Page 5 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
“They apparently had a meeting there is my assumption. She drove her Bentley over there for whatever reason she was there, but then she apparently stayed longer than she hadplanned because it was time for her to get dressed and get to the function, but it was too late for her to go all the way home and change. Since her COO lived right near where the function was going to be held, she had Destiny put her gown and shoes in the limo for me to bring them to her. So she dressed at his house, he got dressed there too, and I drove them together to the function.”
Jeremy said this and looked through the rearview again. He could tell Tommy was a little stunned. But there was something about that guy, that new COO, that didn’t sit right with Jeremy. Like he was too slick by half. And Jeremy was going to tell everything he saw to the man that signed his paychecks. He knew where his loyalty laid.
“You wanna know what I think about him, sir?” he asked Tommy.
The assistant looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Tommy looked at him too. He never wanted anybody to get the idea that they could put a wedge between him and his wife and get away with it. “Had I wanted to know your impression of him,” Tommy said, “I would have asked. Stay in your lane or your ass will be fired.”
Jeremy swallowed hard. Because just like that he had forgotten that the man on that backseat wasn’t always Dapper Tom. But he could also be the vicious Backdoor Tommy, the enforcer for the mob. And he could also be as cold as a fish when he wanted to be. “Yes sir,” Jeremy said, sufficiently embarrassed, and he didn’t look through that rearview mirror anymore.
But the news that Grace would have put herself in a position to have to dress at another man’s house, something she never bothered to so much as mention to him in all the times they spoke on the phone during his trip out of town, didn’t sitwell with Tommy. But that was none of Jeremy’s business, but it didn’t sit well with Tommy.
But when the limo finally drove through the electronic gates, Tommy didn’t let that bit of odd news stop him from feeling that sense of peace that always overtook him whenever he made it home. And although he didn’t like what he heard about Grace and that new guy, even that couldn’t squash that feeling. He was glad to be home.
When he got out and as his valet hurried out of the house to retrieve his luggage, he entered his home for the first time in over a week. When he walked down the long corridor of the foyer and then turned the corner, all three of his children: Destiny, his oldest, Thomas Gabrini, Junior, called TJ, and Gianna Gabrini, called GG, his youngest child, were all eating breakfast at the table. He loved that smell of bacon in his home and to see his children’s beautiful faces light up as soon as they saw him.
All three of them ran to him, calling outDaddy, Daddyas they ran, and he grinned when they nearly knocked him over. He picked up GG in his arms as Destiny and TJ hugged him too. Destiny was a grown woman now with her own baby, and TJ was a teenager. They both were at that age where running to greet their father would have been considered childish and uncool by their peers. But he loved that his children never followed the crowd. A testament, he felt, to how Grace raised them.
“Everybody’s okay?” Tommy asked each one.
“Yes sir,” said Destiny. “Everything’s good. TJ’s soccer captain again this year.”
Tommy patted TJ’s beautiful curly hair. “Good for you, son. Good for you! What was the vote count this time?”
“Unanimous again.”
“Excellent,” Tommy said as he and TJ high-fived. He could not have asked for a better son.
“You look tired, Daddy,” GG said to him.
Tommy considered his baby girl. Although he loved all of his children, GG was the apple of his eye. “Thank you, baby, for noticing,” he said as he kissed her. “And yes, I am very tired.”
“But you’ll be home for a while this time. Won’t you, Daddy?” Destiny asked him.
“As of right now, yes. But that can change.”
“Don’t we know it,” said TJ, and they all laughed.
“Where’s Danny?” Tommy asked. Daniel Thomas Gabrini was Destiny’s baby boy.
“She’s still sleep,” said Destiny. “She’s got the lazy gene.”
“And I wonder who she got it from?” Tommy asked and they laughed. “Where’s Mommy?”
“She’s in the shower,” said GG. “Want me to go get her, Daddy?”
“No, I’m going up.” Then he sat GG back on her feet.
“Want me to fix you a plate?” Destiny asked. “TJ cooked us a real breakfast with waffles and everything.”
“I ate on the plane. But thanks. You guys go on and finish. I’m going to bed for a few hours.”
Destiny and TJ glanced at each other with a smile. They knew what that meant. But they dutifully went back to the table as Tommy made his way upstairs.
He could hear the sound of the shower water running when he got to their bedroom. Knowing his other appetite, his main appetite, he closed and locked the door. Then he sat on the side of the bed, removed his shoes, and then slowly removed everything else. Although he pulled back the bedspread and sheet and got into bed, his naked body remained uncovered. He was waiting for Grace.
He nearly fell asleep several times. But when the water finally turned off and he could see through the mirror in the bedroom where Grace was in the bathroom drying off herslender dark body, his penis came to life. And when Grace placed the towel on the rack and made her way into the bedroom, expecting to see the same empty bed she had left when she went to go take her shower, he smiled when her face lit up too.
“Tommy, you’re home!” she said happily and ran to him. She threw her small body on top of his big, muscular body and they hugged each other tightly. And then he slowed it all down. And they kissed. Long and lovingly.
