Reno still had her in his embrace, and he held her tightly.  As the sobs subsided, and after several more minutes, he spoke.  “What happened to Dominic, babe?” he asked her.

Trina moved slightly back and wiped her eyes.  “He jumped out of a tree,” she said.

“What tree?  A big tree?”

“That big oak tree in CiCi’s backyard.”

“Shit!”  Reno looked at Dommi.  “Is his ass crazy?”

“He’s fearless, Reno.  Like his father.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t reckless with my shit.  His ass reckless.”

As soon as Reno used that word, reckless, it struck both of them and they looked into each other’s eyes.  And what Trina’s eyes were saying were undeniable.  “You’re right.  Dominic is reckless.  But guess who he got it from?”

“He didn’t get that shit from me, I don’t care what you say.  Not that shit!”

“Where were you, Reno?” Trina asked him.

“I had to take care of some business,” he said.  “I left my cellphone at the office and didn’t even think about it until I got back.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Where were you?”

Reno stared at her.  He knew she was upset, and she had every right to be, but she didn’t have every right to cast doubt on what he’d just told her.  “I was handling my business.  I just told you that.”

“Where, Reno?”

Reno frowned.  “What difference does that make?”

Trina stared at him.  And reality hit her like a sledgehammer.  Even in the midst of their crisis, where she just tried to beat his ass, he was the same old Reno.  This man wasn’t ever going to change.  No matter how badly she wanted to will it so, she realized now that it wasn’t going to happen.  Reno was the same yesterday, today, and was going to be the same forever.  He didn’t like to be challenged.  He didn’t like to be questioned.  He did his own thing and to hell with everybody else.  That was Reno.  That wasn’t going to change.  What Trina realized she had to decide, was if she could continue on that same unchanging path with him.  It was working just fine for Reno.  She wasn’t so sure if it was still working for her.

But before she could respond verbally, the door to Dommi’s hospital room opened unexpectedly.  When Trina saw that it was her friends, Kamala, Fiona, and Cyntel, she removed herself from Reno’s embrace and turned her back and moved slightly away.  She was drying her eyes with the handkerchief Reno had given to her.

“Oh, Reno, you’re here,” Kamala said as they walked in.  “How are you?”

Great, Reno thought.  Trina’s guardians had arrived.  The women who felt she needed protection from him.  Her prison guards, as he called them.  “I’m alright, Kam, how are you?”

“I’m good.”

“Hey Tree,” Cyntel said, waiting for her to turn around.  “Jimmy came and picked up the children.  So I decided to come over and make sure you were okay.  Kam and Fee decided to come with me.”

“But we didn’t expect to see you here,” Fiona said to Reno.

“I don’t see why not,” Reno responded.  “My son’s in the hospital.  Why wouldn’t I come?”

“It’s just that we were here earlier,” Fiona said, “and you were not.”

It sounded so accusatory that even Trina thought it had gone too far.   She loved her girls.  They were true friends.  But she didn’t love them all up in her business like that.  She turned around, hopeful that she had dried all her tears.

But Cyntel immediately saw the pain in her big, beautiful eyes.  “You alright, Tree?” she asked her.

“Yeah, I’m okay.  Thanks.”

All three women looked at Reno with accusatory looks.  Reno frowned.  “What?” he asked.

“You aren’t going to like this,” Kamala said, “and Tree isn’t going to like me saying it, but you need to treat her better.”

“Amen,” Fiona said.

“You need to leave those hoes you be running around with alone--” Kamala started saying, but Trina interrupted her.

“Okay, that’s enough, Kam,” she said.

Kam frowned.  “Why do you let him get away with this, Trina?”

“A beautiful woman like you,” Fiona added.

“You don’t have to put up with this shit!” added Cyntel.

“I said that’s enough!” Trina said loudly.  Then she glanced back at Dommi, to make sure she hadn’t awakened him.  He had been given pain medicine.  An earthquake, the doctor had said, wasn’t going to wake him.

“He’s running around on you,” Cyntel said, “and that’s okay with you?”

“He’s not running around on me,” Trina responded.  “That’s not what’s going on.”

“You defend a cheater,” Fiona said.  “You of all people.  Our leader.  The strongest one of us.  Defending a dirty dog like Reno.  I never thought I’d see the day.”

Reno couldn’t believe these women.  He was ready to cuss all their asses out.  But then he looked at Trina.  And her pain was palpable.  He held his tongue.

Trina was not only in pain, she felt as if she had stumbled into the twilight zone.  It was tough enough, and now her friends were piling on, too.  “Reno is not cheating on me.”

“Trina, stop it,” Kamala said.  “Just stop it, okay?  I know you hear the same rumors we hear.  I know you do.  There’s no way in hell all of that can be untrue!”

“Well, it is untrue,” Trina said with a frown.  “Reno is not cheating on me, I don’t care what those heifers out there are saying.”

“Then you’re crying why?” Fiona asked.  “We saw those tears in your eyes when we walked in here.  And it can’t be because of Dommi, because you know he’s just fine.  We didn’t come back here because we were worried about Dommi.  We came because we didn’t want you to be alone.  Especially since your husband never seems to care about that little fact.  So why were you crying?  It’s not about Dommi.  Why were you crying, Tree?”

“Because she knows his ass a cheater,” Kamala said.

“Okay, ladies,” Trina said.  She’d had her full.  “That’s it.  I appreciate that you guys came by to check on me, but it’s time to go.”

“Why?” Cyntel asked.  “Because we’re telling you the truth?”

“Because you’re piling on.”

Cyntel was shocked.  “We’re piling on?”

“Yes!” Trina responded.

“We’re piling on with what, Trina?” Fiona, surprised as well, asked her.  “With truth?”

“You’re piling on with shit that don’t have shit to do with shit!”  Trina was angry now.  “My husband and I are having problems.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.  But it has nothing to do with those women out there lying about being with him.  Absolutely nothing.  And guess what else?  It has nothing to do with any of you.  I’m sorry, but it doesn’t.  I love y’all, but you’re going to have to go.  Reno and I are not going to be your gossip material tonight.”

Reno could tell the women didn’t like it.  They didn’t feel he deserved Trina’s loyalty like that. But they left.

Reno smiled after they left.  “That’s how you handle a bitch,” he said.

Then he looked at Trina.  He might have felt triumphant.  He might have felt as if they told them.  But Trina didn’t look triumphant at all.  She didn’t look as if she told anybody anything.  She just looked hurt.  And it broke his heart.  “Oh, Tree,” he said, and went to her.  He pulled her into his arms.

Trina allowed it.  Because she loved him.  But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

 

The next morning, after Reno and Trina spent the night in the hospital room with him, Dommi was released.  He sat in the middle of the backseat, while Reno drove and Trina sat on the passenger seat, talking his head off.  Reno and Trina couldn’t get a word in edgewise, he was talking so much.  But they let him have the floor.  It was a sign that he was just fine.  But then Reno put his foot down.

“No video games,” he said, “and no friends over for a month.”

Dommi looked at his father as if he had lost his mind.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I said.  No video games, and no--”

“But Daddy!  How can you even fix your lips to punish me?  I nearly died in that backyard!”

Trina smiled, but she didn’t let Dommi see her.

“I could have been roadkill in that backyard if I would have fallen the wrong way.”

“You heard what I said.   No video games--”

“But Dad!”  Then he looked at Trina.  He was mortified.  “But Mom!” he said.

“Don’t you dare but Mom me!  You heard what your father said.  No video games and no friends for a month.  And if you violate those rules, we’ll add another month.”

“No, Tree,” Reno said.  “Two months for his slick ass.”

Trina nodded.  “Two months.”

“This ain’t right!” Dommi cried.  “This some cold shit y’all doing to me!”

Reno looked angrily through the mirror at his son, and Trina turned angrily toward him.  “You watch your tongue, boy!” she said.

“But how can you punish me like that?  I almost died!”

“That’s what you get for jumping out of a tree like some damn fool,” Trina said.  “You should have known you could have died.  Anybody else would have.”

But Dommi couldn’t believe it.  He knew they would be disappointed in him.  But he never dreamed they’d be this upset.  Especially when he got injured.  But he held his peace.  When his parents were a united front, he knew he didn’t stand a chance.  But no video games for a month?  Were they on dope or something?  He knew that wasn’t going to work.  Video games were   everything!  He, instead, stopped trying to change their minds, which he knew was impossible, and began thinking how in the world was he going to break the rules, and get away with it.  He could get it pass his father, since he was rarely around lately.  It was his mother he had to fool.  And she was a tough cookie to fool.

But when his father pulled up under the portico at the PaLargio, and the valets jumped to attention like the flunkies Dommi took them for because it was his mother and father driving up, he relaxed.  Making them angrier wasn’t going to get him anything but further punishment.  He decided to be understanding.

“I’ll accept my punishment like a man,” he said, and got out of the car.

Reno and Trina looked at each other.  “He’s scheming,” Trina said.

“Like a motherfuck,” Reno said.  Then he looked at Trina.  And exhaled.  “I want to apologize for not being there last night.  I was wrong.”

Trina’s head was rested on the headrest.  She turned toward Reno.

“I should have been there.  You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone.  I’m sorry.”

Reno reached out his hand.  Trina held it.  Then Reno leaned over, and despite the eyes of his employees all over them, kissed her on the lips.  Long and lovingly.  When he opened back up his eyes, his look was hooded.  “What you say we carry ourselves upstairs,” he said, “and get in the tub.  I want to rub all of that hospital off of us, and rub you.”

Trina smiled.  “That’s all?  Just rub me?”

Reno smiled.  “Rub and eat and fuck the shit out of you,” he said.

Trina laughed, but her vagina was jumping for the chance.

“Sounds good?” he asked her.

“Sounds great,” she said.

And just like that, as the valets opened their respective doors, and they got out of Reno’s Porsche, Reno and Trina were as one again.  That was one main reason she never wanted her friends to interfere.  They didn’t understand the depths of their love.  They didn’t understand the relationship.  They could want to beat each other’s ass one minute, and want to fuck it the next.  Their relationship was too complicated for interference.  Although, Trina also knew as Reno placed his hand around her waist and escorted her, with Dommi in front of them, inside the PaLargio, that they were still a long, long way from acceptable.