I tilted my head to the side and asked back, “You hungry?”

“Made me do all the work, cara,” he remarked, and I felt my eyes begin to go squinty.

“It was only ten minutes ago, Ben, so the memory is fresh that you didn’t let me do any of the work.”

“You didn’t fight that too hard.”

He was right.

Still, I glared at him.

He grinned at me, put a hand to my waist, and slid it back and up my spine at the same time forcing me closer to him.

“Like your bed,” he murmured when he got me where he wanted me.

“That’s too bad. You continue being a jerk, you’ll be sleeping on the couch.”

His eyes lit with humor at a threat he knew was empty. He ignored that threat and went on, “Your place is the shit.”

“I know.”

“Missed you, Frankie,” he whispered, and at his words, I dropped forward, forehead landing on his collarbone.

“Missed you too, honey,” I said there.

He wrapped his arm tight around my back and asked, “Now, you gonna feed me?”

I lifted up again and looked at him. “Of course I am, but, pointing out, I didn’t buy ready-made barbeque. I put dinner in the crockpot before I went to work this morning and it’s been cooking all day.”

“Good news, but are you gonna keep bragging about it, or am I gonna actually get the chance to eat it?”

I ignored him this time and shared, “Out of season, but chocolate-filled snowballs for dessert.”

His body froze under mine, his eyes flared, and he stared at me.

Oh no. Was that too soon? A mistake? Was that reminder going to make him pissed at me?

I had my answer in under a second, that answer meaning my beer bottle met his on my nightstand, I was on my back in my bed, Ben on top of me, and he was kissing me.

When he was done, he looked into my eyes and said, “I get dessert first.”

I smiled.

* * * * *

“The next one’s gonna be a boy.”

This was proclaimed over dinner at Vi and Cal’s table the next evening, and it was proclaimed by Cal after Vi shared they were having a girl and they were naming her after Cal’s sadly departed mom, Angela.

“I haven’t even given you this one yet,” Vi snapped.

I pressed my lips together in order to hold my tongue, a tongue that wanted to advise Cal that teasing his seven-months-pregnant fiancée was probably not the way to go.

Cal totally ignored her and stated, “It’s not, then the next one after that will be.”

Vi’s eyes got huge.

“I want all sisters,” Keira declared unwisely at this juncture. “My friend Heather has two brothers and their rooms smell. Like…crazy.”

“Joe needs a boy so he’s not totally outnumbered,” Kate chimed in.

“He’s got me,” Keira told her sister.

“You aren’t a boy,” Kate pointed out.

“So?” Keira returned, and not letting her sister get another word in, she carried on, “With this one bein’ a girl, that means Mom will have to pop out, like…three more for Joe not to be outnumbered.”

“Works for me,” Cal muttered before shoving seafood risotto in his mouth.

“Joe!” Vi practically yelled.

Cal looked to his woman and swallowed before saying, “Well, it does.”

“Can we please end this discussion of Violet, otherwise known as the one-woman baby-making factory?”

Cal gave her a look that eloquently said that baby making required two, which fortunately the girls missed since they were giggling at what their mother had said.

But it was then I felt something coming from my side. I looked there to see Ben leaned back, arms resting casually on the arms of his chair, his eyes on his cousin, his face holding another expression I wished I had a camera to capture for eternity.

He was happy for Cal. Openly. He was happy that after the nightmare Cal had lived that forced him to live half a life, it ended with this: a beautiful, kind woman, pregnant with his child, opposite him at the end of the table; two gorgeous girls, who acted like Cal hadn’t been sitting there for eight months but he’d been doing it for eight years, and they liked it; a lovely home; a fabulous meal on the table.

Happiness.

Goodness.

Everywhere.

I reached out a hand and curled it around Ben’s thigh and he aimed that look at me.

I leaned toward him and he read my lean. This meant he met me halfway and touched his mouth to mine.

When we pulled away and turned back to our plates, Keira, who’d obviously witnessed the PDA, asked Cal, “It’s been months. Can I make my move on Jasper Layne now?”

Cal leveled his eyes on his girl and said, “No.”

“Joe!” she cried.

“No,” he repeated.

“He’s only had one girlfriend the last three months,” Keira informed Cal, sharing plainly how into this Jasper Layne she was and, thus, how closely she paid attention.

“Yeah? He still with her?” Cal asked.

“Um…no,” Keira muttered.

“And how long was he with her?” Cal pushed.

“About a week,” Kate put in, and Keira cut her eyes at Kate, giving her the look any little sister gave her big sister for ratting her out.

“Then, no,” Joe said firmly.

Keira slumped in her seat.

“Keira?” I called, and her eyes came to me. “Good things come to those who wait.”

After I said that, Ben slid an arm along the back of my chair. Keira watched this, eyes darting between Ben, me, and his arm on the back of my chair. The devastation lifted and she smiled. Then she resumed eating.

It was then that I caught a glimpse of Cal looking at Benny with much the same look as Ben had been giving him earlier. Not as open, not as out there, but the contentment in his eyes was easy to read.

This meant what he read in Ben was that Benny was happy.

And the reason he was was because of me.

When I saw that, I felt a warmth spreading, starting from my belly.

I looked back down at my plate of the phenomenal risotto that Vi made, which Cal had told us would be the “best shit we ever tasted.”

He was wrong. Benny’s pies were better.

Still, it was amazing.

So I resumed eating.

* * * * *

“This sucks,” I whispered late afternoon the next day.

“Yep,” Ben whispered back.

“My turn next,” I reminded him.

“Yep,” Ben agreed.

“I’ll get on that immediately.”