He was protective. He was honest. He had control. I mean, seriously, what went down with Nat? It was a miracle he kept hold of his shit through that. I’d been in my own tizzy, but I’d watched him and I knew what it took for him to do that. It took a lot. He still kept his shit.

And my usual fight of being loud and full of attitude didn’t work either because Ben thought it was “cute.”

I was screwed.

And I knew just how screwed I was when I found the exact dress I was going to wear to dinner with Benny tomorrow night. And then I found and grabbed the shoes.

A dangerous dress.

Straight-up treacherous shoes.

I still grabbed them, carefully folded the dress, and put it and the shoebox in my wheelie overnight bag.

I also grabbed other shit that did not say, “Back off, Benny Bianchi,” but said, “Do you mind if I have a drawer in your bathroom?”

God, I was on such rocky ground, it was like experiencing an earthquake.

I just couldn’t find it in me to fight my way to solid ground.

Making matters worse, I grabbed a dress for that day that was out of necessity, since I really didn’t have anything that wasn’t about flash and impact and I had no choice.

But that didn’t mean it wasn’t one of my choices that had more impact than most. It was just more subtle.

I was totally insane and totally going to hell.

Knowing this didn’t mean I didn’t move to my bathroom to change.

Asheeka had been over that morning and Asheeka had done the whole shower thing.

This was, of course, after Ben woke me, got me to the bathroom, was sweet, gentle, and gave me a lip touch.

The good news about this was that finally I’d woken up with less pain. It was there, but it wasn’t as bad.

I always woke up a little hazy, even before I’d been shot, and I kept the haze for a while. But today, it was better, more like my normal hazy. I knew it and I knew it made Benny feel relief, not only because he showed it with grins and lip touches, but he’d told me flat-out.

Asheeka took off to get to church and Benny put me in his SUV.

But he didn’t take me directly to my place. He took me directly to Glazed and Infused where he bought two dozen donuts.

This was not just for Cal, Vi, and the girls.

This was because Ben knew I loved donuts. My sweet tooth knew no time restrictions so it reared its ugly head in the mornings (and the rest of the day).

He was fighting the good fight and he was so much better at it.

He also bought two coffees and opened the box the minute we got back into his SUV.

I wasn’t proud of it, and I was trying to forget I did it (even though it happened less than half an hour ago), but I ate three of those donuts on the way to my apartment.

What was done was done.

Now I was doing worse.

It was September but still warm, so I’d grabbed an oversized, royal-blue tee tunic dress with three-quarter sleeves and a short skirt that fit tight. The top was blousy and fell off my shoulder, the waist cinched in so the tunic top could flow slightly over the skintight skirt. It was the kind of dress that made a girl feel good wearing it because she knew a man might get hard seeing her in it.

I was no longer on dangerous ground.

I was playing with fire.

The problem with this was that I liked Vi, I loved Cal, and I was looking forward to seeing them both when I wasn’t running for my life or bleeding (near) to death. I was also looking forward to meeting Vi’s daughters, seeing the family Cal found himself after years of drifting through life when shit went down in his that was too painful to even think about, and that shit didn’t even happen to me.

And I was Francesca Concetti. So I wasn’t going to do it in jeans or yoga pants.

This was the least sexy thing I had that wasn’t one of my business outfits (and those had short, tight skirts too).

There was nothing for it.

Even with the mental war I’d waged over the dress, I didn’t consider not strapping on the stiletto-heeled bronze sandals.

This was because, unless I was working out, I didn’t do flats. Ever. Not with jeans (of which I only owned two pairs and wore them rarely). Not with shorts (all of which were the dressy kind; my brand of casual was also about flash and impact). Certainly not with a dress.

I might have been shot, but a lot worse would have to happen to me before I’d consider giving up my heels.

Strangely, straightening from the bed after putting on my shoes, with my hair big, makeup on, in a dress that looked hot but was comfortable, and my usual heels, I felt better than I had in weeks.

Finally, I felt me.

I closed my suitcase, put its wheels to the carpet, and rolled it out, walking down the hall with more pep in my step than I’d had in ages, calling, “Okay, done with that. And I saw we’re running out of Fanta Grape, so on the way home, we should stop by…”

I trailed off and stopped dead when I hit the living room/dining room area and saw Ben in the corner of the living room, standing by a set of shelves that I had not yet packed.

He turned to me and then he stopped dead, but I didn’t really notice it because I saw what was in his hand: a heavy, expensive, beautiful glass frame that I knew contained an eight-by-ten photo of me with the Bianchis at Christmastime years before.

We were all in front of the tree. Carm was home with her husband and kids so we were all scrunched together to fit in the frame. Manny, Theresa, and Carm’s husband, Ken, were even kneeling in order to fit us all in.

Everyone was smiling so big, it wasn’t hard to read every one of us was laughing.

And we were.

The thing about that picture was, Vinnie Junior had claimed Carm’s little toddler girl and was holding her in his arms, her little girl leg tucked to his chest, her little girl hand to his throat, his arms tucking her safe and tight to his tall body.

This left me free.

And I remembered that Christmas. I remembered taking that photo. I remembered that it seemed entirely natural that Benny and I would find each other, and we did. I could not say if I was the one to make the move, or he was, it was that natural. We just gravitated to each other.

So in that photo, everyone scrunched together, I had my front tucked to the side of Benny’s front, my arms tight around his middle, head on his shoulder. He had one arm around my waist, the other arm tight around my shoulders, and you could even see his fingers at my top, squeezing in.

If anyone looked at that picture who didn’t know, they would easily think I was Benny’s, not Vinnie’s. Carm and Vinnie Senior were between us. I was nowhere near Vinnie.