“Ma give you that recipe?”

“Yep.”

That wasn’t a surprise, it was a shock. Theresa Bianchi was like her husband (and then some) when it came to her cooking. Her secret family recipes were hers. She made them for the restaurant, but she didn’t share how to make them with anyone, even family.

So he muttered, “Holy f**k.”

“I know,” she turned back to the counter. “She gave it right up, no begging, no bribery, no markers owed. Freaked me out.”

Benny liked what this said.

Years ago, Connie had asked for that same recipe and his ma hadn’t given it up. It disappointed Connie not to be able to give him what he liked on his birthday, direct from her, not getting it from his ma. But Connie was the kind of woman who didn’t put up a fight. She hid her disappointment and never asked again.

Frankie asked for it, Ma handed it right over.

“She loves you,” Ben noted quietly.

He watched her profile smile. “Yeah.”

“She loves you for me.”

Her smile stayed in place, but her face again got soft. “Yeah.”

He dipped his head, used his chin to move her mass of hair away from her neck, and kissed her there.

Lifting his mouth to her ear, he said, “You makin’ chocolate maraschino cherry cake, I’ll want it to be good so I’ll play with you after it’s done.”

She turned her head and caught his eyes, saying, “Deal.”

He bent in, touched his mouth to hers, and copped a feel as he let her go.

“Got the groceries put away?” he asked, scanning the floor for Gus, not finding him, thus moving to the door to look down the hall. And there he was, dragging one of Ben’s running shoes by the string across the foyer.

“Yeah, you just relax. Today I do all the work.”

That wasn’t strictly true, but she was only letting him do the work he liked to do.

He moved down the hall and saved his shoe from Gus by tossing it on the dining room table which, again, was covered in shit, but more of it since he piled everything that had to be out of Gus’s way there, and everything that needed to be out of Gus’s way was everything.

He carried the dog under his arm to the kitchen, held him while he warmed Frankie’s coffee, warmed his own, and then sat with their puppy at the kitchen table.

Gus didn’t need a shoe if Gus had Ben’s chest, neck, jaw, and hands, so Benny leaned back, stretched out, and gave them to him.

“This weekend, I’m tackling the dining room.”

This announcement was made by Frankie, and Ben’s eyes went from the dog on his chest to his woman.

“Come again?’

“No, the office. I think I should start there because half the shit in the dining room will end up there anyway,” she went on.

“Uh…come again?” Benny repeated.

She looked over her shoulder at him, stirring the batter in the bowl. “We’ll have to go get some hanging files, maybe a small filing cabinet or some shelves to put expanding files. Your pick, but it has to be something other than different piles all over every surface and the floor.”

“What are you talkin’ about, Frankie?”

She turned to the prepared tin and started pouring in batter.

“You have a big house and use only four rooms because the rest of them are junk rooms. And half the crap I’ve seen in them are just that, junk. So I’m startin’ with the office, movin’ to the dining room, then the den, and the junk drawers in here.” She stopped pouring and threw out a hand to indicate the kitchen. She started pouring again and kept talking. “When you were at work last time when I was home, I ventured into your basement. I took one look and escaped before anything attacked me. That has to be seen to too. There might be squatters down there.”

Ben grinned and caught Gus trying to take a flying leap off his chest to the floor, then bent and put him on the floor, saying, “I don’t have squatters down there.”

She put the bowl on the counter and asked, “When’s the last time someone’s been down there? 1977?”

He wasn’t going to tell her but that could well be. He looked at it when he viewed the house, and the place was packed to the rafters, but he couldn’t say he’d been down there since, even to check to see if the shit was removed before he moved in. Mostly because he didn’t need that space so he didn’t bother.

“That’s your project,” Frankie continued. “Clean that up. The Little League stuff can go down there opening up a bedroom for a guestroom.”

“Don’t need a guestroom.”

“Uh…yeah you do,” she informed him. “Vi and Cal and the girls might be up and want to stay. Which means you should probably have a futon or something in the office.”

“I’m not makin’ a guestroom on the off chance Vi and Cal come up and need a place to crash. Mostly ’cause Ma would lose her mind if they crashed here and not with her.”

She’d been putting the tin in the oven. When he was done talking, she closed the door, turned to him, and put her hands on her hips.

“What about when Enzo comes to town? Or my brother, Dino, and his family?”

These words made Ben go still and stare at her.

“We need a guestroom,” she declared.

Fucking shit.

She said we.

She looked to the floor, saw Gus was dragging the rug in front of the sink to an alternate location he preferred, and walked to him, bending, picking him up, and cuddling him close as she used her bare toes to move the rug back, and she did this all while talking.

“So I’ll tackle the office first. And you need a computer with Internet, Benny. You may wish to be choosy about how you communicate in this modern age, embracing only your cell phone, but you’re missing out on easily accessible game times, movie times, up-to-date weather, my flight statuses, so we’ll have to get on that.” She leveled her eyes on him and didn’t shut up. “I’m not saying you get a computer and immediately start your Facebook profile. I figure, if you tried to type in your profile information on Facebook, your fingers will catch fire. I’m just sayin’, in this day and age, a house isn’t a home without a computer.”

A house isn’t a home.

Jesus.

Jesus.

Frankie kept bossing.

“You do the basement. But while I’m sorting stuff, I’ll need you around to ask questions if I find something I don’t know if I should toss or keep.”