EIGHT
She saw Reno again that Friday night, when he took her to dinner. After a lovely meal, where he actually tried to serenade her by singing some tired Tony Bennett song, they ended up back at her place. And, eventually, in bed.
Oddly, they didn’t make love when they got into bed. Odd for them because they never ended up in bed without making love. But this time he just wanted to hold her. He had had a tough day, he said as they lay there, both naked and in each other’s arms, and this “whole thing” was beginning to get to him.
“What ‘whole thing,’?” Trina asked him, her mind moving in many directions. Was he talking about the PaLargio, the mob life, them?
“The renovations,” he said, “the new construction, the grand opening of the west wing coming up.”
Trina relaxed. It was all about the PaLargio. But it did afford her an opening. “You’ve always been in the hotel and casino business?” she asked him.
“Not always, no,” he said, wrapping his arm tighter around her. They were both on their backs, staring up, and he had one of his hands constantly flicking her nipple and squeezing her breast, which let her know that they hadn’t had sex yet, but they would.
“What made you go into this line of work?” she asked him.
“It beat any other line of work. I saw an opportunity, so I took it.” This line of questioning was beginning to bother Reno. He knew he had some explaining to do, but not here, not now.
“You said your father owned a restaurant, right?”
“Trina!”
“I’m just asking.”
“Yeah, he owned a restaurant, all right? Among other things, but mainly restaurants, yes. What else you wanna know?”
“Why didn’t you go into the restaurant business? It would be a lot easier than trying to run a hotel and casino. Why not go into business with your father?”
Trina looked at him, to study his reaction to her question. As usual, a cloudy look crossed his eyes.
“I was in business with my father,” he said and Trina’s heart dropped. Did he just tell her that he used to be a mob boss, or was he talking about a legitimate restaurant business?
“So, you’re saying you used to run his restaurants?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Reno said. “But let’s talk about that later, all right? Right now,” he said, moving her to where her butt was facing him, “I don’t wanna think about anything but you.”
“I’m just trying to get to know you, Reno,” Trina said. “It sometimes feel like you’re holding something back.”
“I know it does, sweetheart,” Reno said, entering her from the back. “And I’ll tell you all you ever wanted to know about me, boring parts and all. I promise you that. But not now.”
Trina lay there as he slowly slid in and out of her, and she felt as if he was playing for time. But she felt relieved too. Because he spoke of being involved in his father’s business in the past tense. Which meant he wasn’t anymore. And he said it was the restaurant business that he was involved with, which was a good thing, too. Besides, she was used to bad boys. Every man she had ever fallen in love with would be considered a bad boy, so bad boys were nothing new to her. But the mob, she thought, was a different kind of bad.
She sighed as his penis penetrated deeper and deeper within her. She knew she was rationalizing. She knew she should just flat out ask him about his father. But she was falling in love with this man. And she needed him to tell her about it. She needed him to let her know that he wouldn’t keep something like that from her.
So she held her tongue, held it as his thick rod kept rotating inside of her. Held it as he pulled her closer to him, fondling her breasts, as he banged her. Time would tell, and in time she’d know for sure if he was going to man up and level with her, or punk out and keep her in the dark. But she wanted to be strategic. She wanted to use what she knew to test the strength of their relationship. She didn’t want to be like some big mouth female who never had any ace up her sleeve, who blabbed everything she knew. Knowledge was power. She needed to play this smart. She needed him to be the one to bring it up.
Later that next morning, however, when Reno was dressing to leave and she was still naked in bed, the subject of his past wasn’t brought up at all. She had hoped he would discuss it, but he had become distracted, obsessed even, by his absolute belief that she needed to get herself a set of wheels.
Reno looked at her, at her gorgeous brown body half-covered, revealing every curve he loved to touch, every crevice he knew so well, and he was fighting within himself to not snatch back off his clothes and fuck her again.
But he tried to stay focused. She needed a car, period. She started work at the PaLargio this coming Monday, and she wasn’t catching any buses to get to work there, not his woman. The only reason he didn’t suggest she not take the job in the first place, given the level of their relationship now, was twofold: she wouldn’t like it and therefore wouldn’t go for it, number one. And he could keep an eye on her, would at least know she was safe every day, number two. But to have her working there without wheels of her own, was taking it too far.
But they kept talking past each other. He kept talking about the urgency of the matter, the necessity of it, she kept talking about how she was saving for a car, and would buy one as soon as she was able.
“How much you saved so far?” he asked her as he continued to dress.
“Almost a thousand dollars,” she said.
Reno stared at her. “You joking right? A thousand bucks, Trina? That wouldn’t get you the engine of a decent car.”
“I’m not buying a Bentley, Reno. I just want a good, reliable, dependable car.”
“What are you, Fred Sanford? The salvage girl? You ain’t driving around in no thousand dollar car. My woman ain’t driving around in a car that cost less than one of my suits!”
“That’s what I can afford, Reno,” she said. “I know this is a foreign concept to the owner of the PaLargio, but there are more people like me in this world than people like you. We’re just working stiffs who can only afford what we can afford. And I can only afford a thousand dollar car. I don’t want any monthly payments.”
Reno looked at her and his heart went out to her. She probably had been struggling all of her life, and here he was acting as if she was poor on purpose.
He sat on the edge of her bed, his shirt still in his hand. “I don’t mean to sound like I don’t get it. I get it. But answer me this: you’re my woman or you’re not my woman?”
Trina smiled this time. He was perhaps the most genuine person she’d ever met. “I’m your woman, Reno,” she said.
“How would it look if my woman was driving around in a Pinto, while I’m driving around in a Bentley? Tell me how would that look?”
“It’ll look like you had a woman who was her own woman, who handled her own business, who took care of her own self. It’ll look like you had me, Reno.”
Reno couldn’t help but smile. He had to hand it to her. “Okay, you got me there. But at least get a car now. If I have to put some cash with it to get a reliable car, let me do that.”
“No, Reno--”
“And you can pay me back as soon as you start getting your paychecks from your new job. Please, Tree.”
They went around the mulberry bush on it more than a few times, but she finally, ultimately agreed.
And now, this Saturday morning, they were pulling up to a car lot of Trina’s choosing, a car lot with a big sign: Buy Here, Pay Here.
“Buy here, pay here?” Reno asked, sitting behind his big steering wheel and staring at the sign. “What, they got a bank up in this joint, too?” he wanted to know.
Trina laughed. “Just come on,” she said and he got out of the car, too.
As soon as they stepped out of the Bentley, however, three different salesmen came running, literally running toward them, each trying to outrun the other to get there first and thereby get whatever commission they may be due. Trina found it cu
te. Reno found it ridiculous.
“Hello, folks, I’m Rodney.” He was first, a young black man with a bright white smile.
“You’re fast,” Reno said with a smile of his own. He had on sunglasses and was dressed in a way that made him look, it seemed to Trina, like a rock star.
“Have to be quick around this place,” Rodney said. “How can I help you?”
Trina told him about the Honda Civic she’d been eyeing, a car that was about ten years old, and the salesman took her to where it was still parked.
Reno went along with it, he even went along with the price, paying the difference without batting an eye. But as soon as the car was delivered to them, all washed and cleaned, he handed Trina the keys to his Bentley.
Trina looked at the keys, then looked at Reno. “What?” she wanted to know.
“You’re driving the Bentley, I’m driving the Civic.”
“You?” Trina said with a laugh. “Why?”
“Because I wanna drive my girlfriend’s car. This still will be your car. And you’ll be driving mine.” Then he smiled. “I think it’s sexy to have your woman driving your car.” Trina was no fool. She knew this was his way to elevate her to the level he wanted her to be without infringing on her right to elevate herself. But it was sweet of him, too. She smiled.
“Since you’re just dying to drive my Honda,” she said, accepting his keys, “I’ll do it this time. But you can’t have my car now,” she warned.
Reno laughed. “You’re breaking my heart over here,” he said, got into the Civic, and they drove off.
After leaving the Civic at Trina’s apartment, they stayed together that entire Saturday, enjoying every minute of their day. And that night, when they arrived back at her apartment, they went to bed and, although both were naked, they slept without making love.
It wasn’t that they didn’t want to, they had planned to, but Reno fell asleep. They had showered together, but he had gotten out quickly, to answer a cell phone call. By the time she was out and dried off and getting into bed, he was asleep. She was disappointed at first, she thought they would actually have their talk tonight, but she was happy too. Their relationship had hit a milestone. They were getting completely familiar with each other. She stared at him, rubbed his soft hair out of his face, marveled at his ribbed abs, as he slept. Until, nearly an hour later, she was asleep too.
They would have stayed that way for hours more, but Reno’s cell phone began ringing again. He woke up before she did and had to reach over her naked body to retrieve his phone from his pants on the bedroom floor. He glanced at the caller ID. It was Joey.
“This better be good,” he said as he answered the phone, his body still partially on top of Trina’s.
“Pop’s in trouble, Reno,” Joey said into the phone. “You gotta come home.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“He’s in trouble. I’m not saying over the phone. But he’s in trouble.”
Reno removed the phone from his ear in a moment of frustration, and then he thought about it. He still hadn’t told Trina the nuts and bolts of his life, his family, all of it, but a little matter of her sexy body, of his fear that she might not accept it, kept getting in the way. Now, he figured, he could show her better than he could tell her.
He put the phone back to his ear. “I’m on my way,” he said, and then hung up the phone.
“What’s the matter?” she asked him.
“Family issues,” he said. Then looked at her. “Wanna meet my family?”
“Sure.” But he continued to stare at her. “What? Now?”
“Now.”
“But it’s after midnight, Reno.”
“Yeah, so?”
Trina stared at him. “Are you telling me it’s normal for you to bring a girl home at one a.m. to meet the family?”
“I’m telling you it’s my family. We ain’t the Brady Bunch, okay? All rules are thrown out the window when you’re dealing with us.” Then he pulled her into his arms, smiling. “Don’t look so terrified,” he said. “We ain’t the Addams Family, either.”
Trina laughed. “Well at least that,” she said, although just the thought of this meeting, at this time of morning, sent chills through every pore of her body. A body, her naked body, that Reno was now staring at.
And before she knew it, he was between her legs, kissing her, licking her, and she was on elbows, enjoying his unmatchable skill.
He turned her onto her stomach, kissing her buttocks, licking her buttocks, and then he was entering her from the back. He moved in easy, with finesse, lying on top of the back of her as he did. And the penetration was so deep that it felt like a sharp rod scraping the sides of her, prodding every inch of her womanhood, and the feeling was so different and so intense that Trina felt a kind of serene, intoxicating wonderful.
Reno felt even more serene, as he worked hard to make this feeling last as long as he could, prodding slowly, carefully, moving in and out, going deeper and deeper down every time he moved back in. Tears were in his eyes as he sexed her, because he was beginning to love this woman with a love that was so beyond his own understanding of what love was. And because of it he was terrified of bringing her into his world. A world that she may not want to accept. A world where she may think less of him. But he had to let her know who he was now, before he got in any deeper than he already was. Because he was already, if truth be told, in way too deep.
And his family. She had to meet his family in the raw, right smack in the middle of their latest crisis, whatever it was. Because he knew his family, and he knew that their trouble was not like everybody else’s trouble, but was usually a matter of life and death. Trina, his woman, had to understand that and, in time he hoped, come to accept it. That was why he kept it relaxed with her right now, kept it slow and serene and calm.
It would be the calm, he knew, before the storm.
NINE
The Gabrini family compound was west of the Las Vegas Strip on the outskirts of Spring Valley, Nevada. It was nearly three a.m. when Reno drove his Bentley up to the manned security gate. Within seconds the gate was opened and they were driving up the steep hill that led to the big, white, mansion-sized family home.
“This your childhood home?” Trina asked as the fullness of the home came into view.
“This is the place.”
“But Reno, it’s big as the PaLargio!”
Reno laughed. “Not quite,” he said as he stopped in front of the massive steps that led up to the home’s entrance. Another man, Carmine Rossi, and Joey, were waiting for their arrival. And as soon as Reno stepped out, and held the door for Trina to step out, too, the fireworks began.
“What you bring her here for?” Joey wanted to know. “This about family, Reno. This family business here.”
“I told you to remind me to kick your ass, didn’t I?” Reno said to his chubbier, but younger brother. Joey literally backed up, and off, then.
Reno looked at Carmine. “Carmine, what’s up?” he said as he and Carmine gave one of those manly pat-on-the-back, half hug with a handshake gestures. “This my cousin Carmine Rossi, babe,” Reno said to Trina. “Carmine, this my lady, Katrina Hathaway.”
“Oh, you struck it rich this time, Reno,” Carmine said, kissing Trina’s extended hand. “Solid gold lady you got right here.”
Trina smiled. Carmine was one of those burly Italians, not chubby like Joey, but compact and muscular. And almost as charming as Reno.
“So where’s Pop,” Reno asked. “What’s going on?”
“Trouble,” Carmine said. “Of the major league variety. He’s inside, come on.”
They walked up the steep steps that led to the double front doors, and entered a home whose entrance could rival the PaLargio’s. Cathedral ceilings, white marbled floors, Roman columns, a spiral staircase. Trina could not picture any child, let alone Reno and Joey, running around a place like this. But it was a stark reminder to Trina that she was a far cry from Dale. Maybe, she began to won
der, too far.
They entered another set of double doors near the back of the front of the house, and this led into a huge living room area, with what Trina could only describe as comfort furnishings. From big, Herculean couches, to oversized ottomans, to wide, arched top chairs. Inside the room was a man that had to be either Reno’s brother or father, he favored Reno just that much. Since Trina already knew Reno only had the one brother, she assumed this tall, well built, handsome man with a full head of salt and pepper hair, was the patriarch. The man she had seen described in an article on Jazz’s Blackberry as a “reputed mob boss.”
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS Page 7