Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full (11 page)

But even with all of that old, hidden stuff between father and son, Jimmy couldn’t do it.  His hand just stood there, lifted and ready to attack, trembling with anger.  But he couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t hit his own father.

Reno remembered the time when he had to take his own father down too.  It was twenty-one years ago.  It was in defense of Jimmy’s biological mother, whom Reno’s father had tried to rape.  But Reno couldn’t do it either.  He couldn’t beat his own father down.

Jimmy was staring at Reno.  Tears were dropping freely from his big eyes as he stared at his father.  And he was frozen there, straddling him.  This was the man he still loved above any other human being alive.  And he couldn’t do it.

He stood up, went to his girlfriend, and threw his arms around her.

Reno, still lying there with his arms folded across his forehead, closed his eyes.  Trina didn’t run to him, because she knew he wouldn’t want that.  He’d get up when he was good and ready to get up.  Because she knew her husband.  She knew he was already in far more pain than any beat down could ever put him in. 

She knew Reno.

EIGHT

Jimmy groaned as she fucked him.  She was naked and on top, he was naked and lying flat on his back, and he’d never been on a ride like this.  Several times he thought he was going to ejaculate prematurely, because of the intensity of the ride, but he didn’t.  He held on.  Her small, firm breasts were bouncing in his face as she rode him, and every time he reached up to suck those breasts, they bounced up some more.  He was awkward as hell.  But that didn’t stop him from enjoying the ride.

And even more remarkable to Jimmy, he was enjoying
her
.  This desirable dark-skinned woman was his dream image of what beauty looked like.  And she was older and sophisticated and was so great in bed that he felt as if he’d never had sex before, until he had it with her.  He felt as if she was turning him out.  And man, Jimmy though as she fucked him, she was turning him big time.  He’d never felt more turned in his entire life.  And to be so beautiful too.  He stared at her dark skin.  He stared into her creamy-chocolate eyes.  And she was blowing his mind.  There was no other word for it.  Melita Murphy was blowing his mind.

He took the part of her hair that had matted against her now sweat-filled face, and smoothed it back and out of her face.  She smiled adoringly at him when he did what he thought was such a small thing.  And he speculated wildly.  Did she smile because she wasn’t accustomed to affection?  Had she, like Jimmy, been used and abused by the opposite sex?   Did men only want to fuck her without really noticing her?  They noticed what she did for them.  But did they notice her, Jimmy wondered.  Because he did. More than he would have ever thought possible.   He noticed
her
. 

So much so that he wanted her to know it.  He placed his arms around her and pulled her body down on top of his.  “Now,” he whispered to her as he kissed her on the side of her face, “let me take it from here.”

Melita smiled that slaying smile of hers as Jimmy began to fuck her.  Only he took it far slower than she was taking it.  This wasn’t business for him.  This was pleasure.  His condom-covered cock was big and thick and was easing in and out of her as if her cunt was delicate to the touch.  And when Melita, lying on his chest and hugging him too, began to moan, he inwardly sighed relief.  He was pleasing her, which pleased him mightily. 

He was still getting to know this woman he had in his arms.  But he was determined, despite the fact that his father would roundly disapprove, to keep her.  She was a keeper.  He had a fantastic need to love this woman forever.

Because maybe, he thought as he fucked her, she was what he needed.  Maybe this sophisticated lady, an older, experienced,
no-more-points-to-prove
serious woman like this, was exactly what he had needed all along. 

His father was wrong.  He wasn’t in over his head.  Over the moon.  But not his head.

Trina woke up, later that night, alone in bed.  Reno had gone to bed before she had, without bothering to discuss the altercation he’d had with Jimmy earlier, and she gave him his space.  But now he wasn’t even in bed himself.

She moved to get up but realized her pajama pants were down below her knees and her pajama top was completely off.  Although she had no recollection of what they had done, she could tell between her legs that they had done something.  She pulled up her pants, got out of bed, and put on her pajama top that had been tossed onto a chair.  It was probably one of Reno’s stress fucks, Trina concluded, where he’d rest his penis inside of her, and without much effort at all, they’d eventually cum. 

She made her way out into the corridor of their penthouse apartment, around the corner, and opened the door of Dommi’s bedroom.  As she had suspected, Reno was there, sitting in the rocker they both used to rock Dommi to sleep.  He was sitting there staring at their sleeping son, as their son slept peacefully in his bed.  Reno had such a pensive look on his face that Trina wondered if he even realized she had come into the room. 

She stood there, in her pjs, watching him watch their son, and then made her way up to his side.  She knelt in front of the rocker and stared at her contemplative husband.  Reno looked at her.  And then he exhaled.

“You’re awake,” he said.

“Barely,” she said.  Then she added:  “Wanna talk about it?”

He didn’t immediately respond.  She sat down at his feet, Indian-style, as if she was willing to wait as long as he needed her to wait.  He was dressed in a bathrobe and slippers, and his legs were crossed in such a way that it partially revealed his penis.  He looked like a man with too much on his mind, making him appear almost unmindful. 

But eventually he talked.  “I know Melita,” he said.

Trina stared at him.  She  hadn’t expected him to say that.  “You know her?”

“Yes.”

“You know her how?”

Reno smiled a weak, joyless smile, like a man confronting too many ghosts.

“How, Reno?” Trina asked again.

Reno frowned.  “We used to . . . date,” he said as he moved around in his seat.

Trina stared at him.  Her heart was hammering.  “You dated her?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. 

“Are you saying, are you telling me that you and Mel, that you slept with her before?”

Reno exhaled.  “That’s what I’m saying, yes.”

But Trina still couldn’t believe it.  “Melita Murphy used to be your girlfriend?”

“Yes.  Now she’s our son’s girlfriend, yes, Tree, that’s what I’m saying.”

Trina frowned.  “Oh,
Reno
,” she said in an anguished, disappointed voice. 
Who didn’t you fuck
, she wanted to add in anger.  But she didn’t.  There was one question she had to know the answer to.

“When did you have sex with her?” she asked him.  “Has it been since you’ve been with me?”

Reno frowned.  “No!” he said emphatically.  “Darling, no,” he added as he took her by the arm and pulled her up and onto his lap.  “You know better than that!”

“But. . .” She still couldn’t conceive of it.  “How did you meet her?  Was it a one-night stand or. . .?”

“It wasn’t a one-night stand.  Off and on, we dated for a couple of years.”

Trina’s heart pounded.  She looked at him.  “A couple of
years
?”

Reno nodded. “Yes,” he said.  He hated that it was true, but it was true.

“Was she in love with you?”

Reno’s eyes showed wariness.  “That was my impression, yes.”

“Were you in love with her?”

There was a definite hesitation this time.  “Yes,” he said.  “I loved her.”

Trina knew she wasn’t the only woman Reno had ever loved, but it still hurt to hear it.  “So what happened?  You got tired and dumped her too?”

“No,” he said.  “She dumped me.”

Trina couldn’t help but be surprised.  For some reason she couldn’t imagine any woman dumping Reno.  “She dumped you?” she asked.

  “She met this guy, a wise guy.  He was a made man with one of the west coast mafia families.  A pretty boy Floyd.  Girls fawned over him.  So she ditched me and grabbed him.”

Trina was staring at him.  “She broke your heart?” she asked.

Reno hated the sound of that phrase.  It made him feel so weak, and so vulnerable.  But it was the truth.  “You can say that, yes,” he admitted. 

Trina felt as if she was suddenly in turmoil.  She leaned against him.  She already knew he was a man with skeletons in his closet even before she agreed to marry him.  But she never would have dreamed there would be so many!  “Was Melita the only girl who ever dumped you?”

“She was the first and last,” Reno admitted.  He wasn’t bragging.  That was the truth too.

Trina stared at him.  “Now she’s with your son.  She dumped you, but now she wants your son.  That has to hurt on some level, Reno.”

“She can’t hurt me.  Believe that.  What I had with her died years ago.  I just don’t want her hurting Jimmy.”

“Poor Jim,” Trina said.  “He seemed so in love tonight.”

“When I realize she was the girlfriend he wanted us to meet, when I saw her face tonight, I thought I was going to die where I stood.  What the fuck was she playing at, I wanted to ask her.  But for Jimmy’s sake I held my tongue.  For his sake.”

Trina rubbed the lapel of Reno’s robe.  “I guess it’s true,” she said.

He looked at her.  “What’s true?”

“I didn’t marry a virgin,” she said.

Reno couldn’t help but smile, despite the pain.  “That’s the understatement of the century,” he said.  “I definitely have a history.”

“I only wish you didn’t have a history with that particular woman,” Trina said.  “For Jimmy’s sake.”

Reno nodded.  “Yeah,” he said.  “Me too.”

“And what about that witch?” Trina asked.  “How could she sleep with Jimmy when she knew she’d been with you?”

“That’s the million dollar question.  What is she up to?  What’s the deal with her?  That’s what I’ve got to find out.”

“So you don’t think her being with Jimmy is a coincidence?”

“Hell nall,” Reno said.  “There’s nothing coincidental about it.  I’ll bet the PaLargio on that.”

“But you said you were with her years ago.  Are you sure she even remembers you?”

“No offense, Tree, but I fucked her.  Of course she remembers me.  She was pretending she didn’t know shit about me, but she remembers.  She was putting on a show.”

“She put it on all right.  She put on an Academy Award performance.  She didn’t show any sign whatsoever.  I was watching her.  She didn’t give anything away.”

“Yeah,” Reno said.  “She always was a cold fish.”

“Yeah, well,” Trina said, with a twinge of anger in her voice, “she heated up at some point or you wouldn’t have been with her.”

Reno didn’t respond to that.  He deserved it.

“And Jimmy,” Trina said with feeling.  “That poor kid!  You don’t think he knows, do you?  Is that what that fight was about?”

Reno nodded his head. “No,” he said.  “He doesn’t know.  I told him he was in over his head fooling with her, and he decided I said it because I wanted her for myself.  That’s what the fight was about.”

Trina paused.  She hated that Jimmy thought his father was that obsessed with beautiful women.  “Are you going to tell him?” she asked.

Reno pulled Trina closer against him.  “Not yet, no,” he said.  “I don’t know enough yet.”

“But that’s not fair to him, Reno.  He has a right to know.  This could change everything for him.”

“He’ll know.  I’ll tell him.  But he’s not ready to hear it yet. I need to have a better idea what’s going on.  You saw how he behaved tonight.  He’s defensive as hell about that woman.  He won’t hear a word I have to say.  He’ll declare I made the whole thing up and she’ll probably call me a liar too.  That’s how that bitch is.”

“She wasn’t a bitch when you were fucking her, Reno, so don’t even go there.”

Reno looked at Trina.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re bitter, that’s what it means.  And I don’t like bitterness.  It’s self-defeating.  I’m not about to sit up here and listen to you rag on a woman you once professed to love, even though she dumped you.  Because knowing your history the way I know it, Reno, you probably deserved to be dumped.”

Reno couldn’t believe how blunt and unwavering his wife could be sometimes.  But that was why he respected her.  She never fed into the bullshit.  Not even his.

Then Trina stood up.

“Tree,” Reno said, trying to pull her back.

“No,” she said firmly, pulling away.  “I’m a little angry with you right now, so just back off.”

“I wasn’t with her after I met you!”

“I know that!  And I know I have no legitimate right to be angry.  But it is what it is.  I’m upset with you.  I’ll get over it.  Give me a few hours, I’ll be over it.  Jimmy may not, which is the tragedy here, but I will.”

Reno wished to God he could relive his past.  He wished to God he could have met Trina Hathaway years before he did, before the wreckage of his past was so widespread.  But she was right.  It is what it is.

“But it’s no coincidence Melita hooked up with our son,” Trina continued.  “I agree with you there.  Not that coincidences don’t happen.  They do.  They happen all the time.  But not in your life, Reno.  So yeah,” Trina said, nodding her head, “you need to check out that bitch.  You need to find out what she’s up to.”

Reno nodded too.  Even in her anger, he thought, she knew how to keep her wits about her.  “I will, babe,” he said.  “Don’t you worry about that.  I will.”

Trina looked over at her child to make sure he was still resting comfortably, and then she began to leave the room.

“Where are you going?” Reno asked her.

She didn’t stop walking.  “To feel sorry for myself,” she said honestly, and left the room.