He’d liked doing it. It reminded him of working construction, something he also liked doing. Building things. Using his hands, his body, seeing something form from his work. He also liked working days, having nights off to go out and throw back a few, shoot the shit with the guys, watch a game, pick up a woman who had promise, see how that panned out.
Working in the kitchen at the restaurant was hot and it was a pain in the ass dealing with the kids who worked with him. Kids who were more worried if the girl they texted would text back in a way that meant they’d soon get laid than getting the pies out of the oven or not burning the meatballs.
He’d often catch himself in that kitchen and wonder what the fuck he was doing there, working his ass off, killer hours, all of them so busy half the time he was on autopilot to get it done.
Then he’d get a whiff of the sauce his pop taught him how to make, sauce his grandmother taught his father how to make (and so on), and it was fucking crazy, totally insane, but he’d know why he was there. Not only that, he’d know there was no other place for him.
That was where he was meant to be.
These thoughts came to him as he walked down the hall and stopped in the doorway of his office, seeing Frankie sitting in his pop’s huge, old desk chair with its cracked leather. She was staring at the computer on the desk that she’d turned on.
He leaned a shoulder against the jamb and noted, “Not connected to the Internet, babe, so can’t send your SOS that way.”
She jumped at his voice and he tensed when she did, thinking random, jerky movements like that in her state were not good.
But he didn’t see the pain tighten her mouth or her eyes wince. Her head just shot to him. She looked him up and down and ended with his eyes.
“Ben, black screen and green cursor?” she asked.
“Told you it was Carm’s old computer,” he reminded her.
“From when?” she returned. “The second grade?”
He grinned and crossed his arms on his chest, but he didn’t reply. He just stood there, liking watching Francesca Concetti and all her hair, wearing a robe, sitting in his father’s old chair, giving him lip.
When he didn’t speak, she did.
“Is there any reason to keep this?” she asked on a flip of her hand to the computer.
“Nope.”
“Do you use it?” she pushed.
“Nope.”
“Not to play Asteroids or Space Invader?” she kept at him.
He grinned at her sass but repeated, “Nope.”
“So why’re you keepin’ it?”
He had no clue, outside of the fact that he never went into that room so it didn’t matter if it was there or not.
“That’s another ‘why,’ Frankie.”
She ignored that and kept pushing, “Do you have another computer?”
“Nope,” he said again and watched her light brown eyes, with their fans of thick, curling lashes, get wide.
“You don’t?”
“Nope,” he said yet again.
“How do you get email?” she asked.
“Don’t have email.”
Her eyes got wider.
He’d thought a lot of things about Francesca in the past, too many of them wrong—back in the day, most of them wrong for different reasons—but none of them were that she was cute.
But she was sitting right there, all kinds of cute.
“You don’t have email?” she pressed, sounding slightly breathy with disbelief in a way that made him wonder what other ways he could make her sound like that.
“Don’t need it.”
“Even for work?”
“I make pizza, Frankie. Why would I need email to make pizza?”
She swiveled the chair to face him, which was not good. It wasn’t bad because he could see her fantastic, long-ass legs. It was just that he liked what he saw, but he couldn’t do shit about it, which he didn’t like.
“I don’t know,” she started, attitude leaking into her words, the good kind, the kind that was about hot and spicy and Frankie. “To take pizza orders?”
“Folks can come in and give their order.”
“They could also email it in or, say, phone it in.”
“Restaurant never had a number that was listed and we’ve done all right.”
She said nothing to that because she knew it to be true. There was a line every night, no exception, and usually the wait was at least an hour long.
As much as he enjoyed standing there, seeing her in his father’s chair, having a good view of her legs and that hair, it was time to shut it down.
And he spoke the words why.
“You good with sittin’ up, cara?” he asked quietly.
“I have to get used to it,” was her not great answer.
“You don’t have to do it today.”
“I’m okay,” she told him.
“Come to bed,” he replied and watched it move over her face. He couldn’t get a lock on what it was, but since he brought her home the day before, he’d seen a number of expressions move over her face he couldn’t get a lock on.
Some of them he sensed were good, like the one she just gave him.
The others he sensed were not good. So not good they were bad.
“Come on, baby,” he urged when she didn’t move.
She seemed to force herself out of whatever thoughts she was having and swiveled to the computer, saying, “I gotta turn this off.”
At that, Benny walked into the room, bent to the outlet, and yanked the computer plug out.
He straightened, looked at her, and said, “Now it’s off. Let’s go.”
Her mouth moved like she was fighting a smile before she pressed her hands into the arms of the chair and carefully folded out.
Ben didn’t like seeing her move like that. She was always a bundle of energy. Electric. Francesca Concetti saw no reason to walk up stairs when she could jog up them or, more frequently, skip. Frankie Concetti went to the gym. She did spin classes, Pilates, Zumba. Frankie Concetti didn’t cook; she cooked, swaying around the kitchen while she did it. Even sitting down or lazing around, she seemed charged. Mostly because you knew when she got up, it wouldn’t just be getting up. It would be bursting.
Not like she just got out of his father’s chair.
Seeing that energy shut down made him want to relive that day in the woods and do it over. In other words, not aim at Daniel Hart’s middle, where he shot Frankie and where Benny shot him. But instead, aim higher, like Cal did, and take the motherfucker’s head clean off.
He stopped thinking this when Frankie started moving. He moved after her, following her to his room. She went to his bed and climbed up on the covers.
He headed to the other side and angled in beside her.
She immediately started, “Ben—”
“Quiet,” he ordered, twisting and leaning across her, to which she pressed herself into the pillows to keep well away, a move that made him grin to himself.
He nabbed the remote, laid back, flicked on the TV, then multitasked, maneuvering through the guide as he shoved an arm under her and maneuvered her closer.
“Ben!” she snapped.
“You rest on your back and fall asleep, you’ll snore and I won’t be able to hear the TV. Tucked up to me, you don’t snore,” he told the TV as explanation to the protest he didn’t let her voice.
“Then I’ll rest on my side not tucked up to you and I won’t snore. But if I did, you wouldn’t hear me anyway because you’ll be downstairs watching TV.”
He ignored that, found there was nothing on they both might like, and hit the buttons to get to Netflix.
“Benny,” she prompted, putting minor pressure on his stomach to push away.
He looked down at her. “Quiet and settle.”
She gave him squinty eyes. “I’ll be quiet and settle when you aren’t in bed with me.”