the fuck on with everything you got, or you don’t have that and you give up ’cause you’re weak. Know two things for certain: I’m not fuckin’ weak and you aren’t either.”

He stopped talking and I said nothing because I had no freaking clue what to say.

So he kept going.

“Countin’ it down, we’ve had one date, haven’t fucked you yet, and we been livin’ with each other for nine days. That time good for you?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yeah, it’s been good for me too. Good enough I know it’s important, and I already knew it was important, so I’m gonna hold the fuck on with everything I got and I’m takin’ you with me, Frankie.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“So yeah, it’s gonna suck,” he stated. “I’d rather live a life knowin’ you were bringin’ your girls into my restaurant to throw back some Chianti and eat one of my pies. I’d rather the immediate future came with you gettin’ to know Sela better because Man may be takin’ his time, but he’s gonna put a ring on her finger. You’re already family, which means you’re in a spot where you two can become sisters like no other women can be, and your two sisters are seriously fuckin’ lacking so you could use a good one. I wanna get into bed beside you at night and know I’m wakin’ up to you in the morning. But right now, I can’t get what I want. I just know what I want. I’ve waited for years. I’m not doin’ fuckin’ cartwheels knowin’ I gotta wait more, but I’ll deal. I just gotta know, are you with me?”

I knew what to say to that.

“Yes, I’m with you, Benny.”

He stared at me.

Then he said, “Fuck, gotta stir the sauce.”

For some reason, this made me want to giggle, but I beat it back and just nodded.

He bent and gave me a quick, slightly annoyed but still sweet kiss on the forehead, took his hands from me, and went to the pots that were more aptly described as vats on the stove.

He stirred.

I approached, stopping just short of the stove to rest my hip against the stainless steel counter.

“I’m a pain in the ass,” I told him, and his eyes cut immediately to me.

“That’d be the part where you aren’t easy.”

God.

God.

Benny.

I took in a breath and released it, and with it, I released a lot of garbage. Something I was not really good at doing on my own. Garbage I’d lived with because I’d never had anyone to help me deal, which meant I buried a lot of garbage and lived with it for a long freaking time, polluting me. And something that Benny seemed remarkably skilled at guiding me into getting clean.

Releasing that, I released everything and was back in the minute with Benny.

Being there, I muttered, “Sauce smells good.”

“That’s ’cause it’s not good, it’s fuckin’ amazing.”

I didn’t beat back the giggle at that. I let it loose, and when I did, even more garbage got released, making me feel it.

It wasn’t just clean.

It was also the sweet Benny gave me.

I felt it more when, still giggling, his arm shot out and wrapped around my waist. He pulled me his way so my front was tucked to his side and I was watching from close as he stirred the sauce, the sweet, spicy scent enveloping me.

I slid my arms around him and rested my cheek against his chest.

“You good now?” he asked quietly, still stirring the sauce.

“Yeah,” I answered, also quietly.

“We got a plan for the next bazillion minutes?” he went on, and I smiled against his chest.

“Yeah.”

He kept stirring, even as I felt his lips touch the top of my hair, and he continued stirring and holding me when they were gone.

And I stood in the curve of Benny Bianchi’s arm, watching his hand holding a long-handled wooden spoon, moving it through a rich, thick red sauce, with its miniscule bits of cream-colored minced garlic and dark green bits of a secret mix of fresh herbs going round and round, the goodness of it filling the air.

Another promise.

Feeling that, it hit me that I found myself—me, Francesca Concetti, having lived thirty-four years with not a lot of great, fleeting moments of happiness, and never much to look forward to—standing in the kitchen of a pizzeria in the curve of the arm of a handsome, good, decent man, living a life full of promise.

The promise of Benny.

So I pressed closer, held on tighter, and took in a deep breath, letting the goodness in the air get right in there so it could settle in sweet.

And when I did, Ben tucked me even closer, held on, and stirred the sauce.

***

I should have held on tighter.

I should have let that sweet settle deeper.

I didn’t.

I felt arms tighten on me and the haze of sleep lifted, slightly.

When it did, I felt my body pressed snug against the hard frame of Benny’s, the warmth of our cocoon of covers, and the safety both created.

I tilted my head back, opening my eyes, and I saw Benny.

Half asleep, my belly still did a dip.

As always.

“Hey,” he whispered, his morning voice that beautiful mixture of deep, easy, and gruff.

“Hey,” I replied.

“How you feelin’?” he asked.

“Good,” I answered.

He lifted his head and buried his face in my neck, where he asked, “No, baby, how you feelin’?”

At first, still in the haze of sleep, I didn’t get it.

Then the way Benny’s hands were moving over the material of my nightgown on my back hit me. That wasn’t a lazy first-thing-in-the-morning caress.

It was something else entirely.

And if that didn’t do it, Ben gliding his tongue the length of my neck to the back of my ear, causing a shiver to glide over my skin, would have done it.

And if that didn’t do it, Ben shoving his knee between my legs, forcing me to hook my leg over his thigh, would have done it.

Suddenly, a germ of weirdness attached tight, making my stomach clutch and panic grip me because I knew what he wanted. I knew he was done waiting. I knew it was time.

But I’d had one lover and it had been a long time. I wanted Ben to have what he wanted the way he wanted, but most of all, I wanted him to love it when he got it.

Not to mention everything was riding on this.

Everything.

Just as suddenly as the panic clutched my belly, when his hand slid over my ass at the same time his teeth nipped the skin at the back of my ear, it released and the shiver took hold, making me tremble in his arms.

“Frankie?” he prompted in my ear.

I turned my head and drew in his scent before I brushed my lips against his neck and whispered, “I’m feelin’ good, baby.”

Ben ran his nose along my jaw as he dipped his hand under the hem of my nightie and I felt the warmth of it, skin against skin, at the hollow of my back.

His eyes caught mine. “Got an idea about how I can make the next few minutes real fuckin’ great, honey.”

I hoped it took longer than a few minutes, though I didn’t share this.

I said, “Let’s see what they can bring.”

I saw his eyes smile.

Then mine were closed because his head slanted and he was kissing me.