CHAPTER ONE #2
“Your presence, Reno. He doesn’t care about your money. None of your children do. They want you.”
“I had to work! I told you I had to work. Now if you didn’t explain that to Carmine then that’s on you. But you knew I couldn’t get away on a Friday night. That’s the biggest night at the casino, especially lately. What child has a birthday party on a Friday night anyway?”
“We were right upstairs in the penthouse, Reno. That casino is downstairs. And you mean to tell me you couldn’t break away for thirty minutes and come upstairs and say happy birthday to your own son? Don’t even try that shit on me!”
Reno leaned back and folded his arms. Trina could see in his eyes that he was tired of her.
And exhausted. But he was always tired of her and exhausted.
That wasn’t going to stop her. “It’s a lie, Reno, when they say time is money.
That’s a lie. Time is far more valuable than money.
Time is everything. Now you can run around neglecting me.
I’ll deal with your ass on that. But what you aren’t going to do is neglect our children. That you will not do.”
But Reno remained silent in that brooding way he was known for.
He had that look in his eyes that made her know he was sizing her up without saying a word.
It was that same look he had whenever he was sitting on his perch inside his massive casino sizing up who the grifters were, and which gambler was going to try to turn the tables on the house and get over on him.
He was assessing her in that same way. And it unnerved her.
“What?” she finally asked him when his staring wouldn’t quit.
“Why are you like that?”
Trina could just hear nothing short of disgust and disappointment dripping from that question. And it scared her. “Why am I like what?”
“Your ass expect perfection from me, Trina. Always has. You expect perfection when any other woman wouldn’t expect a damn thing from me. Just to be my woman would be enough for them. But that’s never been the case for you.”
“And it’ll never be the case for me,” Trina shot back defiantly. “What I look like settling for nothing because you put a ring on it? Man, you better get out of my face with that bullshit!”
“Why am I putting up with your bullshit is the question,” Reno said.
“Why?” He asked it as if he was agonizing over it.
“I can get any woman I want, and every single one of them will be at my beck and call day and night. But your ass don’t let me get away with shit.
Your ass keep my ass up nights! Why am I putting up with this when I don’t have to? What the fuck am I doing?”
Trina knew exactly what Reno meant. He had ladies lining up to be his woman.
All he had to do was dump her. Because then his life would be a piece of cake.
He could cheat on his woman. He could beat her ass.
He could do anything he was big enough to do to her and she’d stay right by his side.
And she’d do it because she would be Reno Gabrini’s girl.
She’d be the shit. But he had to dump Trina first. That was what he meant.
And that was the part that hurt her to her core.
And angered her. “Do what you gotta do then,” she fired back at him.
“What you waiting on? If I’m so extra, if I’m so demanding, then dump me!
Go ‘head on. Go get you some airheaded blonde who’ll tell you everything you wanna hear and won’t never hold your feet to the fire.
Go get her! What your ass waiting on? If I’m so horrible,” she said with pain in her voice, “why you still with me then?”
Reno could feel her pain and see the hurt in her enormous hazel eyes.
She’d never admit being so vulnerable because she was as stubborn as he was.
But he knew her vulnerability. He was her vulnerability.
Just as she was his. “I love your mean ass,” he blurted out to her. “That’s why I’m still with you.”
Trina was about to hurl some insult right back at him. Nobody was playing her for a chump! Until she realized he hadn’t insulted her at all. He didn’t exactly praise her, but he didn’t insult her. And that was enough to calm her back down.
But that didn’t mean she was going to take the pressure off of him. When it came to their children, she was never letting up. “I told Carmine to have a conversation with you and you’d better take enough time to listen to him too.”
Reno shook his head. “Do you ever let up, woman? We’re on that again?”
“Yes, we’re on that again. You crossed a line when you didn’t show up to his party, Reno. You didn’t show up. None of his friends showed up and you didn’t either.”
Reno was shocked to hear it. “None of them?”
“Not a one. You should have seen him. He was so heartbroken.”
“Damn,” said Reno. “What they got against Carmine?”
“His brains, what else? Nobody likes a regular genius, let alone a certified one. He’s a certified genius. He’s different. He just is.”
“He’s different alright,” said Reno. “With his knitting-loving, Florence Nightingale ass.”
Trina shook her head. “What does Florence Nightingale have to do with knitting, Reno?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re always comparing Carmine to that lady. And I wanna know why.”
When he didn’t respond, she shook her head. “You don’t even know who Florence Nightingale was. Do you, Reno?”
“What are you talking? I know what I know.”
Trina shook her head. “And I know what I know too,” she said disgustedly as she grabbed her purse and her phone. “I know I’m tired of you.” She stood up.
“What you doing? Where you going?”
“I’m going home.”
“But I just got here!”
“And I’ve been here for over an hour waiting on your butt.” Then she looked at him with a combination of love and hate. “Boy bye!” she said and began leaving.
“Trina wait. Tree? Tree?”
But Trina kept on walking until she was walking out of that restaurant.
When Reno looked away after she was out of sight, he saw a couple at another table glaring at him as if they couldn’t stand his Italian ass either.
At least that was how they looked to Reno.
And he lashed out. “What the fuck you staring at? You look like a couple of mouses and you have the nerve to be staring at me?”
They quickly looked away.
“What can I get for you to drink, sir?” a new waiter came over and asked as Reno was standing up.
“I’m leaving so now you wanna bring me a drink? Some establishment you got here.” He tossed a couple hundred on the table. “Tell Jody he needs to step it up. Hire better staff,” he added. And then he left.
The waiter was amazed that it was Reno Gabrini. His coworker didn’t tell him he was about to serve Reno Gabrini! That threw him. And for him to call the owner of the restaurant by his first name meant he knew him personally. That threw him too.
But he wasn’t so thrown that he couldn’t grab that two hundred dollars. Those drinks were only sixty. He got to keep the rest. It was the easiest money he ever made, he thought, as he hurried to tell his colleague.