Tommy Gabrini: The Grace Factor Read Online Free PDF

  He was
beautiful.   Even Raj would admit
that.   And it was a deflating experience
for Raj.   Because now he knew.   If this runway model looking guy was Liz’s
type, he didn’t stand a chance.
    Liz smiled, stood up, and hurried
into Tommy’s arms as he approached.   Tommy swept her up, holding her, and then kissed her with all he
had.   He hadn’t seen her in nearly a
month.   He missed her.
    When they stopped kissing, and she
was able to pull back from him, she looked at him.   “What in the world are you doing here?”
    Tommy glanced at Raj, and then looked
back at Liz.   She looked tired, and
flustered.   Dark circles were beneath her
eyes.   “I came to see you,” he said.
    “But why?” Liz asked.   “I told you I was fine.”
    Tommy was offended by her cavalier
attitude.   “Fine in a war zone?” he
asked.   “I don’t think so.”
    “Well I know so,” Liz said, gathering
up her backpack and bottled water.   As
she hoisted it onto her back, she introduced the two men.   “Tommy, this is Raja, my photographer.   Raj, Tommy.”
    The two men shook hands.   “Nice to finally meet you, Tommy.”
    Arab guy.   Tall, thin.   Handsome in a rugged sort of way.   “Nice to meet you, too,” Tommy responded.
    Liz handed Tommy her hotel room’s
keycard.   “Here’s my room key,” she said
to him.   “I’ll be back as soon as I can
get back.”
    “You’ll be back?”   It was the middle of the night.   “What do you mean you’ll be back?   Where are you going?”
    “I’ve got an exclusive interview.”
    “Why can’t it wait until daybreak?”
    “It can’t wait,” Liz said.   “It’s an exclusive with an informant.   An ISIS informant.”
    Tommy couldn’t believe it.   “ ISIS ?”
he asked.   All he could think about were
the kidnappings and beheadings that organization were known for.   “Liz, are you out of your mind?”
    “It’s an exclusive, Tommy.”
    “Fuck that!   Let somebody else handle it.”
    “Liz, you’d better get going,” Raj
said.   He understood Tommy’s concern, but
he also understood how big a “get” Mamoof was.   “Adabi should be out there now.”
    Liz leaned over and kissed Tommy on
the cheek.   Tommy couldn’t believe
it.   It was almost as if the role had
reversed.   He was always the one giving
his ladies a nice little kiss on the cheek as he went away to handle grown-folks business.   Now she was kissing him?   She was leaving him?   He didn’t like the feeling.   He didn’t like this shit one bit.
    And when Liz turned to leave,
thinking her cute little kiss was going to be enough to appease him, Tommy took
her by the arm and pulled her back.   “Let
somebody else handle it,” he said firmly.
    Liz looked at him.   This was and would probably always be their
bone of contention.   “There is nobody
else,” she said to him.   “I’m the one he
agreed to meet with.   I’m the one who
worked my butt off to get this exclusive.   I have to handle it.”
    Then she tore away from Tommy, and
left.
    Raj watched Tommy as Liz walked
away.   But instead of showing the hurt
and embarrassment most any other man would have shown, all Raj saw in that
guy’s eyes was anger.   And not at all to
Raj’s surprise, Tommy walked out of the lounge, up to the front desk counter
inside the hotel’s lobby, and handed the desk clerk the key.   And then began heading toward the front exit.   Raj laughed.   A man like that, he knew, wasn’t used to playing second fiddle.   Especially when he was second, not to another
man, but to a career!
    “Good,” Raj found himself saying, his
head nodding.   “Those white Americans
think they rule the world.   Good,” he
said again, sat back at the bar, and drained down, with great satisfaction, the
last of his beer.       

 
    But outside, Liz was in a different
place, and satisfaction wasn’t a part of it.   She felt some kind of way about Tommy coming all this way