As he was talking, my eyes got big and I turned to him again. “Tommy Lasco?”

“Yep.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed.

“Yep,” Benny agreed.

Tommy Lasco was a bully in school who turned into an ass**le out of it. He was good-looking, not as good-looking as any of the Bianchis, including Manny. Vinnie and Benny were strikingly handsome in a way that caught your attention and did not let go. Manny was hot and had it going on, but he was not quite that.

But being an ass**le always made a man less attractive.

I turned my head and told the windshield, “I don’t like that for her.”

“She’s happy.”

Again, I looked at him. “You’re sure?”

I saw his shoulders shrug. “They fit. Makes no sense to me, but he loves her. Treats her like gold. He’s a massive dick to everybody else, no exception, but thinks the world of her, their kids. Somehow, she saw her way past the dick he was to the guy he could be with her, and somehow, he found his way not to be a dick to her.”

At least that was something.

I looked back to the road, murmuring, “How did I not hear of this?”

“They live quiet. She likes it like that. He gives it to her.”

Another shocker about Tommy Lasco. He was the kind of ass**le who liked to spread his ass**le-ness around, loud and proud.

“That’s nice,” I remarked.

“Yep,” Benny agreed.

I rubbed my lips together, thinking about it, then I went for it. “Does that make you feel weird? You guys were together for a while.”

“Nope,” Benny replied immediately. “Glad she’s happy. She wasn’t for me. I burned her bad and that sucked. Didn’t like doin’ it to her ’cause she was sweet, but she wasn’t for me. Sayin’ that, she found what she needed in the end and nothin’ to feel about that but happy for her that she got what she needed.”

He did burn her bad. She was devastated when Ben broke it off.

But it was coming clear that shit happened, and when it was done, Benny put it behind him. He did that firm and he moved on, leaving it there and not looking back.

And this was something to consider.

Ben made a turn and we were on the street that led to the alley that held Giuseppe’s.

“Gonna drop you at the door, honey,” he said. “May have to park at a distance and don’t want you walkin’ that.”

And more good from Benny.

“Okay,” I said softly. “But I need a refresh of lip gloss.”

He dug into his jacket and handed me the tube. I flipped down the visor and did my swiping as Ben made the turn into the alley. I flipped the visor up, watched as Ben drove down the alley, and I saw it.

Two scrolled, wrought-iron railings coming up from a short stairwell that led to the bowels of the building. A sign dimly lit by two arched lights over it that said only Giuseppe’s. Planters attached to the brick of the building from street level all the way up and over the recessed door to the restaurant, dripping with flowers and greenery, same with two tall, attractive planters on either side of the railings. Deep-seated benches on each side of the door beyond the planters where people could sit and wait for tables or go out and have a smoke and not stand around loitering. The benches were lit with more of the arched lights, two for each bench.

Total class.

Ben stopped and put the Explorer in neutral. I had my door open, but he was at it before I could get a foot to the running board.

I didn’t ever get a foot to the running board. Hands at my hips, he lifted me out of the SUV and put me on my feet. Without me asking him, he slipped my lip gloss from my fingers and tucked it in his jacket. And after that, even though the steps were four feet away, he led me there, hand in hand.

He stopped me at the top and I looked up at him.

“Be back,” he said, then dipped his head and touched his mouth to my freshly glossed one with no apparent aversion to this fact. I watched him saunter back to his truck with his thumb at his lips, rubbing away my gloss. Something strange but not unwelcome shifted inside me at the casual way he did this. Then I watched him slam the passenger side door he left open, round the hood, angle in, and drive away.

I kept my eyes to the alley for a while before I turned and looked down the steps.

Vinnie had never taken me there.

In the early days, before it got exclusive with Vinnie, I’d had a date with a guy who took me there.

The instant Vinnie found out some guy had taken me there, he pressed for exclusive. He knew what it meant when a guy took a woman to Giuseppe’s.

Why he never took me there himself, I would never know.

But right then, I couldn’t go in. Not alone. Instead, I moved to a bench, sat and waited for Benny.

It didn’t take long for him to show, and when he strolled into the dim light, I saw his eyes narrowed on me.

I gained my feet and he was right there.

“Why didn’t you go in?” he asked.

“Waitin’ for you,” I answered.

He studied me a second before he took my hand and, without a word, led me to the steps.

Then we were in. Music playing so soft you could barely hear it. A faint hum of conversation that made you think every patron was whispering. Muted noises of silverware clinking on china or crystal tinkling against glass. Candlelight on the tables and in some sconces on the walls. A fresh, extraordinary, but understated bouquet of roses at the hostess station.

Love in the air.

Its silken feel glided down my throat as Ben stopped us at the hostess station and Elena appeared before us. She wore a trim, black sheath dress that skimmed her knees and a pair of delicate, black slingbacks with peekaboo toes, her hair pulled back in a soft updo.

“Frankie and Benny,” she said quietly, her lips curved up in a slight smile, her hands held out low to her sides.

Elena was ten years older than me, maybe a bit more. I knew her not because I’d eaten at her restaurant only once, but because she went to the same church as my family, she lived in the ’hood so I saw her around, and, even having her own eatery, she’d come to Vinnie’s Pizzeria more than once (because everyone in the ’hood had been to Vinnie’s more than once).

She was like her restaurant, like her father was before her and, if rumor served, her grandfather was before him. Pure elegance.

She came to me first. Grabbing my hands, she leaned in and touched one cheek to mine, then she moved to touch the other one before she kept hold of my hands and shifted away to catch my eyes.

“You’re well?” she asked.