The Promise (The 'Burg #5)(141)
Now she was back, hands behind her, hiding the presents from view.
She hopped on the bed, walked on her knees to him, and flopped down to a hip before one arm came out and she slapped a mostly square, thin, large wrapped package on his chest.
“That one’s the goofy one,” she declared. “You get the good stuff second.”
He’d already had the good stuff.
She knew that so he didn’t tell her. He just opened the present and he did it with her talking.
“The first one may be goofy, but it was way harder to find. I had to order it off the Internet since they don’t sell them this time of year. I also had to find one you’d like, but they kinda don’t make those things for guys. Or, not guys like you. Still, it isn’t about tits and ass or muscle cars, which would be something I wouldn’t want to look at, but it isn’t too girlie, which is something you would toss in the trash, so I think I did all right.”
The paper off, he turned it in his hands and saw a calendar for that year, its theme: photos of Lake Michigan.
There was no cellophane on it. It had been opened.
Ben held it in his hands, stared at it, and stopped breathing.
“See? Totally goofy,” she stated, not sensing the change his mood was making in the room, just reaching out to pull the calendar from his hand and babbling. “Yours is, like, ten years old. Crazy. So it’s kind of a joke but kind of not.” She started flipping through and found what she wanted, showing him a month that had her writing in the little squares and flipping to the next, which had more of her writing. “See, I wrote all the birthdays in: Man, Sela, Vinnie Senior, Theresa, Carm, Ken, and the kids. I put Vi and Cal and all the girls in there, and Manny and Sela’s wedding date.”
Benny’s eyes looked at the calendar and his heart started jackhammering.
“And here,” she said, flipping back. “I put all my travel schedule in that I have set, all the times and flight numbers and hotel stuff and everything. You can write in the stuff that comes up.”
She stopped yapping, finally looked at him, and when she did, she went visibly still.
They stared at each other a couple of beats before she said hesitantly, totally not reading him, “The other present is a lot better, Benny.”
“Only one thing I want in my life,” he declared.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
“All my life, didn’t have big hopes and dreams. Only one thing I wanted.”
“I…” She swallowed, kept her eyes locked to him, and asked, “What was that, honey?”
“A life that meant I’d have a calendar on my kitchen wall filled in with birthdays and anniversaries and parties and practices and special occasions. All the shit that makes a good life scribbled in the blocks printed on glossy paper hangin’ on a wall.”
Her eyes grew bright and her breath grew shallow.
“You gonna give that to me?” he asked.
“Yes, Benny,” she responded instantly.
Instantly.
Yeah.
She was going to give that to him.
And he was going to give it to her.
The…best…f*cking…birthday…ever.
“No lip, no shit, come here right now, Frankie,” he ordered.
She tossed the calendar aside to land on the bed and she came to him immediately.
And Ben crushed her in his arms, rolled her to her back, and found reason again to get rid of her nightie.
In the end, she slept beside him in a hot pink one with black lace.
Her second present was an expensive, handsome watch that had an inscription on the back that said, For Benny, Love Frankie.
It was f**king kick-ass.
But it wasn’t better than the calendar.
Not by a long shot.
Chapter Twenty
Swingin’ in the Breeze
“You okay?”
I looked from the computer screen, on which I was obsessively watching the time change in the bottom right corner, to Tandy standing in the doorway of my office.
The answer to her question was, no, I was not okay.
It was Monday after spending the weekend with Benny for the sake of spending the weekend with Benny, as well as being there for the family celebration that consisted of him blowing out birthday candles on a pizza pie that he made and everyone on staff getting to suck back quick sips of Chianti while they worked. Ben opened presents in between making pies and getting out orders. Theresa, Vinnie, Manny, and Sela all were around, mostly being loud, giving Ben shit, and getting in the way.
I hung with Ben the entire night in the kitchen, my ass taking up counter space since I sat on one with a wineglass in my hand, and alternately gabbed with my man, gave him my own shit, and communed with what he called his “kids.” I took this time to get to know them, something I liked a whole lot since they were good kids and fun to be around.
In fact, Ben ran a fun kitchen. It was work, definitely—hot work with the ovens going and the stoves on, people rushing around, always busy.
But I’d been in those kitchens when Vinnie ran them, and although he wasn’t an ass**le, he was a taskmaster.
It was strange knowing a father’s way and then seeing his son’s.
They both took what they did seriously. They both communicated that. But Ben was far more laid-back about it and the kids responded to it.
Watching him work, firm in woman-in-love mode, I fell more in love, my already immense pride at being Benny’s woman growing, watching him run his kitchen. His kids liked him. He organized chaos without any apparent effort. He wasn’t about shouting and bossing. He was about quiet words and direction. And every pie or dish put on the warming shelf to be taken out looked mouth-watering because I knew it was.