I gave her a face and she returned a grin. Then she bent down, grabbed my hand, and gave it a squeeze.
“You need me, you know how to get me.”
“Yeah, babe. I do. And I appreciate it like you wouldn’t believe. Thank you,” I replied.
That got me another squeeze and a smile before she let me go and walked out.
“Later!” I called as she did.
“Later, girl!” she called back.
When she was gone, I looked to the nightstand to see if Ben left the remote.
He did not.
Something about that made me want to giggle out loud.
Perhaps my TV ploy did work.
I was reaching for Vogue when Benny walked in. I watched him do this. I also watched him come to a dead stop five feet in, eyes on me.
“I attacked my hair this morning,” I declared. “That’s a feat that’s difficult to conquer on the best of days, so, Warden, if you intend to force me to walk down to the commissary for breakfast, I’m gonna have to starve until lunch.”
Ben said nothing.
I kept talking. “If you bring me something to eat and more coffee, I’ll be nice to you for fifteen minutes.”
Ben still didn’t speak.
So I allowed, “Okay, twenty.”
Benny planted his hands on his hips but said not a word.
I went on. “And you can bring the remote back. Last night, I saw the Entenmann’s coffeecake on your counter. For a slice, I won’t fuck with your TV all day.”
“Told you, you can’t have sex. Doctor’s orders.”
I felt my head jerk in surprise at his words before I asked, “What?”
“Babe, you want me to fuck you, you give me big hair, a hint of a bra I’ll wanna see covering your tits before I’ll wanna take it off, and skin.”
My stomach tightened and not in a bad way.
But…
Was he crazy?
“What?” I asked, louder this time.
“Actually, you want me to fuck you, you gotta breathe. You want me to fuck you immediately, you give me that hair, a hint of bra, and show some skin.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What is up with you?”
“You play games with all that” —he flicked a hand in my direction— “you get repercussions.”
“Benny, what…the hell…are you talkin’ about?” I demanded to know.
“Hair, bra, nightie, skin,” was his absurd (and repetitive) answer.
“Gina bought me this nightie, Ben,” I informed him. “It’s like a dress.”
“It’s clingy and shows skin,” he informed me.
“It’s one of the only choices I have, seein’ as you didn’t take me home so I’d have different choices,” I retorted.
“Then I’ll set Ma on hittin’ your house to get you different choices.”
This would be a wasted chore as the nighties I had at home were way clingier and showed a whole lot more skin.
Therefore, I advised, “Actually, if you can’t control your base instincts, you should send her to the granny section of Macy’s.”
He got my drift and I knew it when his jaw got hard. “You doin’ that shit to fuck with me?”
“Fuck with you how?”
“Bein’ a tease, babe. A tease recovering from a fuckin’ GSW, which means I can’t teach you the lesson you should get for bein’ a tease.”
I felt my blood start to get hot, and this time, it was in a bad way.
“What, in all that I’ve done and said in the last week and a half, would give you the impression I’d tease you, Benny Bianchi?” I snapped.
“You, lyin’ in my bed, dressed like that, lookin’ like that.”
“I did my hair and put on a nightgown!” Now I was shouting.
“Precisely,” he returned.
“Are we really having this conversation?” I asked sarcastically, as well as still loudly.
“You got a robe?” he asked back.
Oh shit. I did.
Since I did, I glared.
Benny read my glare, dropped his hands from his hips, stalked to my bag, and dug through it, yanking out my robe.
He then stalked to the bed and dropped it in my lap, whereupon he announced, “Ma’s on her way over.”
I closed my eyes and forgot to be pissed because panic was gathering around my heart.
“She’s gonna be cool with you, Frankie,” Benny stated.
That was what I was panicked about. She was going to be cool. Sweet. Kind. Motherly. All this while feeling badly because she’d been in the wrong and something extreme happened that brought that to light. And her feeling badly would make me feel badly. Then I’d have to accept all the goodness of her, knowing I’d have to give it up again, my choice this time.
The bed depressed and my eyes flew open to see Benny sitting on it, again, hip to hip.
“Can you give me a hint why this is so difficult for you, babe?” he asked, sounding less peeved.
“Which part?” I asked.
“Any of it,” he answered.
“No,” I finally answered his question.
“You’re not gonna let me in there, even a little bit.” He stated this as a fact, but I decided to take it as a statement that needed affirmation.
“No, I’m not,” I agreed.
“Then I’m gonna hafta dig in there.”
I drew in a breath.
Benny digging in there.
God seriously freaking hated me.
It was time to put my plan in motion so I did.
“Your family blamed me. They turned their back on me. I loved you all. That hurt. Things have changed. I get that. But they changed while I was recovering from getting shot, Ben. You need to get that. I’ll be cool with Theresa. I’ll sit down with Vinnie Senior. And after I get through that, you and me’ll talk. But you gotta cut me some slack. This isn’t easy on you. Think how it feels for me.”
He leaned closer and didn’t look or sound peeved at all when he asked, “Was that hard?”
It was.
Absolutely.
And as time went on, it would get harder until it eventually killed. But I’d lived through bad. I could live through worse.
Or, at least, I hoped so.
“Uh, yeah, Benny. That was hard. That’s the point.”
He bent in, leaning onto a hand in the bed on the opposite side of me as he took my hand in his free one, lifting it to hold it to his tight upper abs.
There it was. It happened right away. My hand on Benny’s tight abs that I’d never really get to explore. It got worse.
“You got nothin’ but good comin’ your way, Frankie, I can promise you that,” he said softly.
He was wrong. I never had nothing but good coming my way. If I got good, I lost it. That was my life. I’d learned to live with it. I didn’t like it, but I had no choice.
I didn’t share that. If he hadn’t figured that out for himself, I wasn’t going to enlighten him.
He squeezed my hand and pressed it tighter to his abs. “You open yourself up, you could find it’ll be the best you ever had.”
I didn’t know what he was promising, but I had a feeling it had a variety of nuances. I also had a feeling he was right—about all of those nuances.
The problem was, he should find the best he’d ever have, and he couldn’t get that from me.
“Can we stop talking now?” I requested.
His eyes got soft, but his lips said, “Yeah. About that. I’m gonna go get you some coffeecake, but before that, I’m gonna tell you how this is gonna go down.”
I had a feeling I knew what “this” was, and, admittedly, I was grateful he had a plan. This would likely come as an order, which would be annoying, but I needed to be prepared and I’d take whatever I could get.
“When she gets here, I’ll bring Ma up. She’ll do what she’s gotta do and I’ll be here with you in the beginning. Then I gotta get to the restaurant. Got paperwork to do and Pop’s takin’ my back at nights while you’re here. He does things his way. I do things my way. Obviously I like my way better. He fucks up my kitchen, I’ll deal. He fucks up my system in the office, that will not go good. So I gotta see to shit. Ma will stay. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”