And into the top of my hair, he murmured, “See, back to minute by minute. Easy.”

Easy.

Right.

God, Benny.

“We’re startin’ out and I got a new job in Indy I cannot leave, a lease on an apartment that pins me there for at least a year anyway, and you’ve got all this.” I threw a hand out to indicate the kitchen, even though I didn’t move my forehead from his chest. “Which means you can never leave.”

“That’s not the next minute, Frankie,” he reminded me.

I jerked my head back so his was forced to snap his up and his hands were forced to move, and they did, coming to rest just under my jaw.

“We have to think about it, Benny,” I declared, my voice rising.

“Why?”

“Why?” I repeated but didn’t allow him to respond. “Because it’s out there, waiting to strike, and we should plan for when it does.”

“Why?” he asked again, and I felt my eyes get squinty.

“Because, just like this, even though we knew it was coming, it came and now we have to deal and we should plan on how we’re gonna deal.”

“Here’s the drama,” he muttered, lips moving like he was battling a grin.

Wrong thing to say.

And grinning?

Uh…no.

So no, the wax and wane of my freak out waxed. I snapped and shouted, “Benny!”

That was when his face changed, his eyes changed, the bearing of his body changed, everything changed, and I pulled in a breath and held it as he stated, “Honest to Christ, Frankie, you think I’d wait since high school to get my shot at makin’ you mine and then I’d let a four-hour drive and a f**kin’ year lease beat me?”

My breath came out in a whoosh, but this time it was Benny who didn’t let me answer.

“No. I won’t. Puttin’ this out there, Frankie, in the end, Connie was practically livin’ with me. That’s how I burned her. She thought she was in there. But I woke up to her knowin’ I’d come home to a house she cleaned, dinner in the oven, her breakin’ her back to make everything easy on me when that’s my job.”

This particular piece of beauty made me suck in a hissed breath.

But he didn’t quit talking.

“Was a time I didn’t think on shit like that. Back then, what I thought was, for some reason, she didn’t make me happy. Simple. She just didn’t make me happy so I ended it. But the time I didn’t think on shit leaked into the dirt of a forest three weeks ago, Frankie. So I thought on it, and havin’ you in my house, in my bed the last week, it was about me seein’ to your Z. Me makin’ sure you got the Wi-Fi to do your shit on your computer. Me listenin’ to you bitch when you come back from a walk with old lady Zambino. Doin’ it with a gleam in your eye, tellin’ me you’re bitchin’, but you loved every minute she walked with you and busted your chops. So it boils down to this: I don’t want easy, Frankie. I had my shot at that. I wanna work at gettin’ the sweet, enjoyin’ my time with the spicy along the way, ’cause the sweet’s a f**kuva lot sweeter when you gotta earn it.”

“Ben,” I whispered, but didn’t get out another word because he wasn’t done.

“Babe, you cannot plan life. You can pull out all the stops to plan for everything and life will find a way to f**k with those plans, sock you in the gut, send you scrambling. Through that, you either have the balls not to back down and the strength to know what’s important and hold the f**k on with everything you got, or you don’t have that and you give up ’cause you’re weak. Know two things for certain: I’m not f**kin’ weak and you aren’t either.”

He stopped talking and I said nothing because I had no freaking clue what to say.

So he kept going.

“Countin’ it down, we’ve had one date, haven’t f**ked you yet, and we been livin’ with each other for nine days. That time good for you?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Yeah, it’s been good for me too. Good enough I know it’s important, and I already knew it was important, so I’m gonna hold the f**k on with everything I got and I’m takin’ you with me, Frankie.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“So yeah, it’s gonna suck,” he stated. “I’d rather live a life knowin’ you were bringin’ your girls into my restaurant to throw back some Chianti and eat one of my pies. I’d rather the immediate future came with you gettin’ to know Sela better because Man may be takin’ his time, but he’s gonna put a ring on her finger. You’re already family, which means you’re in a spot where you two can become sisters like no other women can be, and your two sisters are seriously f**kin’ lacking so you could use a good one. I wanna get into bed beside you at night and know I’m wakin’ up to you in the morning. But right now, I can’t get what I want. I just know what I want. I’ve waited for years. I’m not doin’ fuckin’ cartwheels knowin’ I gotta wait more, but I’ll deal. I just gotta know, are you with me?”

I knew what to say to that.

“Yes, I’m with you, Benny.”

He stared at me.

Then he said, “Fuck, gotta stir the sauce.”

For some reason, this made me want to giggle, but I beat it back and just nodded.

He bent and gave me a quick, slightly annoyed but still sweet kiss on the forehead, took his hands from me, and went to the pots that were more aptly described as vats on the stove.

He stirred.

I approached, stopping just short of the stove to rest my hip against the stainless steel counter.

“I’m a pain in the ass,” I told him, and his eyes cut immediately to me.

“That’d be the part where you aren’t easy.”

God.

God.

Benny.

I took in a breath and released it, and with it, I released a lot of garbage. Something I was not really good at doing on my own. Garbage I’d lived with because I’d never had anyone to help me deal, which meant I buried a lot of garbage and lived with it for a long freaking time, polluting me. And something that Benny seemed remarkably skilled at guiding me into getting clean.

Releasing that, I released everything and was back in the minute with Benny.

Being there, I muttered, “Sauce smells good.”

“That’s ’cause it’s not good, it’s f**kin’ amazing.”

I didn’t beat back the giggle at that. I let it loose, and when I did, even more garbage got released, making me feel it.