Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again (16 page)

The
cab turned onto the long, winding driveway that led to a beautiful,
multi-leveled Tudor-styled home with a driveway that drove in straight and
ended circular.
 
The cab stopped at the
steps.
 

Tommy,
who sat in the backseat with Liz, smiled.
 
“All this for one person,” he said.

Liz
smiled.
 
“Yours is twice this size, what
are you talking about?”
 

But
as soon as Liz made that comment, Tommy realized an uncomfortable truth.
 
Not only had he been curious enough to check
up on her, she had been curious enough to check up on him.

“It’s
the only thing I splurged on,” Liz continued.
 
But when she saw that odd expression on Tommy’s face, she smiled.
 
“But don’t worry,” she added, reading him
wrong, “it’s paid for.
 
I made sure of
that.”

The
driver opened Liz’s door, and they both got out of the cab.
 
Tommy paid the cabbie and he retrieved her
luggage from out of his trunk.
 
Liz
walked over to her plants that lined the side of her steps.
 
Her gardener, in her two-week absence from
Dubai to Iraq, had done his job well.

“Very
nice,” Tommy said as the cab drove away and he walked up, her suitcase in
hand.
 
“Your handiwork?”

“My
gardener’s, who also happens to be my pool man, my handyman.
  
All three in one.”

“All
three for the price of one,” Tommy added.

Liz
laughed. “You’ve got that right,” she admitted.
 
“Other than the purchase of this house, I’m very thrifty now.”

“Yeah,
I’ll bet,” Tommy said doubtfully.
 

“I
am!” Liz said.

He
saw her dress style.
 
There was nothing
cheap, or
thrifty
, about this
woman.
 
“Since you’re so thrifty,” he
said, “what kind of car do you drive?”

But
Liz turned the tables.
 
“What kind do you
drive?”

“A
Kia Sephia,” Tommy responded.

Liz
had not expected that response.
 
Not from
a man who owned his own plane!
 
“Oh,” she
said.
 
“Well, I don’t drive a Kia,” she
added.
 
“I drive a Lexus.”

Tommy
smiled.

“It’s
not like you think,” Liz quickly said.
 
“It’s the lowest level, cheapest Lexus money can buy.
 
And it’s paid for too.”
 
She considered him.
 
“And you drive a Kia.
 
Which is fine.
 
I just don’t believe you.”

Tommy
laughed.
 
“Don’t,” he said.
 
“I was just trying to get a reaction out of
you.”

Liz
smiled.
 
“No you didn’t!” she said, and
pushed him.

But
then she winced.
 
The energy sap her body
had endured was back.
 
Tommy saw the
change and immediately placed his arm around her waist.
 
“Let’s get you inside,” he told her.

“You’ll
get no argument from me,” she agreed.

Liz
sat on the edge of the bed inside her master bedroom.
 
Tommy, in the adjacent bathroom, ran her
bath.
 
He asked her what she wanted when
they first entered her home, and she told him: a long, hot bath.
 
Although she showered every day while she was
hospitalized, it wasn’t the same.
 
Those
were birdbaths as far as she was concerned.
 
She wanted the real thing.

She
began to slowly remove her clothes, with many starts and stops the way she did
to put on those clothes at the hospital, and she looked at Tommy as she
undressed.
 
She still couldn’t fully wrap
her brain around him.
 
Everything she
read about his personal life seemed so negative.
 
Professionally, his sheet was good.
 
He began his career as a cop, following in
his father’s footsteps, ultimately rising to police captain.
 
The security firm he founded, partnering with
his brother, rose to become the anchor of a major corporation that included,
not only security, but investments foreign and domestic and primarily overseen
by Tommy.
 
And his company was as healthy
as they came.
 
Professionally, he was in
great shape.

But
his personal life, Liz thought as she finally removed her blouse, was what gave
her pause.
 
In three words: too many
women.
 
He was married only once, and was
divorced, and he had a little girl.
 
But
the women he’d been linked to could fill a small town phone book.
 
From models to movie stars to even porn
stars, the Tommy Gabrini brand was well known in female circles.
 
And although there were women of all races
and nationalities in his arsenal of females, he had a definite preference for
black women.
 
No doubt about it.
 
And dark-skinned black women at that.
 
She wondered if that was why he was so
generous to her.
 
Did he have a black
fetish the way some old white men had an Asian one?

But a
mere fetish wouldn’t explain his level of generosity, and that was the thing
that Liz couldn’t get over.
 
The sheer
level of his generosity.
 
From flying her
and Chelsey all the way to Dubai when he didn’t have to.
 
From checking up on her, finding out she’d
been injured, and then flying all the way to Chicago to see about her.
 
To whipping out his checkbook and paying off
her thirty thousand dollar debt as if she was somebody near and dear to him
when he barely knew her.
 
That wasn’t
what men who merely had a sexual attraction did.
 
At least not any man she’d ever known!
 
This, she had to say again, was more than
nice.

“Need
help?” Tommy asked her as he stood in the bathroom’s doorway and realized she
had removed only her blouse.

“I’m
good,” she said, and proceeded to attempt to remove her bra.
 
Tommy could see that she was struggling,
starting and stopping as if she was taking off a coat of arms, and he wanted to
help her.
 
But he knew she wouldn’t want
that kind of help.

“I’ll
be downstairs,” he said as he pushed his body from the doorframe and began
heading out of the bedroom.

“Thanks
for running my bath,” Liz said.
 

“You’re
welcomed,” Tommy said with a smile, and headed downstairs.

Liz’s
exquisite taste could be seen all over her home, he noticed, as he made his way
toward the wet bar.
 
From her artwork to
her furnishings, all the way down to the arrangement of the pieces, she was a
woman of very refined taste.
 
He grabbed
a glass from beneath the counter and poured himself a glass of wine.
 
He saw a half opened copy of Kutana magazine
lying on the countertop, and he began to flip through it.
 
It was as advertised: story after story on
various conflicts around the world and all manner of international
politics.
 
He continued to thumb through
it.

The
home phone rang as he continued, and then, as if Liz had no intentions of ever
answering it, it went to Voicemail within only a few rings.
   
Tommy continued to flip through the magazine
and sip his wine, but when he heard a male’s voice, he listened more attentive
than he otherwise would have.

“It’s
me,” the male caller said.
 
“You won’t
answer your cell phone so I’m calling you at home.
 
Return my call, Liz.
 
I told you that girl doesn’t mean shit to me,
why are you behaving like this?
 
You’ve
moved on, I know that.
 
But what about
me?
 
You can at least hear me out.
 
Call me.
 
Please.”

Then
there was a pause, and then he hung up.
 
A man in love if ever Tommy heard one.
 
He sipped his wine.
 
Other men
wanted her.
 
Surprise, surprise.
 
He couldn’t think of a single woman he’d
fucked who wasn’t desired by other men.
 
But with all the others, he didn’t care.
 
He welcomed other guys to have at it.
 
But with Liz, and this was the kicker for him, he didn’t think he would
like it at all.
 

Figuring
her to be safely ensconced in the tub, he poured another glass of wine, grabbed
his glass along with the second glass, and headed back upstairs.
 
She could use a stiff one.
 
But when he made his way to her bedroom, and
heard what sounded like sobs, he placed the glasses on the dresser and made his
way into her bathroom.
 
She was in the
tub, she had finally manage to fully undress and get in the tub, but she was sobbing
uncontrollably.

“Liz,”
he said as he hurried to her side.
 

She
looked up at him, the tears like pools of blood in her eyes.
 
His heart dropped.
 
He squatted down beside her.
 
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked
her.
 
“What’s wrong?”

“Those
young soldiers,” she said. “They were so young.
 
And I saw them die, Tommy. I saw them die!”

Tommy
pulled her into his arms.
 
She continued
to sob so heart-wrenchingly that he placed his arms beneath her arms and thighs
and lifted her out of the tub.
 
He
grabbed a towel, sat in the chair, and began drying her.

“I’m
sorry,” she was saying.
 
“I don’t know
what got into me.”

“Empathy
got into you,” Tommy said as he dried her.
 
“You felt for those boys.
 
There’s
nothing wrong with that.”

But
Liz hated crying like some baby.
 
And the
fact that Tommy had to dry her off as if she was some invalid didn’t help.
 
But she welcomed his attention.
 
She needed him at this moment in her
life.
 
She was glad he was there.

After
drying her, he carried her to the bed, pulled back her covers, and laid her
down.
 
He stepped out of his shoes,
removed his suitcoat, and got in bed beside her.
 
He was about to lift her on top of him, but
he didn’t have to bother.
 
She got on top
of him.
 
He covered them both, and held
her tightly as she continued to sob.
  
He
held her all night.
 
She was finally
dropping the tough girl façade and admitting she’d seen hell.
 
Now, he knew, she could begin to heal.

The
next morning, Liz was still on top of Tommy.
 
Both were asleep, resting wonderfully, until the phone on the nightstand
began to ring.
 
It awakened both of
them.
 
But when Liz let it ring, and
didn’t answer it, Tommy looked at her.

“It’s
okay,” she said, as the call went to Voicemail.

It’s Liz, leave a message.

“Pick
up the phone, Liz.”
 
It was the same
male’s voice from last night.
 
“You can’t
avoid me forever.
 
Liz?”

Then
he hung up with what felt even to Tommy like an angry hang.

“Who
is he?” Tommy asked.

“Nobody,”
Liz said. “A big, fat zero.”

“Ex-boyfriend?”

“It
didn’t even rise that high.”

“Ex-lover
then?”

“It
had potential, and I thought we might get there, and then the usual happened.”

Tommy
looked at her.
 
“The usual?”

“The
bottom fell out.
 
And the women fell
in.
 
And I got out of there, never to
return again.”
 
She smiled.
 
“That rhymed.”

“Never
to return despite his pleas?” Tommy asked.

“Despite
his anything.
 
I’m done with that.”
 
Then she leaned up and looked at Tommy.
 
Her look was serious.
 
He realized the change.

“What
are you thinking?” he asked her.

“The
truth?” she asked him.