Kristen Ashley - The Promise

She ignored that and stated, “But you do know your woman so you know she isn’t one either. If she couldn’t trust me, she wouldn’t have said squat.”

She was right.

But the stakes were high.

“She’s playin’ with fire,” he pointed out.

“Then don’t let her get burned,” she shot back.

“And I’m doin’ that by makin’ sure you know to keep your mouth shut and don’t do somethin’ stupid like thinkin’ you can help your girl by makin’ this a Laverne & Shirley scenario.”

Her eyes slid to the side.

Jesus.

“Which one are you?” he asked, and her eyes came back. “Laverne or Shirley?”

“I know a guy who’s ace at surveillance,” she told him, chin lifting slightly.

She was Laverne.

“There it is,” he muttered, looking away and reaching for his beer.

“And you should be involved, a guy who owns a pizzeria?”

He took a pull off his beer in an effort not to allow that remark to irritate him before he reminded her, “She sleeps at my side.”

“And my mom’s got high blood pressure. Takes meds for it.”

Benny shook his head. “Cheryl, I got a man in Chicago who got the story of what I could give him while my woman was gettin’ sexed up to go out for drinks with her girl, and in doin’ that, tease every guy here, none of ’em who are ever gonna get close to tappin’ her ass, all of ’em wantin’ to, and all of that annoying the fuck outta me. And this man has resources. Your surveillance guy might be tight, but I’m thinkin’ my guy has that covered.”

Suddenly, she grinned, and if he had a vagina, he would advise her to turn that grin to the room because it was almost cute, definitely playful, and showed she had a sense of humor. All of this in a way that, with her big hair, nice tits, and show of skin, would mean her dry spell would end in about the time it would take to walk back to the bathrooms or get to a car.

“I see your point,” she said through her grin.

“Thrilled, babe,” he muttered around his bottle of beer before he took another pull and moved to sit on Frankie’s stool.

She sucked back some of her cocktail.

When she did, Benny threw her a hint. “Just sayin’, might be good you troll for talent in a bar that’s not the bar where you work.”

She looked at him.

“Yeah. I see that. Problem is, I make some cake here, but it’s the only bar close. I’m not about to get nailed for drinkin’ and drivin’ so I cab it when I hit the scene. And me payin’ hefty cab fares means I can’t buy six packets of Oreos for my boy every week ’cause that kid eats the whole damn thing the minute I take it out of the bag.”

Another thing that would make her a winner if a man knew about it: she gave more of a shit about getting her kid Oreos than getting herself laid.

“Then maybe you should widen the net and not just fish in bars,” Benny suggested, and her head jerked in surprise.

“Like where?”

Shit, he walked right into a discussion he did not want to be in and it was a discussion with no exit door.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “What kinda man you want?”

“A man who looks good, fucks better, and likes kids.” She gave him her limited wish list and tipped her head to the side. “Got any friends?”

“You willin’ to move to Chicago?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

She gave him another grin, even as she told him, “Just to say, you’re crampin’ my style.”

He glanced through the bar that wasn’t packed, but it wasn’t a slow night either, then looked back to her. “Anyone here you’re even remotely interested in?”

“No.”

“Then let me buy you a drink and you tell me about your boy.”

Her grin turned into a smile at the mention of her boy, a smile that, if she put it out there, might get her more than just laid, just as Frankie came back, asking, “I miss any action?”

Benny started to make a move to give her back her stool, but she made her move faster, sliding in in a way that forced him to shift a thigh and twist on the stool so she could press her hip and side to his crotch and chest between his legs that were up, feet on the rungs of the stool.

Much better than him standing behind her on the stool, pressed to her back.

“No action,” Cheryl answered. “Night’s a dud.”

“Yo, babe.” They all heard.

Ben was about to twist his neck to look, but he didn’t when he saw something flicker over Cheryl’s face when she heard the voice and her eyes shifted beyond Frankie.

It was only there a second, but he caught it, and if he wasn’t mistaken, it was pain. The kind you get when you want something you can’t ever have, you know it, you’re resigned to it, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Yo, Merry,” Cheryl replied, and Ben finally looked to the good-looking, tall, dark-haired man who stopped at their sides. “Merry, this is Frankie and Benny,” she went on. “Kids, this is Garrett Merrick. J&J’s regular. Detective at the BPD. Decent guy, as far as I can tell, who can hold his liquor and is smart enough to laugh at my jokes.”

“Jesus, Cher, you wanna share my shoe size?” Merrick asked, smiling down at her in a friendly way that said that was all it was. Friends. He had zero interest in getting in there.

“Shoe size ten,” Cheryl stated, turning to look at Frankie and Benny.

“One off,” Merrick muttered, and Cheryl looked back at him.

“Which direction?” she asked.

“Not sayin’.” he answered.

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Please, God, for all my sisters, make it one size up.”

Merrick burst out laughing. So did Frankie. But Ben just chuckled and he did it feeling shit.

And he felt shit because she was a good woman. A hard one, but a good one. And now she was a good one going out of her way to be funny because she liked this guy, but knew he was not the kind of man who had an interest in taking on whatever shit made her hard. He preferred soft. She had no shot, it didn’t enter his mind, and him being a regular meant she read that on him every time he showed. So she was grasping on to all she could get.

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.”