Page 58 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
“Like what?” Grace asked.
Tommy wrapped his arms around her naked body tighter, as if he needed to feel her staying with him. “Like the fact that she knew that Junior’s nickname was TJ when the media always referred to him as Tommy Gabrini, Junior, or Thomas.”
“You think she’s been stalking us?”
Tommy shook his head. “No. I don’t know, Grace. But that’s why we’re taking no chances. Is she the type? No. Not at all. But like I said, I haven’t seen her in a long time. I don’t know her like I used to know her.”
Grace was no idiot. She could hear a fondness for this woman in Tommy’s voice, even if it was a past fondness. And she decided to go there. “Were you still seeing her after you started dating me?”
“No,” Tommy said truthfully. Although he knew it wasn’t the full truth.
And Grace sensed that too. “You broke it off?” she asked him.
He knew then he had to come clean. “I didn’t meet with her face to face the way I did the other ladies in my life, no. But I ghosted her. I stop returning her phone calls. I stop all communication with her.”
“And you never heard from her again until today?”
“Yes,” he said. “Although,” he added.
Grace knew there was more. Tommy could never hide something without discomfort on his face. “Although what?” she asked him.
“Although, in the early days while we were dating, I did attempt to phone her a few times. But she ghosted me.”
Grace stared at him. “Why would you try to call her if you were committed to me?”
It’s just something that happened, he wanted to say. But he knew Grace deserved better than that. “I guess a part of me didn’t want to lose her if we didn’t work out. She was my just in case.”
Grace was hurt by that news. It meant, to her, that a part of Tommy wasn’t sure if she was good enough for him. Which was what everybody was telling him at the time, and in many ways were still telling him. And the truth of it did something to Grace.
She got off of him, forcing his penis out of her, and began to head for the bathroom. But Tommy grabbed her arm. “Gracewait,” he said. But she snatched away from his grasp and kept on walking. “Grace?” he called after her.
When she slammed the bathroom door shut, he looked up at the ceiling. He felt like an asshole for even mentioning her name. As if Grace didn’t have enough to worry about.
And inside that bathroom, after Grace slammed the door, she slid down that door until she was sitting on the floor. And she covered her face as silent tears dropped from her large, clear eyes. She knew it was irrational. She knew it happened a long, long time ago. And besides that, he married her, not Vera Lang.
But the fact that he wanted to keep that woman in the bag as a just in case really hurt her. She couldn’t deny that it painful to hear. It went to everything she feared most about her relationship with Tommy: That someday he was going to agree with the vast majority of people and decide that he, too, believed that he could do much better than her. And that he should have stayed divorced from her while he had the chance.
Grace was a self-confident woman who knew she had many strong and admirable attributes. But Tommy was the grand prize. Somebody like her wasn’t supposed to win the top guy that so many other women would have killed to win. And she was questioning once again why did that kind of fortune come to her.
But as quickly as she stewed in her own pain, she knew she had to snap out of it. Her children needed her. The family needed her. Tommy needed her.
She stood back up, went to the sink and threw some water on her face, and was about to turn on the shower to take another bath when she heard knocks on their door. Did they have some news?
When Tommy got out to unlock it, she peep through the bathroom door. It was Sal.
“We picked up Vera.”
“Why?”
“Get this: She was about to board a flight to Mexico,” Sal said.
Grace could see Tommy inhale. He knew that was big news. “Where is she now?”
“I ordered Robby to bring her here,” Sal said.
That surprised even Grace. “Here?” asked Tommy.
“After what happened with Barbell Barry, I don’t know how safe these safe houses are anymore. And I don’t think we need to be finding out right about now when we need answers.”
