Then he was gone.
But his grin and wink remained and I found I didn’t have to tough out the pain.
A grin and wink from Benny Bianchi was the best medicine a girl could have.
* * * * *
“School is awesome, the best part about it being Jasper Layne.”
It was after lasagna, which Theresa served at Benny’s dining room table after spending nearly the entire time the lasagna cooked in his dining room, shifting what looked like three years of discarded junk mail from the top of the table and attacking the old-fashioned, definitely hand-me-down eight-seater with Pledge.
We were in the living room. Vi, obviously not knowing she should leave Theresa alone, was in the kitchen with Benny’s mother, helping her do the dishes.
I was back on the couch, sitting up again but not in the corner. Benny was in the corner and I was tucked to his side, his arm around me. Kate was down the sofa from us. Vinnie Senior was in Ben’s recliner. Cal was in an armchair. Keira was on the floor and she was the one who was talking.
I was surreptitiously watching Cal, who was not surreptitiously watching Benny and me tucked into the side of the couch. He had a small smile playing at his mouth, the warm light of humor in his eyes, but with both of these, he also had a knowing look on his face.
And I did not get that. He and Vinnie Junior were the same age, close as brothers. He’d tried to talk Vinnie out of working with Sal but was one of the few who intended to take Vinnie as he came. That was how tight they were. He didn’t like that Vinnie was on Sal’s crew, but he didn’t intend to lose him because of it.
So the way Benny was holding me, which was not with brotherly affection, I would have thought would anger Cal, or at the very least perturb him.
It obviously didn’t.
He obviously liked it.
Which was strange.
Stranger, Vinnie Senior had no reaction to it either.
This was making me uncomfortable, and with all that was going on in my head, not to mention having company, I didn’t have the time to sort out why.
“Jasper Layne is hot, no doubt about that, but he’s also a dawg.”
That came from Kate, and the instant it did, Cal stopped grinning knowingly at Benny’s foot, which he’d tangled with mine in an intimate way that felt nice but I knew I should not allow (though I did, bent on earning my first-class ticket straight to hell), and his attention cut to Kate.
“He is not,” Keira snapped.
“Total player,” Kate declared.
“He is not!” Keira’s voice was rising.
“Keirry, he’s had three girlfriends already and we’ve been in school, like, a month,” Kate told her.
I quit surreptitiously watching and started openly watching, and also openly grinning (huge), as a dark, protective, dad look moved over Cal’s face.
He loved Violet. I knew that when he pulled out all the stops and made a miracle happen when he found us in the middle of nowhere in a forest and took a man’s life to save hers.
He also loved her girls.
And I loved that.
“So, he’s lookin’ for the right one,” Keira shot back.
“He’s lookin’ for somethin’,” Kate muttered.
“No Jasper Layne,” Cal decreed, and I watched Keira jerk her gaze to Cal.
“Joe!” she cried.
“No Jasper Layne,” he repeated.
I felt Benny give me a squeeze and I looked at him to see him smiling big at his cousin.
My attention went back to the scene when Keira exclaimed, “He’s cute!”
“He’s off-limits,” Cal proclaimed.
“Joe!” she repeated loudly.
Cal scowled at her. Then I stopped grinning at him and started staring at him when I saw it begin.
I couldn’t believe it might happen.
Then it happened.
He caved.
“How old is he?” Cal asked.
“He’s a sophomore,” Keira answered—Keira, incidentally, being a freshman.
“You wait until you’re older, he’s older, then we’ll see.”
I watched Keira study her “Joe.” Then I watched her face get soft and her eyes light. It was then I knew she knew she had the big, rough man who was Joe Callahan wrapped around her finger.
That had to be why she said much calmer and definitely sweeter, “Okay, Joe.”
“You do know this is hilarious,” Benny put in at that point.
“Shut it,” Cal growled.
Ben chuckled, I giggled, and Vinnie Senior laughed outright.
Cal’s face took on another dark look, this one annoyed, so I quit giggling and looked at Keira. “Sometimes, those are the best ones,” I shared my womanly wisdom.
“What are the best ones?” she asked me.
“The wild ones. You let them get it out of their system and you get them when they’re tame. That can be the best,” I told her, and Benny’s arm got tight, but this time it didn’t loosen.