“Too bad. I know this is bullshit.”
She got close. She didn’t touch him but she got close enough he could smell her perfume and her hair.
“You know it isn’t,” she whispered. “Vinnie Senior, Theresa, Manny. They were blind but you know. Cal knows. Carm knows. You know. Cal, Carm, they won’t say it but they know it. You got them away from Vinnie, from Theresa, you asked, they’d tell it to you straight. But you… you just won’t admit it.”
“Babe, I got shit to do,” he reminded her.
She stared at him and then shook her head. “I don’t know why I…” she stopped speaking and reached for the doorknob, “don’t bother tellin’ me about Cal. I’ll get it from Sal.”
The tone of her voice gone hard, dead, Benny didn’t like. It didn’t suit her. These days she was all about attitude but it wasn’t hard. Back in the day, she laughed a lot. Even if someone told a joke that wasn’t funny, she’d laugh and it’d sound real even though she was only doing it to make them feel good. And she was all energy. She seemed electric even sitting curled up to Vinnie and watching TV.
He hadn’t seen that in years, hadn’t heard her laughter, but he’d never heard her voice sound hard and dead.
He put his hand to her arm. “Frankie –”
She yanked her arm free and pulled open the door.
“Be well, Ben,” she said in that same voice and she did it without looking at him. Then she moved down his back stoop.
For some fucking reason he followed her, grabbed her arm and swung her around. When her head tipped back to look at him, he had no goddamned clue what to say.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ll call about Cal.”
“Like I said, don’t bother.”
“I’ll call.”
“Ben, you don’t wanna talk to me, fine. I get it, it’s cool, been livin’ with that for years. I’ll get the news from Sal or one of the boys.”
His hand tightened on her arm and he brought her closer to his body, close enough to smell that perfume again and in a moment of lunatic honesty he had to admit he liked it.
“I’ll fucking call.”
She went still for a moment that seemed to stretch for a long time and she stared up at him and all he could see were her eyes, her hair and all he could smell was her perfume and his hand automatically tightened further on her arm.
When it did, she whispered, “Suit yourself.”
She yanked her arm from his hand and he watched her walk two paces then for some reason she started running. He stood still as he listened to his back gate open and close and he stayed still as he heard her start her car and drive away.
The current situation hit him, his body jolted, he cleared his mind of Frankie, turned and jogged into the house.
*
I felt Joe’s hand on the small of my back and his hip pressed to mine in bed.
“Buddy, girls need to get to school,” he said into my ear.
He was sitting on my side of the bed. I was lying on my stomach in it. He’d been up for awhile. I had not.
“Mm,” I replied and didn’t open my eyes because my eyelids weighed three tons.
“They’ve had breakfast and they’re ready to go,” Joe went on.
I continued to ignore him and made no reply.
Joe sounded like he was trying not to laugh when he finished. “Don’t you want to say good-bye?”
“Go away,” I mumbled into my pillow.
“Baby –”
“Away,” I partially repeated myself.
I heard Joe’s laughter and if I had it in me I’d glare at him. Lucky for him, I didn’t have it in me.
His lips were back at my ear. “Best part about last night was you comin’ home.”
At this point, if I had it in me, I would have rolled my eyes.
“And then you makin’ me come,” he continued, his voice lower. “That is, after you made me watch you makin’ yourself come.”
“Leave me alone,” I muttered not wanting to remember even as good as it was. I’d been out-of-control. No inhibitions, none. It had been wild and considering our sex life, that was practically unbelievable. Even Joe had been surprised, I could tell. He didn’t complain nor did he resist, but he’d been surprised.
“Gotta get you drunk more often, buddy,” Joe decided.
“Alone,” I begged.
“Every night,” Joe kept at me.
I forced my eyes open, shifted only my eyeballs to him and declared, “No more drink. No more sex. Ever.”
He burst out laughing which shook the bed and made me hold onto the pillow tighter and close my eyes against my stomach roiling.
“Colt’s bachelor party tonight means I’ll be home drunk,” he told me and I groaned. It was Feb’s bachelorette party last night that set the scene for my drunken sex attack on my boyfriend. When he spoke again, his mouth was again at my ear. “So you better rest up, honey.”
I wasn’t hungover enough not to get a little thrill at what Joe might dream up drunk. I liked what he could do sober and I liked what he let me do when I was drunk. Joe drunk was probably going to be awesome.