Read Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full Online

Authors: Mallory Monroe

Tags: #Mystery, #United States, #multicultural, #Thriller & Suspense, #romance, #crime fiction, #African American, #Literature & Fiction

Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full (9 page)

BOOK: Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full
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Fran laughed.  “Yeah, but that brother of mine isn’t too old to be somebody’s grandpa.  He’ll probably love it too.”

“Don’t even go there,” Trina said with a smile.  “You think Reno’s bad with Dommi?  Imagine how he’ll be if he has a grandchild.  Geez.  Perish the thought!”

“He’ll be overly protective in the extreme,” Fran agreed.  “And that rumor mill will start churning and declare up and down that it’s not his grandbaby at all.  That rumor mill will insist he got some skank pregnant and is palming off the child as Jimmy’s.”

Trina laughed.  “I hear you.”

But then Fran thought about what she’d just said, and looked at Trina.  “That doesn’t bother you, Tree?” she asked her.

Trina glanced at her through the dressing table mirror.  “What you just said?”

“Yeah.  Because I hate to say it,” Fran added, “but they’re out there talking.”

Trina started to apply her lipstick and then stopped and dropped the stick.  “Yeah, it bothers me,” she admitted.  “I wouldn’t be human if it didn’t bother me.  But I have to believe better.  I know it’s just busybody people running their mouths without having a clue about what’s really going on.”

“I love Reno,” Fran said.  “He’s my big brother, you know I love him.  But how can you be so sure that it’s all just gossip? Your mother called me the other day asking if I’d seen you, and we started talking about all of the rumors---”

Trina turned around, facing Fran.  “Are you kidding, Fran?  You told my mother about those rumors?”

“No, of course not!  We were talking about men in general and how distrustful they can be sometimes.  And she said something I’ll never forget.  I guess it’s common in Mississippi where she’s from, but it made sense to me.  She said if you believe a man is cheating, he probably is.  Where there’s smoke there’s fire, she said, or, as she put it,
fire done been there
.”

Trina smiled and turned back around.  “And what does that have to do with Reno exactly?” she asked.

“There’s a lot of talking going on, Tree.  That’s all I’m saying.  And Reno is rarely home.  I just don’t understand how you can be so certain, that’s all.”

“It’s not for you to understand,” Trina made clear.  “You aren’t married to him.  Reno wouldn’t hurt me like that.”

Trina glanced at Fran through the mirror.  It was obvious by the expression on her pretty, Italian face that she wasn’t buying it.  And if Trina was on the outside looking in, and it wasn’t her life, she probably wouldn’t buy it either.  But true love didn’t work like that.  True love was a wonderful thing and a terrifying thing.  It required trust.  And although Reno had his flaws, and there was nothing perfect about him, she had to trust that he loved her and wouldn’t hurt her like that. 

“But what if it’s true?” Fran asked her.

Trina looked at her again through the dressing table mirror.  “What if what’s true?”

“What if Reno’s pulling the wool over your eyes and is out there cheating up a storm.  Would you leave him?”

Although Fran was becoming one of Trina’s closest friends, there were certain things regarding her relationship with Reno that she wasn’t about to share with anybody.  “That’s none of your business,” she said bluntly.

There was a time when Fran would have wanted to fight somebody if they spoke to her like that.  But over time, when she realized her brother really did love this black woman from Mississippi everybody called Tree, and Tree wasn’t going anywhere, she came to understand this woman.  Now she respected the fact that Trina Gabrini had boundaries you just didn’t cross. 

So instead of getting feisty back, Fran played it off.  “You put me in my place!” she said with a snap.

Trina smiled too, but she didn’t take it back.

The front door could be heard opening and Reno’s voice could be heard, as usual whenever he came home, calling for Tree.

“I’m back here!” she yelled with a grin, and then could hear Reno making his way to the back.

Fran began rising with the baby in her arms.  “Dommi and I will be at my apartment for the rest of the evening,” she said as she stood.  Fran’s apartment, thanks to Reno, was inside the PaLargio too, and was free of charge.  The least she could do, she felt, was babysit whenever they needed her to.

“I know it’s a little late,” Reno said, as he entered the bedroom, “but I need it bad, babe-
oh, shit
!”  He had already unzipped his pants and was about to pull it out when he realized Fran and the baby were in the room.  He turned his back to them quickly, zipping back up as he did. 

Trina and Fran both laughed.

“Don’t worry, Reno,” Fran said as she headed toward the dressing table.  “We were just leaving.”

Reno, now zipped, turned back around.  “It would have been nice if a certain party would have told me you were here in the first place.”

But Trina was still laughing.  “How was I to know you were coming in ready to face the nation?” she asked him.

“Yeah, Tree, I got your nation right here,” Reno said as he reached for his son.  Trina and Fran looked at each other and laughed. 

“Hey, Daddy!” Dommi said cheerfully.

“Hey, there, champ,” Reno said, grabbing his brown-skinned son and kissing him on the lips.  “You’re too big now for Aunt Fran to be carrying you around.”  Reno stood him on his feet.  “From now on you tell these ladies around here that you can stand on your own two feet, you hear me?”

“My own two feet, yes, sir,” Dommi said.

“Behave yourself with Aunt Fran,” Trina told her son as she leaned down and kissed him on the forehead. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I love you, man!” Reno said with loud cheer.

“Love you man!” Dommi yelled back, causing Reno to laugh.

“You’re going with Aunt Fran?” he then asked his son.

“You come too,” Dommi suggested.

Fran laughed.  “Daddy can’t come right now, Dommi,” she said as she took Dommi by the hand.  “He’s got to relieve himself first.”

“Ha, ha, very funny, Fran,” Reno said, unable to suppress a smile.  Because as soon as she and Dommi were down the hall and heading toward the front door, Reno was pulling Trina up from the chair where she sat and was moving behind her.  By the time the front door had opened and closed and they were gone, he was kissing her neck.

“Oh, Reno, we don’t have time for this,” she said as he placed his arms around her and began to rock her side to side.  Although she wore a thick terry cloth robe, she could still feel his aroused penis against her.

“Just a quickie, babe,” he said, kissing the side of her face and her ear as he held her.

“But this night is so important to Jimmy.  I promised him we’d be on time for a change,” she said as she turned around.  But as soon as she turned around and looked into Reno’s sparkling blue eyes, she caved.  His thick, brown hair was tousled all over his head as usual, and he was beginning to show a five o’clock shadow along the lower reaches of his handsome, tanned face, but he never looked better to her than he did at that very moment.

Reno’s heart hammered too, when her big, hazel eyes stared into his eyes.  She was his definition of beauty.  She was his definition of womanhood.  From her velvety brown skin to her full lips, from her toughness and her loyalty, there was no other woman out there that he’d rather be with.  And the look in his eyes said so.  And the look in her eyes acknowledged what he was saying.  And they began kissing.  Passionately.  As if they were two teenagers in heat.

Reno opened her robe, slipped his hands completely around her small, naked body, and held her closely against him as he kissed her.  She felt the pressing of his aroused penis against her bare brown skin now, and she wanted him to enter her as badly as he wanted to enter her.  But she promised Jimmy.  And she knew there was no such thing as a “quickie” whenever Reno put that cock inside of her.  They’d be at it for at least an hour.

Reno, however, wasn’t thinking about the reality of the situation.  He was already elevating the situation.  He was already French-kissing her and beginning to press his advantage further when she finally managed the strength to break away from his lips, and pull back.

“Jimmy, Reno,” she said with a plea in her voice.  “We don’t have time.”

Reno leaned his head against her forehead and exhaled.   He knew she was right on.  “Damn that boy!” he said with a smile.

Trina laughed.  “After dinner,” she said, moving away from him, “you’ll get your dessert.”

“Dessert my ass,” Reno said as he slapped her ass.  “That dinner is going to be the dessert.  You and that fine body of yours is going to be my dinner.”

Trina grinned and headed for the closet.  “Let me put on my clothes,” she said.  “Are you going to shower and change, or wear what you have on?” She asked this as she glanced back at him.

Reno plopped down in her chair.  “Shower and change to have dinner with Jimmy and some female we’ve never even met?  Give me a break!  If I’m not presentable enough for them, then tough.  I’ll bring my funky ass back home, with your freshly scrubbed ass right along with me, and we’ll get in our comfortable bed and have ourselves a comfortable feast.  Tongue style.”

Trina laughed.  “Is that all you think about?”

Reno smiled and rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands.  Trina could see that he really was a very tired man.  If it wasn’t Jimmy, she would cancel this dinner in a heartbeat and get in bed with him right now.  But it was Jimmy.  And she had promised him.  But still.

“We can cancel,” she found herself saying to her husband.

Reno thought about it, but then dismissed it.  “We can’t let Jimmy down like that,” he said.  “He’s a good kid who doesn’t ask for much.”

“That’s that truth,” Trina agreed.

“Finish getting dressed.  We’ll rest later.”

Trina looked at that man she loved so much.  Yes, it would be a heartbreaking thing if he was cheating on her.  It would be a devastating thing.  But what stunned her more was the truth of the matter.  There was a time when she wouldn’t hesitate to leave a man who cheated on her.  She’d leave him in the dust, as she used to say.  But now that she had Reno, now that
he
was her man, she honestly didn’t believe she could do it.  She could never leave Reno.  And that truth, that reality, was a sobering thought.  So sobering a thought that she knew she could never, not ever, even think about verbalizing it.

She began to dress quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SEVEN

 

Melita Murphy was accustomed to turning heads.  Tall, statuesque, skin as black as coal and as smooth as soft velvet, a face small and round and stunningly beautiful, she packed a powerful entrance.  It used to bother Jimmy whenever they would go out together.  Guys would do double takes at her even with him walking beside her.  But tonight, as they followed the waiter to their table, Jimmy was happy with the attention his lady was getting.  Pleasing his father had never been an easy thing for him to do, especially when it came to his choices.  His father had never been impressed with any of his previous girlfriends.  Not one of them.  But with a girl like Lita, he thought, even a hard-to-please man like his old man would have to give him his props.

Jimmy helped Melita to her booth seat, and then sat down beside her.  The restaurant was crowded with tons of conversation, but he could tell many eyes were still on them.

After placing their drink orders, he looked at her and smiled.  “You look so beautiful tonight,” he said, looking at the dark-skinned beauty.

Melita ran her fingers through his silky, curly hair and smiled too.  “You look beautiful yourself,” she said with a grin.  “I never thought I would find somebody who has a big heart to match his beauty.”

Jimmy smiled.  He knew he was a good looking young man, but a compliment like that coming from such an experienced woman like Melita pleased him.  “Thank-you,” he said.

He never thought he’d be attracted to an older woman.  But it seemed the right way for him to go.  Younger women were too full of games for his taste.  The younger ones often showed more excitement over the fact that he was the son of the owner of the PaLargio than anything he could do or say to them.  Melita, on the other hand, owned her own business and had her own success.  She didn’t want shit from him.  She didn’t even know who his father was, except that he was a businessman too, and she never asked for details.  Their relationship, her style said to him, was about them.  Not their parents or anybody else.  Them.  He loved that about her.

But he could see this dinner date was weighing heavily on her.  “What’s the matter?”  he asked her.

Melita leaned back in her chair.  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Jimmy nodded his head.  “I have to do it.  You’re the woman I want to be with and my parents need to meet you.”

“But what if they don’t like me?  You said your father never like your girlfriends, I remember you said that.”

Jimmy would hate for that to happen.  Nobody could mean more to him than Reno and Trina and his baby brother.  But he loved Melita too.  “He’ll love you,” he said with a kind of confidence he really had no right to have.

But he could tell she wasn’t convinced.  He squeezed her hand.  “It’ll be okay, Lita.  Dad likes women like you.  Trust me.  And just as long as I’m happy, Mom’s cool with it.”

Melita smiled.  “You’re an eternal optimist, you know that?”

Jimmy laughed.  “Most of my friends would say I’m just the opposite.   But since we’ve been together, yeah.  I guess I am more optimistic.” 

“How sweet,” she said with a wonderful smile and then leaned over and kissed him on the lips. 

“So tell me about this father of yours,” she said.  “What do I need to do to make him feel more comfortable with this situation?”

“You mean the age thing?”

“Yes, Jimmy!  Of course that’s what I mean.”

“Oh, Lita, I told you that won’t matter to him.”

“Yes, it will.  You said he’s around my age.  And if he’s this hard-to-please guy you say he is, he is going to be displeased.  I’m too old for you, that’s what he’s going to think.”

BOOK: Reno Gabrini: A Man in Full
10.2Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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