Sal Gabrini 4: I'll Take You There (The Gabrini Men Series Book 7) (10 page)

CHAPTER TEN

Jimmy
Mack Gabrini sat on the sofa beside Valerie, his wife.
  
They were inside his father’s penthouse
waiting for the rest of the Gabrini family to get there.
 
They were trying to decide if this family
function would be the perfect time to tell their good news.
 
They, after all, just found out this
afternoon themselves.
 
Should they wait?
 
Was this the right time?

“Why
wouldn’t it be?”
 
Jimmy asked after Val
posed that question.
 
“We’re
married.
 
We’re legal.
 
We just found out ourselves.
 
Why would they object?”

“Your
father might think it’s too soon,” Valerie said.
 
She and Jimmy’s father Reno were on decent
terms, but she still feared him.

“Too
soon?” Jimmy asked.
 
“But
I’s married now
,” he said in a female’s
voice, as he quoted a famous line from
The
Color Purple
.
 

Valerie
hit him on the side of his ever-expanding bicep.
 
“Quit playing, boy.
 
I’m serious!”

“I’m
serious too.
 
It’s not too soon.
 
And if it was, that’ll be for us to say.
 
Not him.”

“You
sound like my dad.
 
I told him you
couldn’t have dinner with him tonight, and you know what he said to me?
 
He said good, there’s this woman he wanted to
spend time with anyway.
 
Here I was
feeling bad for him, and he’s already moving on.”

Jimmy
smiled.
 
“He told you to come with me
tonight?”

“Yep.
 
I told him it was a Gabrini family meeting.
He told me I was a Gabrini now.
 
Get my
ass over here too.”

Jimmy
laughed.
 
“I love your Dad!
 
He’s always right.”

The
doorbell rang.
 
“If you say so,” Valerie
said.

“I
say so,” he said, and was about to rise to answer the door.
 
But Trina Gabrini came into the living room
from the back of the penthouse, and headed for the door herself.

“I’ve
got it,” she said.
 
“I want you to be the
bartender tonight, Jimmy.”

“My
life’s ambition,” Jimmy said as he stood on up and headed for the bar in the
back of the room.
 
“You think of
everything, Ma.”

“Do
my best,” Trina said as she opened the door.
 
Then she smiled.
 
“Guys and Dolls,
come on in!”
 
Then she realized it was
Tommy Gabrini and his pregnant wife Grace at the door, and Gemma Jones with
them.
 
“Or should I say Guy and Dolls?”
she added as she looked beyond them.
 
“Where’s
Sal?”

“He’s
coming,” Gemma said as she and Grace entered first.
 
“His plane should land within the hour.”

“Why
couldn’t he ride the same plane as Tommy and Grace?”

“I’ve
got to fly on to Rome after this meeting.
 
He and Grace will fly back to Seattle.”

“Oh,
the life you jet-setting people live,” Trina said with a smile.
 

Gemma
headed toward Valerie, whom she had not seen in a while, as Trina hugged
Grace’s neck.
 
“Girl, you’re the only
woman I know who looks younger the older she gets,” she said.
 
“And given how Tommy treats you like a kid,
I’d bet he just loves it.”

“You’d
win that bet,” Tommy said with a smile as he and Trina kissed on the lips, and
then hugged.
 

Valerie
stood and hugged Gemma as she approached the sofa.
 
“So good to see you again, Val.
 
It’s been a while.
 
What have you been up to?”

“Working
hard.
 
Thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Gabrini
referring so many of their friends to us, my Dad’s real estate business has
exploded.
 
But he’s hired three more
realtors, so that should give me a little bit of a break.”

Gemma
looked over at Jimmy.
 
“What’s up, Jimmy
Mack?”

“Bartending,”
Jimmy responded, holding up an empty glass.
 
“Ma seems to be under the impression that I like serving you old folks.”

Gemma
laughed.
 
“Old my ass,” she said, as she
sat down on the sofa.

At
the front door, Trina was closing the door.
 
“How does it feel to be with child?” she asked Grace.

“Between
Tommy’s overprotectiveness, and Little Tomalina’s wild rambunctiousness,” she
added as she rubbed her stomach, “it’s been a trip.
 
But a loving trip.”

“What’s
so loving about it?” Reno Gabrini asked as he entered the living area from the
back rooms.
 
“I’ve made that
Seattle-to-Vegas run a thousand times.
 
Was nothing loving about it!
 
Hey
Grace.” He kissed Grace on the lips and then hugged her.
 
And then he and Tommy exchanged a warm
embrace.

“She
wasn’t talking about the flight, Reno,” Trina said.
 
“She was talking about being pregnant.”

“Oh,
right!” Reno said as he looked down at her stomach.
 
“You’re really showing.”

“Of
course she’s really showing,” Trina said.
 
“She’s really pregnant.
 
Or have
you forgotten that fast?
 
Sophia isn’t
that old!
 
And Grace, I heard you mention
Tomalina.
 
I hope you aren’t planning to
name your baby Tomalina.”

Grace
looked at her.
 
“What’s wrong with
Tomalina?”

“Nothing’s
wrong with it,” Trina admitted.
 
“But . .
. Well. . . You know.
 
It’s not exactly
the most creative name out there.”

Grace
laughed. “Just fooling!
 
We haven’t come
up with a name yet.
 
Tommy says it’s bad
luck.
 
He wants to wait until she gets
here.”

“What
are you guys having to drink?” Jimmy asked from across the room.

Tommy
smiled.
 
“What Jimbo, you’re the
bartender tonight?”

“You
know it, Uncle Tommy.
 
Mom and Dad won’t
let me relax to save their lives.”

Tommy
looked at Reno with a smirk on his attractive face.
 
“You have nearly a thousand people working
for you, and almost all of them are downstairs at this very hour.
 
From the lounges and restaurants, to the
casinos and this five-star hotel itself, you have all of this staff.
 
But you still won’t hire one of them to work
your parties.
 
Instead you work poor
Jimmy and Trina to death.
 
It’s a shame,
Ree.”

“Fuck
shame,” Reno said, with a smile of his own.
 
“I don’t want my employees all in my business.
 
They stay their asses right down there where
they’re supposed to be, and I’ll keep my ass right up here where I’m supposed
to be.”

“I
guess Trina is the chef tonight?”

“Damn
right,” Reno said assuredly.

“Not
really,” Trina said.

Reno
looked at her.
 
“What do you mean
not really
?”

“Chef
Paul will be serving us tonight.”

Reno
didn’t like it.
 
“But I thought I told
you I wanted a home cooked meal tonight.”

“And
you’ll get a home cooked meal,” Trina responded.
 
“Cooked at home by Chef Paul.”
 
Tommy and Grace laughed.
 
“My ass is just as tired as yours.”

“Tell
him, Tree!” Tommy said.

“Yeah,
right,” Reno said.
 
“Let Grace give you
lip like that.
 
You’ll be changing your
tune real fast.”

“Come
on and have a seat everybody,” Gemma said from the sofa.
 
“As soon as Sal gets here, I guess we’ll get
started.”

“Started
on what exactly?” Tommy asked.
 
“What’s
this meeting about?”

“I
don’t know what Sal wants to talk about,” Trina said, “but Gem and I have a
plan we want to run past you people.”

“Who
are you calling you people?” Tommy asked with a smile.

“Misinformation,”
Grace said as she and Tommy headed for the sofas.
 
“I thought this was Sal’s meeting.”

“It’s
that too,” Trina said.
 
“But since it’s
not every day we get this many Gabrinis in the same room at the same time, we
want to discuss our issue too.”

“Where’s
Aunt Fran?” Jimmy asked.
 
“She’s not
here.”

“She’s
got a new boyfriend,” Trina said.
 
“She
wants to be left alone.”

Jimmy
remembered all of the trouble Fran often ran into with those so-called
boyfriends of hers.
 
“Please don’t tell
me he lives in a trailer in a trailer park,” he said.

“Nope,”
Trina said.
 
“Wrong.
 
He doesn’t live in a trailer in a trailer
park this time.
 
He lives in an RV in a
trailer park this time.”

Jimmy
laughed. “That’s my aunt,” he said and they all sat down on the two facing
sofas and the two flanking chairs.
 
Jimmy
served alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks until everyone had something to
sip.
 
Gemma sat on the sofa beside Grace
and Tommy, and Reno and Tree sat on the opposite sofa beside Jimmy and
Val.
 
They laughed and talked and enjoyed
the evening.
 
It would be nearly two
hours later before Sal arrived.

“About
time,” Reno said as he opened the door.

“What
about time?” Sal asked, offended. “I’m on time, sucker!”

“Sure
you are.
 
And bears don’t bite.”

“Depends
on the bear,” Sal said with a smile as he entered the penthouse and headed for
the crowd.

Gemma
was so inwardly happy to see him that she wanted to run to him and throw
herself into his arms.
 
But she remained
where she sat.
 
She was not about to show
that level of emotion in front of all of these people.
 
Sal didn’t like it and she wasn’t comfortable
displaying it.
 
She stayed put.
 

And
she was pleased that she did.
 
Because
Sal, whom she knew thought of public shows of affection as a kind of weakness,
sat in one of the flanking chairs and barely glanced her way.
 
To the untrained eye he looked
super-serious.
 
To Gemma’s trained eye,
he looked tired.
 
Bone tired.
 
But she still wanted them to make the
announcement.
 
She still wanted them to
finally make their engagement public to the full family so they could get
serious about the planning process.

But
Jimmy and Val stole their show.
 
Before
Trina discussed what she and Gem wanted to discuss, Jimmy had an announcement.

Reno
looked at him suspiciously.
 
“What
announcement?” he asked.

Valerie
looked at Jimmy.
 
Jimmy smiled.
 
“You’re going to be a grandfather, Pop,” he
said.

Reno
and Trina both jumped from theirs seats.
 
“You’re pregnant?” Trina asked them excitedly.

“Yes!”
Valerie said even more excitedly.

“Already?”
Reno asked, but excited too.

And
everybody hugged Val and shook Jimmy’s hand.
 

Even
Sal, who was thrilled by the news.
 
“You’ll make a great father, Jimmy Mack,” he said.

“Really,
Uncle Sal?” Jimmy was always pleased to get his favorite relative’s support.

“Sure
you will!
 
Just watch how your old man
does it, and do the exact opposite.”
 
They all laughed.
 
“You can’t lose
that way!”

Eventually
the congratulations ceased, and it was Trina’s time to take the floor.
 
“As you guys know,” she said, “Gem and I, and
Liz Mertan of course, own Champagne’s, our very nice, very high-end clothing
store.”

“How’s
business, by the way?” Grace asked.