Romancing Tommy Gabrini (7 page)

“How
long did you date him?” Tommy asked her.

“Something
like five years.
 
We broke up four months
ago.
 
But I gave that boy the best years
of my life.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
She was adorable.
 
“You poor child,” he said.
 

“I
know,” Grace said, glad to share a smile.

“You
haven’t hooked up with anybody since your breakup?”

Grace
shook her head.
 
“No.
 
After all of Cam’s cheating and lies the idea
of trusting somebody else is kind of scary.”

“Very
scary,” Tommy agreed.
 
Then he added,
softly.
 
“Especially since he’s still
able to make you cry.”

Grace
didn’t know how to take his change in tone, but she couldn’t change the
past.
 
“It still hurts, that’s the scary
part.
 
Not because I’m still in love with
that prick or anything like that, but I thought we had a good thing going, so I
gave it my all.
 
I ignored the signs and
kept working on the relationship and working on the relationship.
 
Only to find out that I was the only one
working on it.
 
Stupid me, right?”

Tommy
thought about ShoShawna.
 
He knew what
she meant.
 
“There’s nothing stupid about
it,” he said.
 
“You had hoped to make a
life with young Cameron.
 
Why, I would
ask, but that’s what you had hoped.”

“Wasn’t
I crazy?
 
But yeah, I thought for a hot
second that a player like him could actually give me what I most want.”

This
interested Tommy.
 
He leaned against the
window frame.
 
“Which is?” he asked.
 
He didn’t know why he needed to know, and
Grace didn’t understand why she was willing to tell.
 
But in this parlor, this night, that was how
they felt.

“It’s
corny,” she said, “I know it’s corny as it can be.
 
But I always wanted to get married to this
wonderful man and have me a wonderful child.
  
Two children, actually.
 
At least
two.
 
But unfortunately for me I fell for
a man who didn’t want a wife or children, he just wanted more women.”

Tommy
stared at her.
 
How could an obviously
intelligent woman like her have ever thought that a well-known player like Cam
Birch would have been interested in settling down?
 
Then he thought about himself and how, once
upon a time, he was a well-known player interested in settling down, too.
 
And he, like Grace, had picked the absolute
wrong person to want to settle down with.
 
But people change was the point, he thought.
 
Even well-known players.

“So
you see Mr. Birch tonight and all of those sweet old memories flooded back?”

“Sweet
memories?” Grace asked.
 
“More like
intense anger flooded back.
 
I hate the
sight of him now.
 
I hate that I wasted
so many years with him when I could have found the right man, gotten married,
and I could have been raising a family of my own by now.”

Tommy
thought about his cousin Reno, who lived in Vegas with the kind of woman who
gave him that kind of life.
 
He knew
exactly what Grace meant.
 

And
he also knew that a life like that was nothing more than a pipedream for a man
like him.
 
He’d tried with ShoShawna and
that blew up in his face.
 
And even after
ShoShawna he gave a few other women a try.
 
But it all turned out wrong.
 
Now
he was determined to never try again.
 
He
was determined to keep all of his female relationships as superficial as he
possibly could.
 
Sex and uncomplicated
companionship was all he was after.

Which
brought him back to where he was before he entered this parlor.
 
Why he was considering having even a
superficial relationship with this young lady was the biggest mystery in a
night of mysteries for him.
 
She was too
young, too inexperienced, and too commitment-ready for a commitment-phobic man
like him.
 
But he couldn’t hide the
fact.
 
He wanted her.

“You
should have kept it stepping,” he said to her.

“Kept
what stepping?” she asked.

“Your
relationship with Cam, or with any other man.”

Grace
was lost.
 
“I don’t understand.”

“Given
the emotional baggage you’re still carrying,” Tommy tried to explain, “I’m
assuming that you and Cam didn’t have an open relationship?”

“Open?”
Grace asked.
 
“You mean where he gets to
sleep around with whichever female he wants to sleep around with, and then come
running back to me?”

Tommy
shifted his weight uncomfortably.
 
“I
wouldn’t phrase it quite that way, but yes,” he said.
 
“That’s what I mean.”

“Child
please,” Grace said in such a down-to-earth way that Tommy laughed.
 

But
Grace was serious.
 
“Of course we didn’t
have an open relationship,” she said.
 
“I’m not letting anybody use me like that.”

Tommy
was surprised by her characterization.
 
“Use you?” he asked.

“Yes,
use me.
 
If he can’t commit to me then I
don’t want him.”

Tommy
looked at her with something akin to alarm.
 
He suddenly felt defensive and even a little pissed with her.
 
“Usually,” he said, “both parties consent to
an open relationship.
 
Not just the man.”

But
Grace couldn’t disagree more.
 
“It’s the
man,” she said.
 
“The woman might go
along with it because some women believe a piece of a man is better than no man
at all.
 
But if she cares anything for
that guy and is totally committed to him, there is no way she’ll be okay with
some other woman touching him, let alone sleeping with him.
 
No way.”

Tommy
stood erect, folded his arms, and then leaned, once again, against the window
frame.
 
Why he felt a need to explain
open relationships to her was yet another mystery to him. Unless, given the
fact that all of his relationships had been open ones, he felt a need, not to
explain the concept, but to explain himself.

“Commitment
isn’t what an open relationship is about.
 
That’s not the point of it.”

Grace
looked at him.
 
“Then what’s the point?”
she asked.

Her
big brown eyes looked so inquisitive that she almost made him feel
self-conscious.
 
“I think the point,” he
said, trying not to let his defensiveness show, “is that you wouldn’t have to
be beholden to anyone.”

“Yeah,”
Grace replied, “and no-one would have to be beholden to you.
 
They’ll just be able to get the best you have
to offer and to get it for free, with no work, no effort, nothing.
 
And then, when they’re done with you, you’ll
have nothing to show for all of those years of offering yourself up with no
commitments.
 
Just an overused body and a
face that’s no longer as pretty and fresh as it was when they first had you.”
 
She frowned.
 
“What woman wants that?”

Tommy
stared at her.
 
The lifestyle she was
describing with such disdain and contempt was the very life he’d been living
for as long as he could remember.
 
Other
than that one attempt with ShoShawna, he’d never been in anything remotely
resembling a fully committed relationship.
 
It used to work just fine for him.
 
It was exactly what he had wanted.
 
But Grace had touched a nerve.
 

 
“Anyway, I’d better get back,” she said,
draining the last of her drink and handing the glass back to him.
 
“I’m sure Jilly expects her chief of staff to
keep a presence at her party.”

“And
try to lock down a contract or two?”

Grace
smiled.
 
“Or three or four, absolutely,”
she said as she began to walk away.
 
“See
you later, Tony.”

Tony
?
 
Who the hell was
Tony
?
 
Tommy made a motion to correct her, but then
just smiled.
 
One day soon, he thought as
he watched her leave, she would not only know his name but would be screaming
it from the top of her lungs.
 
Screaming
it as he fucked the shit out of her.

But
he dismissed such a raunchy thought.
 
She
was a good girl, what was his problem?
 
Then he drained the last of his own drink, and got out of that parlor,
too.

When
the party was over, Tommy was standing in the driveway with Jillian as they
said their goodnights to a couple they both knew well.
 
The husband was lingering, anxious to prove
to Jillian that his current contract with Fed-Ex made more sense for his
company, and his wife was already getting in the car, anxious to leave.
 
Grace was out there, too, saying goodbye to
another power couple, and then she began to make her way to her car.

“Excuse
me,” Tommy said to Jillian when he saw Grace break away.
 

“Where
are you going?” Jillian asked, confused.
 
“I thought you wanted to meet with me.”

“Give
me a sec,” he said as he walked away.

Jillian
looked at him as he began heading in Grace’s direction.
 
She should have known, she thought.

Grace
didn’t realize Tommy was heading her way until she had pressed her car’s
keyless entry pad and was about to open her door.
 
She assumed he was headed for his own car,
but she couldn’t help but stand there and stare at the man.
 
He was a sight to behold.
 
From his expensive clothes to sophisticated
manner, he seemed to ooze money and power.
 
And as far as Grace was concerned he was as sexy as sexy came.
 
But she also knew the other, less attractive
side to men like him.
 
That was why, as
he came nearer, she felt the urge to run to him, and to flee, all at the same
time.

“Hi,”
she said when it was obvious that he was actually approaching her rather than
heading for his own automobile.
 
“Tony,
right?”

Tommy
smiled.
 
“Tommy.”

“Oh,”
Grace said, genuinely embarrassed.
 
“I am
so sorry.
 
I thought it was Tony.
 
All this time I thought you said Tony.”

“It’s
okay.”

“Why
didn’t you correct me in the parlor?”

Because
I knew I would get another chance, he wanted to say.
 
“I bet I remember your name,” he said,
instead.
 
“Grace, right?”

Grace
smiled.
 
“Right.”

“Glad
I was able to catch you before you left.”

“Yeah,
I almost made a clean getaway.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
He liked the ease with which
they could talk.
 
That usually translated
into ease in bed.
 
“Listen,” he said, “I
was wondering if you’d care to have a nightcap with me.”

Oh,
Grace thought.
 
That was blunt.
 
No games, no tricks.
 
She liked that.
 
“Where?” she asked.

He
hesitated.
 
“My place or yours,” he said,
and then studied her reaction.
 
And the
look on her face after he said that, as if she was expecting him to mention the
name of a club or bar, said it all to him.
 
She was inexperienced as all get out, just as he had thought.

“I
really can’t,” she said, feeling sheepish.
 
She should have known what he meant when he made his offer.
 
She should have known that nightcap, in his
world, meant sex, not a drink.

Tommy
would have normally let it alone after her turndown.
 
She wasn’t into casual sex, which was fine,
but she was also nothing like the women he was usually attracted to.
 
He should have just accepted that fact and
moved the hell on.