Free Tommy Gabrini 4: Dapper Tom Begin Again by Mallory Monroe Page A

do.   That’s what I would do.”  
    Sal
stepped up too.   “You’re out of line,
lady,” he said.
    “I don’t
think I’m out of line at all,” Liz shot back.
    “You
need to shut it,” Sal said.
    Liz
placed her hand on her hip.   “Make me,”
she said.
    “It’s
all right,” Chelsey said. “She didn’t say anything I wasn’t going to say
myself.”   Then Chelsey began heading up
the stairs.   “I’m getting out of here.”
    Liz
followed her up the stairs.   Tommy was
pleased with Liz for standing up for her friend, and Chelsey for standing up
for herself.    That’s right , he found himself saying to himself as they walked up
those stairs.   Don’t let anybody diminish your humanity !
    Gemma
broke away from Sal and followed Chelsey and Liz up those stairs, which pleased
Tommy too.   A man who would call his
daughter the names that man called Chelse, didn’t deserve her presence.   Gemma had to know that.   He was proud of her.
    Then
he looked at Cassie.   He knew she was
only fighting for her husband’s dignity, and she might have even agreed with a
lot of what he said.    But she loved her
daughter too.   Not nearly as much as she
loved Rodney apparently, but he could see the love.
    He
looked at Sal, who was standing there as if he was as lost as Cassie.   He saw the irony too.    Only people like he and Tommy had family
drama like this.   Rodney and Cassie
didn’t deal in this kind of dirt.   They
were the salt-of-the-earth as far as Tommy and Sal were concerned.   What was happening here?   It flipped the script on them and neither one
of them liked it.   Because they both
knew, from vast experience, that there was true trouble in paradise when even
salt could lose its’ flavor.
    “You
okay, Ma?” Sal asked his mother-in-law.   Sal wasn’t the touchy-feely type, and didn’t like to be put in this
position.   Tommy knew it too.   He went over to Cassie, and placed his arm
around her.
    “I’m
okay,” Cassie said with an attempt at a smile.   “Roddy and Chelse, they just don’t mix.   They’re both stubborn and set in their own ways and half the time I
can’t get a word in edgewise.   It can be
very unsettling.”
    “Certainly,”
Tommy said.   “But,” he added softly, as
if he was a man who truly knew how to comfort a woman, “it’s been my experience
that you have to let adults be adults.   You have to let them make, and also live by, their own decisions.”
    Cassie
looked up at him.   He always seemed like
such an easygoing, likeable man to her.   So
much so that she used to secretly wish Gemma had chosen him instead of
Sal.   Not that she didn’t find Sal
likeable.   She did.   She loved her son-in-law!   But where Sal was still rough around the
edges, Tommy was already smooth.
    But
then Chelsey and Liz came roaring back down the stairs, only this time Chelse
had her suitcase with her.   Gem was far
behind   them.
    Cassie
moved away from Tommy toward her charging daughter.   That smile that Tommy had suspected all along
was plastered on Chelsey’s face to get her through this day, was gone.   She was dead serious now.   Sal walked toward the stairs too when she saw
Gemma, who was hurrying down behind her sister, looking anguished too.
    “You
can’t just leave, Chelse,” Gemma was insisting.
    “Watch
me,” Chelsey said defiantly.   She
inadvertently brushed against Tommy as she hugged Cassie’s neck, and kissed her
on the cheek.   “I’ll call you, Ma,” she
said.
    “But
what plane are you going to catch?” Gemma asked.   “You weren’t leaving tonight.”
    “I’ll
stay in a hotel until tomorrow,” Chelsey said firmly.   “I’ve got to get out of here .”   Then she actually looked at Gemma.   She saw the distress in her sister’s eyes.   She went over to her.   “I know you mean well, Gem, I know you
do.   But I made a mistake coming
here.   I shouldn’t have come.   I should have stayed away.   But I