Reno and Son: Don't Mess with Jim (The Mob Boss Series) (13 page)

And the conversation continued on that
superficial path even after they ordered drinks and placed their dinner orders,
even after their dinners arrived.
 
Reno,
Trina, and Jimmy had a scrumptious seafood tray, while Val had a salad.

Reno looked at her plate when it arrived,
and then looked at her.
 
“What are you on
some sort of diet?”

“No, sir, I actually like salads.”

Reno was amazed.
 
“You like salads?
 
Who the fuck likes salads?
 
It’s just a bunch of roughage.” Jimmy gave
his father an angry look, and Trina knocked Reno’s knee beneath the table.
 
“But if that’s what you like,” Reno added,
realizing his lack of tact, “then good for you.”

Val smiled, but kept on eating.

“So what’s up with you two?” Trina asked
them.
  
“Set a date yet?”

“No,” Jimmy said, amazed that Trina would
go there.

“It’s been almost two years, hasn’t
it?”
 

“Almost a year-and-a-half,” Val said.

“So what are you waiting on, Jimmy?” Reno
asked.
 
“Retirement?
 
Waiting for your Medicare to kick in?”

Val laughed.
 
Jimmy smiled too.
 
“Medicare?
 
No you are not talking to me about Medicare.
 
You sweep around your own front door, old
man, before you try to sweep around mine.”
 
Trina and Val broke into laughter.

“Okay,” Reno said, nodding his head and
smiling.
 
“You got me that time.
 
You got me that time.”

“Moving right along,” Trina said.

“Yeah, let’s move it on,” Reno said and,
since his mouth seemed to be getting him in worlds of trouble tonight, he
concentrated more on eating.
 

“I thought, after dinner,” Jimmy said,
“we’d do something Val wanted to do.”

Reno glanced at Jimmy.
 
What after dinner?
 
Didn’t he realize it was a great sacrifice for
him to leave work and come to this dinner at all?

But Jimmy didn’t relent.
 
He ignored his father’s stare.
 
“So, Val,” he asked, “anything special you
would like to do?”

Val hadn’t expected that kind of attention,
where it would be all about her.
 
She was
pleased.
 
“Well,” she said, thinking
about the question, “there’s a few things probably.”

“Name one?”

“I would love to go bowling sometime.
 
I’ve never been bowling before.”

“You’ve never bowled?” Trina asked her,
surprised.

“Never.”

“Me either,” Jimmy said, and Trina was
equally surprised.
 

“Well let’s do it,” Trina said.
 
“You guys are missing out.”

Val smiled.
 
“Okay.
 
When?”

“What do you mean when?” Trina asked.
 
“After we eat.
 
We’ll go after we leave here.”

Val and Jimmy both looked at Reno, expecting
an objection.
 
Trina, however, wasn’t
thinking about Reno.
 
He’d do as he was
told this night.
 
This was Val’s night,
and she was going to make sure he understood that.

“It’s settled then,” she said, and ate
heartily.

After dinner, however, was dancing
time.
 
Val and Jimmy hit the dance floor,
while Reno and Trina both had their phones out answering text messages and
checking their emails.
 
When Val and
Jimmy returned, Val was still amped-up.

“Let’s go again,” she said to Jimmy.

“Again?”

“Yeah.
 
It’s fun.”

Jimmy shook his head.
 
“It’s not that much fun.
 
I’m exhausted, Val.”

Val was disappointed.
 
Reno could see it.
 
That knuckleheaded boy of his couldn’t, but
he could.
 
And although he was tired too,
he asked anyway.
 
“You wanna dance, young
lady?”

Val looked at Reno and smiled grandly.
 
“I really do, yes, sir.”

Reno smiled and stood up, extending his
hand.
 
“Then let’s do it,” he said.

Val hit Jimmy so that he could let her out
of their booth seat, and then she took Reno’s hand and allowed him to escort
her onto the dance floor.
 
The song,
however, was no longer that upbeat tune she and Jimmy had danced to, but was
nice and slow.
 
Reunited (And It Feels So Good
) by Peaches and Herb.
 
Reno ended up pulling her into his arms and
slow-dancing with her.

At the table, Jimmy watched in silence as
his girl and his Dad danced.
 
Then he
watched Trina.
 
Trina was still checking
her messages.
 
When she glanced up, Jimmy
was staring at her.

She looked puzzled.
 
“What?”

“How do you put up with it?”

“Put up with what?”

“With Dad.”

Trina looked out on the dance floor, saw
Reno dancing with Val, and then she looked back at her stepson.
 
“Jimmy, what are you talking about?”

“How do you put up with it?
 
The way he acts around women.”

Trina frowned.
 
“What women?”

“What women?
 
Val, for instance.”

Trina stared at him.
 
She knew better than this.
 
Then she sat her phone on the table.
 
“Okay,” she said and leaned toward him.
 
“It’s on you, James.
 
Nobody else.
 
It’s on you.”

Now Jimmy was puzzled.
 
“What’s on me?”

“Your insecurity.
 
That isn’t Val’s fault.
 
That isn’t my fault.
 
And it sure isn’t Reno’s.
 
He’s dancing with Val because you wouldn’t,
and she wants to dance.”

“So what you’re saying is that you don’t
think he finds her attractive then.”

“Of course he finds her attractive,” Trina
said.
 
“And you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because she is attractive!”

“That doesn’t bother you though?”

“The fact that she’s attractive?”

“The fact that your husband finds her
attractive?”

“No,” Trina said.
 
“It can’t bother me.
 
I married an extremely handsome, virile man,
Jimmy.
 
He likes the ladies and women
will always be after him.
 
You’re in love
with a very pretty girl.
 
Guys are going
to always be after her.”

But such logic didn’t ease Jimmy’s concerns
at all.
 
“So what am I supposed to do
about that?”

“Know your worth, that’s what you do about
it.
 
If she’s good enough for you, then
you’d better know that you’re good enough for her.
 
If you don’t think you measure up, then get
out now.
 
Get out while the getting’s
good.
 
Because I’m telling you son, your
insecurity will run her away just as sure as I’m sitting here.
 
You’ll lose her anyway.”

Jimmy stared at Trina.
 
Then he looked at Val.
 
Reno was holding her close, as the song
required closeness, and he had his hand on the small of her back.
 
It wasn’t slick, or sensual, or out of the
ordinary at all.
 
But Jimmy still didn’t
like it.
 
“But. . .,” he said, his
distress coming through in his voice.

“What?” Trina asked.

“It bothers me to see a man dancing with
her like that.”

“Then get up off of your narrow behind,”
Trina said, “and go dance with her yourself.
 
Stop acting like some old man, Jimmy.
 
You’re young.
 
Act like it.”

Jimmy hesitated again, but not for
long.
 
He knew his stepmother spoke the
truth.
 
He stood up, went up to the twosome,
and tapped his father on the shoulder.
 
Val was, by now, resting her head on Reno’s shoulder and truly enjoying
the relaxation of the dance, when Jimmy interrupted them.

But she smiled at the interruption, and
gladly allowed Reno to turn her over to Jimmy.

Reno leaned toward his son.
 
“About time,” he whispered to him, and
left.
 
Val smiled.
 
She’d heard what he said.

Reno returned to the table exhausted.
 
It had been a slow dance, but that didn’t
mean it didn’t drain the little energy he did have left.
 
He sighed relief when he sat back down next
to Trina.
 
“Wanna dance?”

Trina smiled.
 
“Yeh,” she said.
 
“Thought you’d never ask.”

Reno smiled.
 
“I’m just kidding.”

“But I’m not,” Trina said.
 
“Let’s go.”

“Tree.”

“What?”

“I was kidding.
 
I’m too tired.”

“Oh, hell no,” Trina said seriously.
 
“You can dance with somebody else’s woman,
but you’re too tired to dance with your woman?
 
Don’t even try that, Reno.”

“Try what?” Reno asked.
 
“I’m tired,” he added, impressing upon her
his sincerity.

“Then fine.
 
Let me out.”

“Let you out for what?”

“So I can dance.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.
 
Let me out.”

Reno knew better than this.
 
But he stood up anyway and watched her slide
across the booth seat.
 
Then she headed
for the dance floor.
 
Alone.

Reno sat back down and watched her do her
thing.
 
She was good, he had to admit, as
the music picked up.
 
This time it was
Chaka Khan singing
I’m Every Woman
.
 
And Trina had moves.
 
She was dancing as if she wasn’t in her
thirties, but much younger than that.
 
And Reno actually was beginning to enjoy the view.
 
Until some young doofus made it by her side,
and started dancing with her.
 
And they
were pretty good together, Reno had to admit, and he had Trina laughing too.

So Reno remained seated, and let her have
her good time, because he wasn’t kidding when he said he was tired.
 
But then the song changed, from Chaka Khan’s
upbeat tune to Rod Stewart’s sensually slow
Tonight’s
the Night
, and Trina and the young man started slow-dancing.

Reno tried to overlook their closeness.
 
He tried with everything within him.
 
But it didn’t work.
 
Within seconds he was up, with his entire
demeanor now bespeaking a man who wasn’t trying to fuck around.
 
He walked onto the dance floor, tapped the
young man on his shoulder, and then took possession of his wife.
 
The young man thought it was kind of rude,
since Reno didn’t ask if he could take over, he just barged on in, but the
young man also had some sense.
 
The guy
looked like he could be a for real menace to society, and the woman seemed pleased
to be in the guy’s arms.
 
So the young
man didn’t protest and moved on, and quickly found another single to dance
with.

 
Jimmy had watched the entire scene as he
continued to dance with Val.
 
He knew, as
soon as that man first started dancing with Trina, that Reno wouldn’t go for
that.
 
Because that was how he was.
 
The hypocrite of hypocrites.
 
He could dance all cozy with Val, but let
somebody try to get cozy with Trina.
 
So
Jimmy, just to be mean, danced over by his parents. He leaned toward his father.
 
“About time,” he whispered to Reno, and Reno
couldn’t help but laugh.

After dinner and dancing, and in their two
separate cars, they all made their way to the bowling alley.
 
Jimmy and Val drove behind the Porsche, and
were laughing and recalling all of what they considered was the wonderful
moments of the night.
 
Jimmy, especially,
was elated.
 
It felt as if he and Val
were back on the same page.
 
He was
grateful.