Romancing Sal Gabrini 2: A Woman's Touch by Mallory Monroe Page B

because she’s so dark-skinned?”
    “Because
she wasn’t blonde and blue-eyed.   That
was what Pop claimed was beautiful and desirable, and that’s pretty much all I
wanted.”
    “Not
me,” Reno boasted.   “Beauty comes in all
colors, shapes and sizes, and I had enough sense to know that.”
    “Yeah,
Reno, you’re Mister Perfect, everybody knows that.”
    “Nobody
don’t know shit!   I’m just telling you
how it was with me, and how short-sighted it was with you.   Don’t shoot the messenger.”
    Sal
knew he had to accept that criticism.   He
drank more wine.
    Reno
sipped more wine too, checked out the crowd, but then he looked at Sal
again.   “What changed?” he asked him.
    “What?”
    “Your
views about Gemma.   What changed?”
    Sal
exhaled.   “I went to see her while she
was in Seattle.   And when she walked into
that lobby of that hotel, and I took a good look at her, my heart began to
pound, Reno.   Can you imagine that?   She was the most beautiful, the most elegant,
the most everything woman I had ever seen.”
    “Which
is what I saw when I first saw her,” Reno said.   “What changed in you?   How did she
go from possibly the ugliest woman you’d ever seen, to the most beautiful?”
    “Because
I looked at her , that’s what I’m
telling you.   I looked at her .   I got blonde and blue eyes off of my brain and looked at Gemma
Jones.   At her small, round face, and her
black skin, and her short hair, and her full lips, and her remarkable smile.”
    “And
her remarkable body,” Reno said, “don’t forget that.”
    But
Sal nodded his head.   “I didn’t have to
even look at her body.   Her face had
me.   Her body?   Gravy.”
    “Yeah,
right,” Reno said doubtfully.   “Gravy my
ass.”
    But
Sal was serious.   “It was gravy, what are
you talking?   Her body was nothing more
than gravy to me.”
    “If
that body of Gemma Jones is gravy to you,” Reno said, refusing to back down,
“I’ll bet you’ve been sopping it up dry since your plane touched down.”
    Sal
had to smile on that one.  
    “I’ll
bet you’re down to the bone of that meat,” Reno added, and Sal laughed out
loud.
    “Fuck
you, Reno,” he said, but this time far more affectionately.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
    EIGHT

 
    Sal
and Reno remained in the club, laughing and talking and waiting for their
ladies to return from the restrooms, until the very image of the kind of woman that
used to be the object of Sal’s affections, a blue-eyed blonde bombshell, walked
pass their VIP section.   She gave Sal one
of those I see you looks, and Sal,
also, noticed her as she walked pass.   He
didn’t realize Reno had seen him, but he had.
    “Don’t
worry,” Reno said.   “It gets easier.”
    Sal
looked at him.   “What gets easier?”
    “Wondering
if the grass is greener on the other side.   With other women.   Wanting your
cake and eating it too.    It gets
easier.”
    Reno
had it all wrong, but Sal had too much on his mind to try and school him.   He, instead, leaned back and listened to the
band.  
    When
Trina and Gemma finally returned to their couch, the conversation, such as it
had been, shifted.   The blonde Sal had
eyeballed was lost in the crowd, and the music also changed.   It went from slower, melodic jazz, to Herbie
Hancock’s Rockit , a kind of
techno-funk, upbeat jazz.   When the band
started playing Rockit , with its hip
synthesizers and its rollicking dance beat, the place started jamming for
real.   Many more people hit the
floor.   Including Gemma.
    “Come
on, Sal,” she said, without giving him an option, as she stood up, took his
hand, and pulled him out onto the dance floor too.  
    “Good
luck with that!” Reno yelled, knowing for certain that Sal and dance could not
possibly mix.
    But
to Reno and Trina’s surprise, Sal did not buck the call.   He went out on the dance floor with Gemma and
actually danced.   To their shock,