“And you cannot seriously think I’m gonna say yes.”
The tears kept coming, but I said nothing.
Ben did. “Come here, Frankie.”
God.
Benny.
The tears came faster.
“Baby, come here.”
“I want you to have the woman who deserves this bathroom, Benny.”
At my words, something hit him. His look turned ravaged and it was difficult to witness as he whispered, “Jesus, come here.”
“I want you to have what you deserve, honey, and it’s not me.”
“Fuck it, I’m—” he gritted out as he made a move to me.
I took another step back, jerked my hand at him, and shook my head. “I’m leaving, Benny. And, honest to God, I’ll fight you if you don’t let me.”
He stopped dead and looked into my eyes.
I felt the last tear fall as I held his gaze.
We stared at each other a long time.
Benny broke it.
“Don’t do this to us.”
“I do, don’t hate me.”
“Don’t do this, Frankie.”
“If I do, be pissed. Then come back. I need you to come back to me, Benny.”
“You do this to us, not gonna be able to get to that place, Frankie.”
I felt saliva fill my mouth at that possibility, but I swallowed it down and nodded.
“You okay with that?” he asked, his face a mask of wounded incredulity.
I was not. I was absolutely not okay with that.
But it was better to take the cut, make it surgical, move on, and carry on living without Benny and his family as I’d learned to be able to do before but do it far away, where people’s talk and my own memories couldn’t make it torture for me.
“I’m guessin’ I’m gonna have to be,” I answered.
I watched in horror and an extraordinary amount of pain as his body went rigid, along with every muscle in his face.
Then he came at me so fast, I didn’t have a chance to move a muscle and found my head held in his hands, his face an inch from mine.
“You need this, I’ll give it to you. You need to come back, this is a promise I can keep, Frankie: I will not make you work for it.” He moved in even closer and whispered, “But please, fuck, take this time to dig out whatever is fucked to shit inside you. And if you find you can’t, I don’t give a fuck. I’ll do the diggin’. Just come back to me.”
He finished that, pulled me up, slammed his mouth down on mine, and kissed me hard and closed mouthed.
A kiss that was like a brand.
A kiss that was definitely a promise.
A kiss that hurt because of the feelings it beat into me.
And a kiss that lasted not nearly long enough before Ben let me go, turned, and walked away from me.
Chapter Eleven
The Birds Had a Merry Christmas
Benny came in his back door, shook the cold off, as well as the snow, and dumped his workout bag on the kitchen table, tossing his keys there next.
He had to get showered, dressed, and to the restaurant. He turned on his way to do that when his cell in his bag rang.
He turned back, zipped open his bag, dug it out, and looked at the screen.
He took the call and put it to his ear, moving back to the door, greeting, “Hey, Ma.”
“Hey there, Benny. You remember Carm, Ken, and the kids are flyin’ in tomorrow?”
He jogged up the stairs, saying, “I remember, Ma.”
“Dinner tomorrow night at the pizzeria. Manny knows to have the table ready.”
“Yeah.”
“Be sure to find time to come out and say hi, yes?”
He gritted his teeth as he walked down the hall, wondering why his mother would think in a million years he’d forget his sister, who he hadn’t seen in over a year, was flying in with her entire family to be there for a week over Christmas and he wouldn’t come out when they were at the restaurant and say hi.
But he didn’t ask her that question.
He said, “I’ll be sure.”
“You sure you won’t sleep on the couch Christmas Eve?”
He walked into the bathroom and straight to the shower to turn it on and get it hot, so when he was done with this ridiculous call, he could waste no time getting ready.
“I live ten minutes away from you,” he reminded her. “I can come first thing in the morning and not have to sleep on your couch.”
“Kids get up early on Christmas Day,” she snapped.
“Then I’ll get up and come over early,” he returned.
“They get up really early.”
“Then I’ll come over really early.”
“Benny—”
“Ma,” he cut her off. “We’ve had this conversation.” He paused for emphasis. “Twice. I’m not sleepin’ on the couch. I don’t get there at the crack of dawn when Carm’s kids get up and go ballistic, I’ll be there five minutes after the crack of dawn, yeah?”