“We gotta get going!” she shrieked. “And I got, like, seven million calls to make.”

Hurriedly, I went about turning off my computer. “Do not leave that house, Keirry. I’m comin’ and I’ll take you both.”

“You got a two-seater,” she pointed out.

“We’ll take Vi’s Mustang.”

“Oh, right,” she muttered.

I kept closing down and grabbing shit as I said, “Listen to me. Are you listening to me?”

She sounded like she was hyperventilating when she said, “I’m listening.”

“Get the keys to your mom’s car. Make sure she has everything she needs for her and Angela in her bag. Grab some waters, some pops, and some snacks ’cause we probably got a wait ahead of us. Make your calls. Deep breathe. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

I was rushing through the mostly deserted floor on my way to the elevator when Keira replied, “It’ll take you forever to get here.”

“It takes a while to have a baby, honey. Just try to keep calm. I’ll get there as fast as I can and we’ll get to your mom and Cal.”

“Okay, Frankie.”

“Mawdy’s bag doesn’t have nightgowns!” I heard Kate screech from a distance through Keira’s phone.

I tagged the elevator and smiled.

With Ben in Chicago, and Cal, Violet, and the girls the only friends I had close, I spent time with them. Dinners at their place, dinners at mine, dinners at Frank’s Restaurant in town. They were the only things keeping me sane, being so far from Benny and everything I knew.

Doing it, I’d gotten to know the Winters–Callahan family.

And now I knew that Kate, who was normally level-headed, lost it when her mom was about to give her another sister.

“Well, get her one!” Keira yelled back.

“Keirry, honey?” I called.

“Yeah, Frankie?” she asked.

“Deep breathe. Calm. It’s all gonna be great. It’s gonna be amazing. Something beautiful is happening. Yeah?”

I heard the rush of breath come with her “Yeah.”

“Be there soon,” I promised.

“Okay. See you soon, Frankie.”

“’Bye, honey.”

“’Bye, Frankie.”

I disconnected. The elevator opened. I dashed in, hit the button to the parking garage, and as the doors were closing, I didn’t fuck around with Recents. I just dialed Ben’s number right into the phone.

“Hey, baby,” he greeted.

“Vi’s delivering Angela right now,” I told him.

There was a hesitation before he asked, “Come again?”

“Vi…is…delivering…Angela right now!” I was near on shrieking myself when I finished.

“Jesus, that’s fuckin’ great,” Ben replied.

“Uh…yeah,” I agreed. “I’m off to pick up the girls. They were driving themselves, but they were freaked. I don’t want them behind the wheel.”

There was another hesitation, this one weighty, before he whispered, “My Frankie.”

“I don’t have time for you to be sweet right now, Ben. I only have time for you to tell me you’re coming down as soon as humanly possible.”

There was a smile in his voice when he said, “I’m comin’ down as soon as humanly possible.”

“Awesome,” I whispered as the doors opened.

“Be safe with you and those girls,” he ordered.

“I will.”

“Okay. Love you, baby.”

I stopped dead on my mad dash to my Z.

“’Bye,” he finished.

“Uh…’bye, Benny.”

He disconnected.

I stood there, frozen.

Love you, baby.

Oh my God.

Love you, baby.

Oh my God!

Ben told me he’d never loved a woman.

And now he’d just told me he loved me.

What I did next, I didn’t care that security probably saw me doing it on the monitors and would rightly think I was crazy.

Cal and Vi were having their baby.

And Benny Bianchi loved me.

I did a war whoop and a big feet-thrown-back cheerleader jump. In pumps. Holding my phone, my computer bag, my purse slung over my shoulder. Just like a woman in a commercial who successfully got through her stressful day as an executive and did it without getting underarm stains.

Fortunately, I landed firm on my feet.

Then I ran right to my Z.

***

I was sitting in the maternity waiting room of Hendricks Regional Health.

Next to me sat Kate, who was wired and fidgety.

Across from me sat a man who’d introduced himself as Pete Riley, Vi’s father. He’d arrived not very long ago from Chicago.

Standing and swaying a sleeping baby named Jack in her arms was Keira.

The baby belonged to two other people who were there. Kate introduced them as “Colt and Feb,” and I knew them because Vi talked about them as her neighbors, though I hadn’t met them (until then).

I also knew them, because a while ago, they were all over the news when a serial killer had gone on a killing spree in Feb’s name. Obviously, she did not want this or the attention it garnered after he’d killed a slew of people and committed suicide by cop. But still, shit happened in life and you got on with it.

In Feb’s case, she got on with it by finally marrying her hot guy and high school sweetheart, namely Colt, and giving him a baby.

There was also another woman there. Her name was Cheryl. She had a lot of blonde hair, showed a lot of skin, what skin she didn’t show she still hinted at since everything she was wearing was skintight, and she had a lot of attitude. I liked her immediately and wished there would be a time when I could introduce her to Nat (if I ever started speaking to her again) so she’d be inspiration to be what you were, not give a damn, but not be a skank doing it.

She had her son with her, Ethan, who had long since fallen asleep in a chair, his weight slanted sideways and resting on Colt, who had his arm around the kid.

Colt and Feb had brought an enormous bucket of KFC. Cheryl had brought “everything they had left” from Mimi’s, a kickass coffee shop on Main Street in Brownsburg that I’d discovered a couple of weeks before. This meant a plethora of cookies and brownies.

Thus, the snack stash Kate and Keira brought was unnecessary.

Calls had been made and a number of people would eventually descend. Before I got a chance, Keira had called Vinnie and Theresa. They’d also (weirdly, to my way of thinking) called Vi’s dead first husband’s parents, who, apparently, were tight with the new family, including Cal. Not to mention they’d called their grandfather, who wasted no time getting there, and a variety of other people, as evidenced by Colt, Feb, Jack, Cheryl, and Ethan being there.

So all was in order.

Except no word from delivery.

We did get an update, procured for us by Colt, who was a cop, since he arrived when we’d been there over an hour and hadn’t had one. He’d flashed his badge and we’d found out that Vi’s water had broken in Cal’s truck and things went fast. Fast, as in, upon arrival, she was nearly fully dilated. A hint that things would continue to go very swiftly.

But that was hours ago.

“Is this okay?” Kate asked quietly from beside me, and I saw Keira’s head whip around when Kate asked the question.

I reached out and took her hand. “Yes, honey.”

“It seems to be taking a long time,” she noted, her voice uncertain and shaky.

“That happens,” I told her.

“On TV, people can visit a woman in labor for, like…ages before she goes into delivery,” she informed me.

This was true and it happened not on TV as well.

I didn’t tell Kate that.

I said, “Like all babies are different, all births are different. Sometimes it takes time in delivery.”

“I don’t like it,” she whispered, and I squeezed her hand.

“It’s gonna be okay,” I told her, my eyes on Keira and suddenly, Feb moved, getting up quickly and going directly to Keira.

My head turned the other way when I felt movement there, and I knew why Feb went to claim her boy.

Cal, in scrubs, was coming our way.

He looked haggard and my heart skipped a beat, but he didn’t even get to a full stop before he announced in a gruff voice, “Vi’s good. Angie’s good. Everybody healthy.”

Kate shot out of her seat and, almost simultaneously with Keira, did their best to take Cal off his feet when they hit him full on. They did their best, but Cal was a big, powerful guy. He rocked but stood strong.

It was then I received one of those unexpected but precious gifts life could send your way, that being watching Cal wrap both girls in his long, strapping arms, drop his dark head, and kiss the hair on both of theirs, murmuring, “It took Angie a while to wanna join us, but now it’s all good, babies.”

I heard Kate’s choked sob, but Keira just burrowed closer into Cal.

I stood with everyone else and we approached—but didn’t get close, giving them their moment—stopping and huddling.

“You wanna see your mom and sister?” Cal asked the girls, his focus totally on them. No one else was in the universe (except, of course, Vi and his new daughter).

“Yeah,” Keira said unsteadily.

“Absolutely,” Kate said croakily.

Finally, his eyes came to the gathered crowd and he murmured, “Be back.”

He shifted the girls, turned them, and moved them in the direction from where he’d come.

I watched them go. Then I gave jubilant smiles to people I barely knew, who returned them just as jubilantly, and I went right to my purse.

I grabbed my phone and called Benny.

Only when I heard his deep, easy, sweet voice saying, “Give me good news, baby,” did I start crying.

But my tears were jubilant.

***

Benny parked in Frankie’s guest spot, shut down the Explorer, and jumped out, turning toward Frankie’s apartment only to see her hustling his way, hair big, makeup heavy but sweet, wearing a bright orange sundress that showed skin and cleavage. This was paired with some sexy, high-heeled sandals. She was carrying a huge basket covered in cellophane that had a massive pink bow and looked to be filled with a gigantic mound of baby clothes, all pink. She was holding it awkwardly to the side so she could see him.

“Please tell me you didn’t dress that way for work,” he remarked when she was ten feet away.

She gave him a look.

It was two days after Vi had Angela. Two days too long for Frankie, who had wanted him down immediately. But Vi had had Angie on a Tuesday, so he waited for Thursday when he could push it into a long weekend with his woman.

And anyway, his folks went down first and left Brownsburg to go back to Chicago this morning so they could help out at the restaurant while Ben was away. It was also so his pop could get Theresa away from Angela because, as reported direct to Benny from Cal, “You’d think the woman pushed her out herself, she’s hoggin’ her so much.”

This Ben read as Cal not getting enough time with his woman and girls, especially the new one.

Now it was near on six o’clock, Frankie was done with work that day, and Benny was there to stay.

For three days.

Which was not near long enough.

Still giving him a look, Frankie ordered, “Ass back in your truck. We’re goin’ directly to Cal and Vi’s.”

“No welcome to Brownsburg kiss?” he asked as she veered to the passenger side.

He in no way liked it when she didn’t turn her ass right around to give him what he wanted.

Instead, she opened the back door to his truck, dumped the basket, slammed the door, and climbed right in the front seat.

He angled in the driver’s seat and turned to her to tell her precisely how he felt about her non-greeting. The minute he did, she latched onto either side of his head, yanked him to her, and laid a hot, wet one on him.

She broke away but didn’t let go as she whispered, “Welcome to Brownsburg, Benny.”

He grinned at her and replied, “That’s the way I like it, Frankie.”

Something even more crazy-beautiful than the crazy-beautiful she always was lit in her eyes before she kept whispering, “She’s so beautiful, you would not believe.”

He knew what that crazy-beautiful was and he wondered, when she gave him their babies, how much more crazy-beautiful it would be.

“Then let me go, baby, so I can meet her,” he whispered back.

She grinned and let him go.

Ben turned to the wheel, started her up, and put her in gear.

He was backing out when she declared, “By the way, that gift’s from you and me.”

“Good, seein’ as I’m never shoppin’ for a girl baby. When they have their boy, I’ll kick in. Though, sayin’ that, I’m not kickin’ in in a way I’ll go shoppin’. I’m kickin’ in in a way where you call me and get my approval before you buy anything.”