#basilonefic

She likes that DeMarco sounds thoughtful and amused at the same time. “Which of those is worse?”

“The second one? I don’t like big dogs, sir,” she admits. Might as well name that mountain and make it his problem too. “The little ones are fine because you can keep ‘em at a distance with your foot or something. Big dogs tend to ignore that.”

“If it helps,” he says, stuffing his hands into his pockets, “that one over there tripped over his own paws this morning and blamed me for that.” DeMarco sounds positively outraged about it even now, as though this is the worst thing that happened to him all day. “Ever heard a dog sound like he’s accusing you of murder? I was ready to call a lawyer for help or somethin’ before Buck told him off about yowling at four in the morning.”

“Did your dog listen?”

“Don’t know anybody who doesn’t listen when Buck gets that tone about him.” DeMarco shrugs with his whole body. Sighs a little, glancing over at his dog before focusing his attention back on her. “You’re Alden, right?”

“Yessir.”

She offers him a small nod, pleased that he’s remembered as much this soon. It took some of their training officers five weeks to learn there is a difference between Alden and Alma, after all, even though Gigi thought the difference would have been obvious in the first place.

DeMarco doesn’t seem like the type to just forget that sort of thing, either. Not now that he lights up a smoke and sinks down on the box beside her own. He gets comfortable in the way she’s already seen him do once in interrogation today: leaning forward, exhaling smoke the way a dragon would. Even his hands aren’t quiet now, because he tosses his lighter from one hand to the other and back again.

“You’re all right, Alden,” he says, glancing at her so briefly she almost thinks she imagined it. “Calm. Smart. Good instinct. Heck of a flight engineer.”

Gigi blinks. Tries not to grow ten sizes from the casual compliments. “Thank you, sir?”

“It’s one big soup up there, yeah?” he laughs, smoke unfurling from the corners of his upturned mouth. “Felt like I was back in my nonna’s kitchen, aged seven-and-a-half – the half is important, Alden, my family lives on those exact measure types – and being told to dump the little pasta noodles in the pot faster, Bernardo, faster while cousin Dia stressed me out with her stirring.”

She isn’t quite sure what to say to that. His family sounds busier than her own, from the way he gestures and mimics the words he heard back then. She’s been bossy like that with her siblings – maybe DeMarco is younger back home, like she is younger here on base – but she’s not about to share her life’s story like that. Most people here don’t care about where you’re from, after all.

DeMarco seems to have no qualms continuing the conversation by himself. “It’s different up there, yeah?” he asks, eyes flicking up to the sky a moment before his attention turns back to his lighter. “Good thing we practiced. We know Our Baby.” His mouth quirks into a little laugh. “Or, well, I know her. And you know other planes.”

“Used to fly the Harlot, sir,” she answers, then, because this feels like the kind of conversation she can be a part of. “She’s almost the same, except Our Baby’s turret gun doesn’t jam in a way that needs you to punch its side before you get started. I like that better.” The gun in the Harlot is someone else’s problem now, though she’s asked Nora to warn their new flight engineer about it. “But I asked George to take a look at the radio when we got back, because Birdie made it go all beep beep beep in a way I know she didn’t mean.”

“Damn near made me cuss about the beeping,” he agrees with a nod. Doesn’t argue back that she should’ve left that up to him as a pilot. Doesn’t tell her that he will talk to the ground crew for her. Just accepts that this is what she did, without so much as an admonishment. “She always do that? Run the gig like she’s got her own evenin’ talk show on the radio?”

Gigi can’t help but laugh at the accuracy. “Sure, that’s just Birdie,” she assures him. “Think I remember her telling some instructor once that it helps people to hear something familiar coming through the radio, like they are just listening to it back home. Val sort of does the same thing, except with far more cussin’ if things go wrong.”

“Val…?”

“Hodges, sir. Blonde, looks like a doll,” she offers, thinking DeMarco’s gonna know who she means by that. Val’s got those precious long-lashed blue eyes and that perfect doll face to go with it, after all. “Runs radio in the Harlot now.”

“Right. And Birdie is DeLuca?”

“Yessir,” she nods. “She’s from Philly.”

DeMarco’s mouth quirks as he lights another cigarette. “I got that much. Asked her if she was from Chicago like me and she looked at me like she was going to eat me for breakfast. She calmed down plenty when I said I was born in Philly. My folks moved when I was two, so I don’t remember it, but it still counts?”

She likes how he made that sound like a question. “Counts enough for Birdie, I guess?” she replies, knowing Birdie will have softened tremendously about someone being born in her neck of the woods. “You’re from the same place Frosty’s from. I mean Lombardi”– she has to clarify, has to remember that not everyone knows their nicknames –“she’s from Chicago, too.”

He harrumphs around another cloud of smoke. “You girls and your nicknames…”

“Better than Buck and Bucky,” she comments instantly, thinking he might agree with her on that. Birdie had laughed herself sick about Major Egan’s introduction, muffling her giggles in the collar of her coat the way Max usually does too. “And you called your dog Meatball, sir, so that’s…”

“Pot calling the kettle black, huh?”

She likes DeMarco. Likes that he says hi and hello to the girls every morning just the same way he greets the guys. Likes that he doesn’t force Frosty to talk to him, even though Gigi still thinks it’s silly that she hasn’t said more than two words to any of the men. Likes that he sits and talks to her now, even though she’s not a captain or a major and really not that important.

“If you say so, sir,” she hums, now, giggling a little at the look on his face. He can take a joke, DeMarco can, even though he shakes his head and makes a tsk-ing sound under his breath about it. She can’t help but make things worse. “As long as you don’t name your future kid Macaroni or something like that…”

DeMarco’s gaze instantly fixates on the plane. “She’d kill me.”

Gigi buries her nose in her collar to hide her smile once she follows his gaze. It’s an open secret that DeMarco keeps acting like he’s struck by lightning every time he sees Darlene, whether it’s just a glimpse of her red curls or her full-body presence in front of him. Val keeps swearing she’s overheard DeMarco tell Major Cleven that he’s going to marry her, but Gigi thinks Max had a point retaliating that he’d have to actually talk to Darlene first for that to happen.

He doesn’t seem anywhere close to talking to her now, even though Darlene’s stopped gesturing at the plane’s hatch and is now suffering Meatball’s happy yowling around her ankles. Even though Darlene smiles real big when she glances up and sees them sitting there. Even though Gigi waves at her and instantly gets a wave back.

“Maybe you ought to go and save her from your dog, sir,” suggests Gigi, watching Meatball lick Darlene’s hands. She tries not to recoil at the sight of that. Resolves that this dog is not gonna lick her hands any time soon, no matter how friendly DeMarco has been to her so far. “Go say hi to her or something.”

DeMarco squashes his cigarette under his shoe. “I’m gonna,” he says, not showing any other sign of movement whatsoever.

“Gigi, sweetie”– calls Darlene, now, having finally grabbed Meatball by the scruff of his neck–“George is askin’ to see ya! Says she’s almost got the radio goin’, but you gotta come take a look at summat else.”

“Well, that’s me put to work,” laughs Gigi, hopping off her crate instantly. “Better listen to the ground crew when they need you and call you sweetie for it, right, sir?”

DeMarco makes a noise in the back of his throat about it that could mean anything from don’t be stupid to you’re right about everything, Gigi. “Sure thing, Alden,” he says, even when he doesn’t look at her but rather past her at Darlene. “Make sure our plane gets fixed properly, yeah?”

“Aye, sir,” she laughs, secretly glad that his dismissal means that he sees her as part of his crew. Glances at Darlene long enough to see the woman’s bright, gap-toothed smile now being aimed fully at DeMarco. Chances a little verbal nudge at the man about that. “You make sure you actually say hi to Darlene this time, okay?”

DeMarco sounds as dazed about the prospect as Val said he’d sounded about his marriage plans. “Uh-huh.”

Gigi grins as she bounces toward Our Baby, trying her hardest to not glance back at Darlene and DeMarco in a too obvious way. At least she gets to dodge Meatball, who seems far more interested in guiding Darlene toward his owner than in making Gigi’s life miserable. She can’t help but sneak a look at them over her shoulder, though, now that Darlene says “hi Ben” in a softer voice than she’s ever heard Darlene use before and DeMarco stumbles over a “hi Darlene” in a way that makes her name sound like darlin’.

She muffles her excitement in her collar when she sees Darlene sink down on the crate Gigi was seated on before. Their hands are almost touching over Meatball’s head, and DeMarco’s smile is the first real one she’s seen from him since they got into the soup up there.

He comes to a halt at the edge of a clearing in the woods. His heart seizes up, claws its way toward his throat, wedges itself in the part of his brain that pleads in silent no no no with the sight before him. His hand finds his weapon seconds after. He raises it, more in warning than in any form of retaliation, and hisses out the ache that settles in the burns on his skin.

“Get away from him.”

He knows Manny is dead. There’s a pallor to his skin that’s never been there before – not on Manny, whose tanned skin survives even the toughest winters – and the man is eerily silent. Manny’s loud in the way all his friends are. He’s never quiet for long. He’s not the type to play a prank this fucking cruel, either, not when life is already so uncertain and so many things come to an end.

Manny’s dead. The woman kneeling beside him certainly is not.

“I said,” he repeats, voice stronger and louder now, “get away from him.”

She raises her head and tilts it slowly. Dark, near-black eyes meet his gaze. A smile curves around her bloodied mouth a moment. It creases the dirt and white scars upon her skin fleetingly, so swiftly that he thinks he has imagined it. The set of her mouth hardens into something akin to cruelty the longer he looks at her. Her eyes burn. Her eyes don’t release him.

He gasps out a breath. Coughs as his lungs constrict in warning. His weapon shakes as his hand begins to tremble.

“Don’t make me,” he rasps out between one breath and the next, desperate for air as much as he is for this fight, “put a bullet between your eyes.”

Her laughter rings out in the clearing. He hears the rustle of feathers overhead, though the rest of the forest seems to go utterly silent at the sound of her voice. There’s something of honey and molasses in the sound of her amusement, thick and syrupy in a way that clings to skin and throat, but there’s something darker in the lower notes that makes him shudder.

“Brave, aren’t you?”

He takes a step back at that. There’s too much approval in her voice. Too much warmth, heat, fire in her gaze. He almost thinks to turn away altogether, but Manny’s still at her feet as she rises to face him. Manny’s body lies on the ground between them. He will not leave his friend to a god so cruel. To one so capricious, which this one seems to be.

Her laughter dies abruptly. There’s a chill in the air.

“If you’re going to shoot me, caro,” she says, caressing the Italian pet name in a way that makes him shiver, “you’d better be quick about it. Do you think yourself faster than me?”

The shadows in the forest blur. Her form blurs a moment, too, and the dark wraps around her as the golden light fades from the trees. He snarls out what could be a warning – would be a warning, again, because he was raised to not raise a hand against a woman like that at all – and then finds his back against the tree and her body pressed up against his.

He lowers his weapon. Drops it to the floor. Thinks he sees disappointment in her eyes, those dark cruel hard searing burning eyes, and almost laughs a challenge into her ear to tell her you didn’t get to me just yet.

“Are all gods like you? So quick to show off?”

“Some.”

She smiles a hunter’s smile. Gazes at him as though he’s a mouse she’s going to catch and release half a dozen times before she eats him. He bares his teeth at the thought. He will not comply. He will not be taken, not like this, not by any god and least of all by her, and he doesn’t need a weapon to get that point across.

His hand wraps around her throat. Squeezes. Squeezes tighter than he would if she were human, if she were anything but the destructive god who caused the world to bend to her whims and wants. His nails dig into her skin hard enough to draw blood.

“I’m not faster,” he breathes, “but I’ll rip you apart if you pull that trick on me again.”

“You’ll try.” Her laugh, though rasping, is too delighted by far. Her voice drops into a purr even when his grip turns firmer still. “I like that about you, John.”

“Soup’s fine.” He can smell the broth from here. His stomach coils with the memory of being fed this while sick, never while healthy. “After I get this to work.”

“That looks a long way from working.”

Gale snorts a little to himself at her judgmental tone. “You wanna do it, Charlotte?” he asks, glancing up to find her wobbling from foot to foot underneath the bare lightbulb they put in this corner of the room. A shadow flits across her face – brief, gone with the next blink – at his mention of her name. “Pull up a seat, go on.”

“I can’t do all that,” she says, but she drops into the vacant chair beside him all the same. Slouches against its back in clear defiance of all the etiquette lessons he’s heard she took. “I don’t even know what you’re building here.” She, unlike him, actually sips at her own mess tin before setting it down on the desk. “Eat your soup and explain it to me.”

“Eat your soup and explain it to me please.”

“Please,” grins Charlotte, unapologetic.

Gale huffs at that grin before he can good and well help it. Fannie and Pearl used to grin at him like that – all mischief, all jokes – back when he did chores for Miss Audrey. “Twist my arm,” he says to her now, just like he said it to them back then. “You’re gonna help me with this shortwave radio.”

Charlotte blinks. “It’s a what now?”

“A shortwave radio, Charlotte, keep up,” he says, hiding his grin behind his own tin of soup. “Ain’t like your fancy radios, huh? This is about as simple as it gets.” He inhales a little of the soup, barely bothering to chew it, before nodding at her. “You just need a few lil things for it.”

“And you know how to make one?”

“Sure do. And you’re gonna know it, too.”

“I’m–”

“You brought me soup,” he says, making a little face at it when he sets it down.

“Yes, because–”

“You sat down just now,” he reminds her, eyeing how she moves from slouch to a ramrod straight back in the blink of an eye.

“Yes, but–”

“You might as well stay, Lottie.” Gale shrugs. Turns his attention back to the radio. He’s yet to figure out how to get the coil to sit just right. “Extra pair o’ hands don’t hurt.”

Blonde waves curl over his arm as she leans in close. “You called me Lottie,” she says, somehow managing to smell like warm soup and vanilla all at once. “Just now.”

“I knew a girl called Jacqueline, once,” he says, pointing to where she needs to put her hand. “She always flinched when somebody called her that. Like it didn’t fit her right.” He nods in approval when her hand – more slender than his own, dexterous in the way that matters – lands on the side of the coil. “We all called her Jackie after a while. Fit her like a glove.”

“And you think Lottie is my glove, huh?”

He sees her hand relax around the coil’s side. Hears her dance of wonder around that name – the lilt in her voice, the near sing-song of laughter. Sees, out of the corner of his eye, that her laughter sparks bright in the little dimple on her cheek.

“Suits you more than Charlotte,” he says, nudging the next part of the radio into place. “Charlotte doesn’t know shortwave radios. Lottie’s gonna know all about ‘em.”

“Oh I will, will I?”

Gale huffs in amusement at her raised eyebrow. “Yeah, Lot, if you pay attention.”

“I’m payin’ it!”

“Uh-huh. Don’t look at me, look at the board.”

“Look at the board that’s abracadabra to me…”

Sally puffs an exhale and swipes her unruly fringe off her forehead as she takes stock of her stand. Lunch rush has come and gone, insofar as one can call it a rush when it’s just fifteen people and three screaming kids, and the time of afternoon snacks isn’t quite reality yet. If she hurries just a little more than she is right now, she could finish that chapter on how to set broken bones and get a head’s start on next week’s studying.

She could do all of that, even though Miss Audrey’s currently gliding over to her stand with all the air of the faux French aristocracy in her countenance. She’s guiding a young boy not older than ten or eleven by the shoulder. Leaning on the kid, actually, as though she’s quite concerned he’s going to bolt sooner rather than later.

“Good afternoon, Miss Audrey!”

“Sally, ma chérie,” booms the woman, heavily-lidded eyes sparkling with good humor, “you are like an angel’s appearance to me!”

Sally can’t help but laugh at such nonsense. Miss Audrey’s always complimentary like that, often making a whole lot of hubbub about something. She works with hats and hair and harlots, darling – Miss Audrey’s words, not Sally’s – and is to the Wyoming racetrack as the President is to the White House.

“You flatter me,” she says, smiling as the woman draws close to her stand. “How’re the girls? And business?”

“One and the same, one and the same,” waves Miss Audrey, rolling her eyes for good measure. “They ought to be ashamed of themselves for putting us up in that tent right there. I told Mister Barbieri that I can’t cut hair like that, and oh Sally what that awful man told me next cannot be repeated in polite company...”

“They’re expecting some gusts of wind to roll in on Wednesday. You’ll be out of your tent by next weekend, then,” winks Sally, knowing everyone on the track would help foil Mister Barbieri’s best-laid plans any day of the week even though he owns the place. One tent won’t be a match for that kind of determination. “You got any clients coming in today, Miss Audrey?”

“Sure do. Next week’s gonna be a big hubbub, but can’t complain about today neither. I told the little mister here that we’re always happy to see him, but he shouldn’t stick around too long this time.”

Sally gives the kid a quick once-over. “Good of you,” she says, taking in the boy’s small shuffle and his apparent refusal to so much as look at her. “He ain’t one of yours, I know that much”– it’s just Miss Audrey’s Lola who’s got a kid, and that one’s as dark as this one’s fair –“so who’s the kid, anyway?”

“I’m not a kid!” says the boy, before Miss Audrey can even open her mouth to answer for him. His rather fierce glare flashes up at her from beneath his tousled blond hair. “My name is Gale”– there’s demand in the emphasis, a don’t you dare call me otherwise lurking in his tone –“and I’m nine!”

Sally only just manages to hide the largest portion of her smile. “Nice to meet ya, Mister Gale,” she says, resting her chin on her hand as she makes a show of studying him. Collar on a too-neat shirt tugged a little askew, trousers that have been patched up at least twice, some scrapes on his knuckles, and a pair of battered-looking shoes. “My name’s Sally,” she offers, “and I’m nineteen.”

The kid – Gale – nods at her with the tiniest incline of his head. He didn’t object to being called mister, which should not feel like a won battle as much as it does right now. It’s kid he’s got problems with, then, and Sally can hardly blame him for that.

“Gale hasn’t yet had lunch. Or breakfast.” Miss Audrey manages to make it sound like an everyday sort of thing to be told at three in the afternoon, even though her mouth does that funny little disapproving thing that Sally’s never quite been able to mimic. “We had no idea about that until Candy heard that belly rumble, lemme tell ya that!”

Hides hunger, thinks Sally, already busying her hands with a warm bun and a knife. Miss Audrey lets him sit with her girls. A quiet kid, then, if even hard-shelled Candy manages to look out for him. She’s seen the like of him before, usually lurking in a group of rowdier kids, eyes roving everywhere but mouth refusing to show weakness.

“What d’ya want on your hot dogs, Gale?” she asks, making a show of adding one very hot sausage to the bun. “I’m getting two for you and one for me. Mine’s gonna have a whole lot of mustard and some red onions. And you look like the kinda man who knows exactly what to put on his.”

She’s not sure if it’s her wink or the promise of food that’s got him stepping out of Miss Audrey’s shadow. “D’you have ketchup, Miss Sally?” he wonders, blue eyes going wide as she nods in reply. “A-And… uh… I want cheese on one of them.”

“So that’s one ketchup dog and one ketchup-and-cheese dog?” she checks, showing him exactly what she’s doing to make his food. “Yeah?” She laughs as his nod turns rather vigorous. “All right, Mister Gale, I’m gonna add the ketchup now and I’m gonna need you to tell me stop, okay?”

“Okay!”

“I’ll leave you both to it, Sal,” says Miss Audrey, patting a few crisp dollars into Sally’s apron’s pocket that Sally already knows better than to protest against. Her multi-ringed hand ruffles Gale’s hair as his first stop! rings out. “Enjoy your late lunch, and be good to Miss Sally.”

“Yes ma’am,” nods Gale, fingers already carefully rearranging his hair and smoothing its back while he leans over to see the ketchup progress on the second hot dog. “Stop! More cheese than ketchup, please,” he directs, sounding very sure of himself indeed. “They’re better with cheese.”

“D’you want cheese on both? You can, you know, it’s no trouble. Look,” she says, slightly overdoing it on the mustard for hers, “you can get as much as you want on these. Not a lot o’ people have been wanting cheese today, so you’re extra lucky!”

“Only if it’s no trouble…”

“None,” she smiles, putting more cheese than ketchup on both of his. “Now, c’mere, grab yourself a plate,” she directs, “and – oh, thank you!” She blinks in surprise as he holds another plate out to her. “That’s gonna make these onions a little easier to eat. They would’ve spilled all over my apron like yesterday otherwise!”

His you’re welcome, miss is rather soft-voiced. Almost shy, really, in comparison to some of the more loudly demanding nine-year-olds she’s seen out and about at the track. He’s got that look about him of someone who’s going to grow tall – all limbs and careful posture – even though he just sat down and made himself small as can be.

Sally brushes her apron and skirt down. Settles on the grass just outside her hot dog stand, next to her small pile of books and notes. Folds herself around her plate the same way Gale does – arm around it to shield it from view, hunched over the food just to be sure nobody takes it – and tucks into her own food with no small degree of relish.

“Oh, that’s the ticket,” she sighs, having only had a single coffee and an orange early this morning before she was almost late for her bus. She smiles as she peers up at the kid, who’s practically wolfing his food down. “You like ’em, Gale?”

His nod is accompanied by him licking his fingers clean and wiping them on his trousers. Sally finds she’s learning fast the longer she studies him. He’s somebody’s kid all right, because his clothes got patched up and he’s got manners some of the orphan kids don’t. Nobody objects to him spending time with Miss Audrey’s girls, even though Miss Audrey’s girls are scantily clad loudmouths who rake in more cash in two hours than Sally does in a week’s work.

“Does your daddy know how to find you?” she asks, deducing several things just from watching him polish his plate clean. “Is he expectin’ you at Miss Audrey’s?”

There it is. The small freeze. That little line to his shoulders that goes rigid and defensive all at once. “I know where to find him,” says Gale, biting the words out like the very syllables have their hackles raised at her. “It’s not time yet.”

“All right,” she agrees, setting her plate aside and leaning back a little. “You tell me when it’s time now. There’s a big clock out on th–”

“The pavilion.” His hands are a flurry of motion, dragging a chewed-on pencil and rather battered little notepad out of his shirt pocket. He doesn’t look at her. Flips the notepad open and sets his pencil to paper instead. “I been here before, you know.”

Sally almost winces at his tone. “All right, Buckaroo,” she sighs, propping her own book up on her knees, perfectly aware that she’s conceding defeat to a rather headstrong nine-year-old. She smiles as she catches his tiny grimace at the nickname. Gotcha, kid. “I’m here almost every day in summer. So are the hot dogs.”

She’s not surprised when he stays silent. Kids like him often do when something starts to sound too much like an invitation or expectation. It’s what she would’ve done, too, back in the time her mother was dreaming about winning big money instead of buying something to put on the dinner table.

Nine-year-old Sally would’ve killed for a hot dog.

“And your homework.”

Sally blinks away her furious stare at the differences between fibula and tibia. “Sorry,” she says, attempting to smile, “what was that?”

Gale’s half-moon smile flickers up at her. “Your homework, Miss. That’s here too.”

“So’s yours, by the look of that,” she nods, indicating his notes.

“It’s just some stuff.”

“Some stuff, huh? Me, I’m learning about bones.” Sally raises her book to show him, seeing how his arm has already come up to curl around his notepad to shield it from view. “See? I need to learn how to help fix them when they’re broken. So I need to learn what they look like when they’re normal, first.”

Gale peers at the pages more closely than she’d have imagined him to do. “That’s Latin.”

“A little! The bone names are like that,” she agrees, nodding, “and I think it makes them sound as important as they are. D’you know Latin?”

He shrugs. “Only if it’s got to do with calculating things. Like ad infinitum means that the operation is to be carried out endlessly.” His nose wrinkles a little at his explanation. “Infinity’s still really tricky, though, so I’m trying to work on limits rather than infinitesmals right now. I think infinity’s one of those things I’ll know once I’m as old as you.”

“Yeah?” Sally grins at him over the top of her book. “Are you going to be a scientist, then, Buckaroo?”

“No, I’m going to be a pilot! And they have to do loads of math!” He doesn’t grimace at the nickname this time. Scoots closer until he’s seated beside her, even, just so he can show her a sliver of his notepad that’s filled up with numbers and crude little graphs. “I’m practicin’ heaps of it.”

“Getting a good start!”

Gale nods vigorously. “I’m gonna be the bestest pilot ever, Miss Sally.”

“Yes, you are,” she agrees as his knee knocks against hers. “I’m gonna be a good nurse, too. It’s all in the work.”

“You’re gonna be the bestest.”

“Not if I don’t know the difference between a fibula and a tibia,” she snorts, tapping the page. “Just like you won’t be a pilot unless you know fancy things like trajectories and calculus. But we’re gonna learn all of that just fine out here.”

“Billy said it’d be fine!”

“DeBlasio’s built like a goddamn spruce himself, Ben, ya can’t rely on the fella for size,” argues Darlene, and he can just imagine the bounce of her curls that usually accompanies her headshake. “Lot laughed herself sick over the phone when I called to invite her but told her she couldn’t use her usual spot on the couch because one o’ the branches decided to invade it…”

“I can move the couch. Put Bambino’s things under the tree.” Benny grunts as the red garlands shift atop the boxes and brush against his chin. “We’ll put my chair there so I can watch him and scoop him up when he tries to pull on Meatball’s tail again.”

“After all the yowlin’ the dog did about that, I don’t think Bambino’s ever gonna try that again.” Darlene’s snort of laughter is loud as she directs him toward the dinner table they’ve put in the front room for the moment. “That was some scared little wail I heard from him when the yowlin’ continued right in his face. Meatball sure knows how to file a complaint”– and of course she’s grinning when Benny sets all the boxes down, of course her whole face is alight with mirth that makes Benny’s stomach do a huge butterfly swoop –“and correct the baby before we got a chance to.”

“He’s raisin’ him,” laughs Benny, kissing her cheek now that his hands are free to pull her close, “and Cannoli’s ruinin’ him.” He nods at the short-legged husky blend that’s somehow gotten hold of a stray sock since Darlene nudged him aside. He barks out another laugh as Cannoli decides to chew down on it. “I’d like a new sock for Christmas.”

“Just one sock, Ben?”

“Well, maybe a pair,” he grins, squeezing her hips as he plants another kiss on her cheek. “What can I get you for Christmas, darlin’ Darlene?”

“Nothin’.” Soft lips find his cheek, then the corner of his mouth. “Got all I need right here, baby. Got the good dog, the bad dog, the baby, another baby on the way”– her hand pats the soft swell of her belly and he can feel her smiling into the next kiss she plants on him –“an’ I got my fella home for Christmas. I feel like the queen or somethin’, that’s how rich I am!”

Benny shakes his head. “I’m still getting you something.”

“Lot said the same,” she says, clearly dismissing it. “Y’all just don’t know how to listen to a girl when she tells ya she’s got more than she ever wanted…” Her gaze softens as Benny lets his hand land on her belly. She hums into the touch, leaning against him and wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him closer. “Maybe a new dress, then. The other ones you got me for when I was pregnant with Bambino are all for spring, an’ this time it’s still gonna be cold when I get bigger…”

“I’ll get you one in every color,” he promises, drowning her half-hearted protest out by planting new kisses on her smiling mouth. “Somethin’ with buttons,” he continues, trailing kisses over her freckled cheeks, “that’s gonna be easy for me to take off.”

“For you, huh?” she laughs, slipping her hand into his hair as his next kiss lands just below her ear. “Whose present was that again? I thought ya just wanted a new pair o’ socks, hm?” Her giggle winds around them like the best music Benny’s ever heard. “Now my fella’s tellin’ me what he wants for Christmas when we ain’t even finished our tree yet…”

Benny groans. “Darlene…”

“Tree first,” she says, kissing his cheek before spinning out of his grasp. “Otherwise we ain’t ever finishin’ it before Stella brings Bambino home, an’ that was the whole point o’ getting him outta the house in the first place…”

His gaze rakes over all the boxes, the garlands, and the small wooden carvings Buck gave them last year. “I’m going to break the decorating record,” he decides. “Fastest tree decoration you’ve ever seen, Darlene, I swear!”

“Why you rushin’, baby?” she teases, swaying entirely out of his reach as she beckons Cannoli with his sock over to her feet. “We got time, don’t we?”

“And I’d like to spend all of it kissing you,” grumbles Benny as he reaches for the first garland. “Could always call Stella and ask her to keep Bambino longer…”

“We can kiss while decoratin’.”

Benny arches a brow. “Oh really,” he says, “and how d’you expect me to do that when I need to be on my knees for half of those?”

“I thought you was creative?” she snickers before tutting at Cannoli’s barked protest over the loss of his sock. “No, Ben, damn it, don’t you start with the garlands”– and she’s pretending she hasn’t just smiled at him like that, like he’s still going to be able to focus when all he wants to hold in his hands is her –“we gotta get the rest o’ the decor in first… Honestly, it’s a good thing you got me. What on earth would this tree look like without me here to make it look good, huh?”

“As if I’d get one without you here,” he argues, sneaking another kiss onto her cheek before opening the first box of decorations. “You’re the reason I got a tree this big.”

“I did not tell ya to get a tree that needed three people carryin’ it into our livin’ room, Ben.”

“You didn’t not tell me,” he grins, undeterred by Darlene’s sigh. “Worth the smile on your face every time, darlin’ Darlene.”

“You’re so…”

“Charming, dashing, wonderful,” he starts, “handsome, clever, funny…”

“Uh-huh,” says his wife, raising a brow at him. “Bothersome Benny.”

“Stop making me sound like a children’s book.”

“I’ll read it to Bambino,” she threatens, as always. “The Adventures of Bothersome Benny And The Tallest Tree. Once upon a Christmas, Bothersome Benny woke up and thought to himself gee, I gotta get me the tallest tree my wife has ever seen…”