“No,” she returned immediately. “It was just that she wasn’t around for me to have lunch with, so since there was nothing to get into it with you about, I decided to avoid the hassle. If she’d have been around, I would have told you.”

If he was her, he’d also take that play so he relaxed.

“We’re eventually gonna have to have that conversation,” he noted.

Her eyes again slid to the side as she murmured, “We’re eventually gonna have to have a lot of conversations.”

“What does that mean?” he asked.

Her eyes took their time coming back and he didn’t think she was giving it all to him when she declared, “My birthday is in three weeks.”

“Yeah, and you need to have your ass at my house when it comes.”

Her eyes got big again and she asked, “Really?”

“Meant to tell you, you gotta come up. Not me comin’ down. So do what you gotta do at work to make that happen.”

Her gaze grew alert and her head tipped to the side. “Why?”

“Benny and Frankie livin’ together in relative harmony, it comes to birthdays, Valentine’s day, anniversaries, and Christmas, you don’t ask questions.”

Her body relaxed into his and a smile lit her eyes before she said softly, “I can do that.”

“Benny and Frankie livin’ together in relative harmony, it comes to those days, we’re together. No work. No nothing. No excuses. You gotta travel for work, you plan trips around those days. And for that part, I’ll add Easter, Thanksgiving, and the Fourth of July.”

Her lips curved up as she stated, “I’ve finally stumbled on a time when I don’t mind you bein’ bossy.”

He grinned through his, “Shut up, Frankie.”

She dropped her head to touch her mouth to his and pulled back, declaring on a complete lie, “I’m back to a time when I mind you bein’ bossy.”

He grinned again and asked, “What we gonna watch?’

“You pick,” she offered.

“I pick, you can’t bitch.”

Her brows shot up. “What’s the point of givin’ up my pick if I can’t bitch about yours?’

Ben looked to the ceiling and sighed.

“All right, I won’t bitch,” she gave in and he looked back to her. “You want popcorn?”

“Yeah.”

“You queue up the movie, I’ll make the corn.”

“Deal.”

She smiled down at him, then dropped her head again but went low, touching her lips to his throat. Then she pushed up with her hands in the couch and angled off him.

After watching her ass in her tight skirt moving to the kitchen, he turned his attention to the TV, thinking that that conversation didn’t go too great. She didn’t back down from keeping people who treated her like shit in her life and maneuvered him so he’d let her.

At least he got her to agree to important holidays spent together.

It was something.

And with Frankie, he’d take it.

Then again, with Frankie, he’d take anything.

* * * * *

“I hate this,” Frankie whispered into his chest.

“Yeah, baby,” Benny whispered into the top of her hair.

He felt her draw in a deep breath and let it go. After that, she tipped her head back to look at him.

“You’ll call me when you get home?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, Benny.”

She lifted up in her heels and pressed her mouth to his.

He slanted his head, took it, and took his time doing it. He memorized her taste, the smell of her, the feel of her in his arms. Only when he had it etched deep so it could keep him going for weeks of being away from her did he let her go.

She gave him a squeeze, a smile she didn’t mean, and pulled out of his arms.

She bent and got her computer bag from the sidewalk where she’d dropped it, and Ben stood in front of her house and watched her walk to her Z.

She waved before she got in.

She waved as she reversed out.

And she waved as she drove away.

Ben watched her, doing it the whole time smiling.

And he watched until her car disappeared.

He moved only to walk down the sidewalk to look around her unit, then he stood there, eyes on the straight Indiana street that led to corn country one way and right into the heart of a city the other.

He did this no longer smiling.

And he thought this shit had to end—Frankie leaving him or him leaving Frankie. He was done with it three months ago.

But he knew it couldn’t end. She was good at what she did, she liked her job, and he loved her. He couldn’t f**k that for her.

So he had to be patient and wait for her to get to the time when she felt she could come to him and end this long-distance thing.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

And he didn’t.

Chapter Seventeen

Electric

Ben slammed the door on his truck and moved to the trailer that was removed from the noise and activity of the construction site.

He went up the two steps, pounded the side of his fist on the door twice, and heard a woman call, “Come in!”

He went in and saw a narrow space that was surprisingly tidy. Plans tacked to walls. Filing cabinets. A drafting board. A desk with a computer and phone that was covered in papers with a very pretty, dark-haired woman behind it wearing a dark blue polo with McCandless Construction stitched in white over her heart.

Her head lifted, her attractive face holding an expression that was not unwelcoming, but it was distracted.

Until she caught sight of him.

That was when Catarina Concetti Lugar declared, “We are not doin’ this.”

Not a good start.

Benny ignored that and walked further into the office, deciding to try to get them on track, even as he didn’t hold much hope he’d succeed, and he did this by greeting, “Hey, Cat.”

She did not greet him back. She ordered, “Ben, I’m at work. Just go.”

He shook his head and told her, “Your sister is worried about you. It’s her birthday tomorrow. She’s comin’ up tonight, I’ve been makin’ calls—calls you haven’t returned—so I thought I’d extend the invitation face-to-face. I’d like you and Art to come to the pizzeria for Frankie’s birthday party tomorrow night. More, it would make Frankie happy you were there.”

“I ignored your calls because me and Art aren’t gettin’ anywhere near that pizzeria,” she retorted.

And now it was getting worse.