Camilla + Tommaso
“Hey, uh, boss. Could I chat with you for a minute?”
The unfamiliar voice made Calisto look up from the paperwork on his desk. It wasn’t often he chose to work outside of his home, but sometimes a change of venue was a good thing. It kept him on his toes.
He expected to see one of the restaurant workers in the doorway, but that was not who he found.
“Tommaso,” Calisto said, surprised to see the twenty-one year old Chicago Outfit principe standing in his business. “I heard you were in town.”
“Dad thought I needed a break.”
“We all do occasionally. How is your father?”
“He’s Tommas Rossi. How do you think?”
Calisto laughed. “As thick-headed and stubborn as ever, then.”
“He can be. So do you have that minute, or …?”
“Come on in. Close the door.”
Tommaso did as he was told, and Calisto took the moment he had to give the young man another once-over. It had been two years since the last time he had seen Tommaso. Calisto had been on a business trip to Chicago, and Tommaso was celebrating his nineteenth birthday.
As far as Calisto knew, Tommaso had made friends with the Marcello family in New York while traveling with his father, a boss of another criminal organization. And since Calisto’s son, Cross, often hung around with Andino Marcello, he and Tommaso had struck up a friendship as well.
Calisto never stepped in to stop Cross from making friends, connections, or allies within other families and organizations. It would only benefit his son in the future to have those contacts should he need them.
Cross made those friendships organically—without help—which Calisto considered another benefit to his son’s disarming charm.
But, Tommaso didn’t have a lot of connection to Calisto. Certainly not enough to be seeking him out for a private conversation at a restaurant without some kind of prior notice.
“Cross told me where I could find you today,” Tommaso said as he took a seat across from the desk.
“I wondered how you found me. Now, I’m more curious as to why.”
Tommaso smiled, but there was still a nervous aura surrounding the young man. Like the way he shifted in the chair, kept his hands stuffed in his pockets, or wouldn’t meet Calisto’s gaze for too long.
“Shit,” Calisto said. “Please don’t tell me you killed one of my guys, or some nonsense like that.”
That broke the tension long enough for Tommaso to laugh, and lean back in the chair. It didn’t last for too long, though. Just as quickly, Tommaso sobered and straightened fully. “No, nothing like that. But you know, depending on how this goes, make sure to tell my mother that I love her, and all that good shit.”
Calisto’s brow furrowed, and he decided it was time to stop messing around. He put away his papers, shut down his laptop, and gave Tommaso his full attention.
“All right,” Calisto said, “give me the bad news, whatever it is.”
“Not that, either.” Tommaso sighed. “It’s just … I’m not used to needing to approach a girl’s father, you know? I don’t normally have to do that being who I am, and who my father is. Except you’re not like other men, you’re like my father, but here, in New York. And if someone approached my sister before they went to Tommas—”
“Back the fuck up,” Calisto interrupted.
Tommaso glanced up. “Huh?”
“This is about Camilla?” Calisto asked, confused. “You’re here about my daughter?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Well, don’t fucking pose it as a question, now. Either you are, or you are not. Which one is it?”
Tommaso cleared his throat. “I am.”
Well.
Huh.
Calisto felt about as shocked as Tommaso looked in that moment. He certainly understood why the young man felt so shook up, however …
“Sorry, but you just came here for nothing, Tommaso.”
“Pardon?”
“You wasted your time,” Calisto clarified, “especially coming to me.”
“That has got to be the fastest rejection—”
“No.” Calisto rubbed a spot on his forehead where tension was beginning to irritate him. “I mean, I take it you’re here to ask me if you can take my daughter out, and you don’t need to ask me at all. I don’t make those choices for Cam, I never have. Neither does her mother. She’s nineteen, smart as fuck, too; so she is more than capable of saying whether or not she’s interested in someone.”
Tommaso rested back in his chair. “But you’re …”
“For Camilla? I’m just her dad. And I love her very much. So, should something happen between the two of you that displeases me because it displeases her, then you can safely assume we will revisit this conversation.”
Calisto smiled, adding, “But until then, Tommaso, the rest is up to, and has always been up to, my daughter.”
“Okay.”
Calisto waved at his office door, dismissing his guest. “So, have a nice day, and enjoy your visit. If it helps with Cam, she likes action movies, pretty cars, and dancing.”
But Calisto didn’t know if that would help Tommaso all that much. Camilla was different than other girls her age.
Different and difficult and wonderful.
She didn’t make time for boys, not in any serious manner. She almost saw them as commodities in her life. Once she was bored, she moved on. Calisto wasn’t sure if that was because Camilla had yet to meet the right guy, or she wasn’t all that interested in meeting him at all.
Nonetheless, Calisto’s position remained the same.
It would always be his daughter’s choice.
He had no say.
With a quick goodbye, Tommaso was gone from Calisto’s office, leaving him alone to his work and thoughts once again. He let out a breath, wondering how he wanted—or should—feel regarding what just happened.
He didn’t entirely know.
He supposed it was all on Tommaso, now.
Calisto wished him luck.
“Emma!”
“Hmm?”
His wife barely reacted to his sharp whisper. Calisto was trying to be discreet, but his distracted wife was not helping the situation. Emma bounced from one thing to the other in the kitchen, doing what she did best.
“Emma!” Calisto whisper-hissed again.
“What, Cal? Can’t you see that I’m busy?”
Finally, his wife glanced up at him, her gaze narrowed. Now, usually, Calisto would take that as a clear sign of Emma’s irritation with him and book it the hell out of there as fast as he could. He couldn’t do that this time.
“Someone is here,” Calisto said from the kitchen entryway.
Emma simply stared at him like he had grown a second head. “We’re having a dinner. Yes, people are coming over.”
Calisto shook his head. “No.”
“Well, it’s a bit late for you to be refusing now. People are already here, or so you said.”
He had the strangest urge to smack his head against the nearest wall. “Emma, listen to me for five seconds.”
“I am. You’re the one acting like a bee crawled up your ass or something.”
“Someone is here,” Calisto repeated, this time adding, “with Camilla.”
Emma instantly stopped what she was doing. “What?”
“Yes, that’s what I said.”
“But—”
Calisto heard two distinct sets of footsteps approaching from behind; one familiar, and the other, not so much. He gave his wife a look, and then stepped aside as the two people came closer.
Camilla walked into the kitchen with a wide smile. Tommaso Rossi followed right behind her. Calisto’s gaze dropped to the two’s connected hands, and it seemed he wasn’t the only one to notice. Emma glanced down to see the affection between the two, as well, but she didn’t hide her surprise nearly as well as Calisto did.
“Oh,” Emma mumbled. “Well, hello.”
Calisto almost laughed.
Almost.
He had no idea how he managed to hold it back, but he did. It certainly was a shock to see their daughter bring someone to a family dinner. As a date. It was even more surprising to see her date be Tommaso Rossi.
“You don’t mind putting an extra plate on the table, right, Ma?” Camilla asked.
Emma recovered from her shock beautifully. As she always did. It was one of the things—many things—that Calisto loved about his wife.
“Yes, of course,” Emma told their daughter. “So, do you want to introduce us properly, or …?” Emma trailed off with an exaggerated nod in Tommaso’s direction. The young man only chuckled. “I mean, if you want to.”
She knew damn well who Tommaso was. Calisto had told his wife about him six fucking months ago when Tommaso had approached him about Camilla. Of course, Calisto hadn’t heard much about his daughter or Tommaso after that, and he knew the young man had eventually headed back to Chicago. It was, after all, where Tommaso’s life and family happened to be.
Calisto assumed that was the end of it.
Apparently not.
“Ma, Daddy,” Camilla said with a roll of her eyes, “This is Tommaso. He made a special trip down from Chicago to see me. Since I was already having dinner here tonight, I figured he could join me.”
Emma nodded. “Okay. Hello, Tommaso.”
“A special trip?” Calisto asked.
He ignored the look his wife shot him.
“I kind of missed New York,” Tommaso said, smiling at Camilla.
Yeah.
Calisto thought it was more likely someone in New York.
Someone like Camilla.
“Huh,” Calisto said.
“All right,” Camilla jumped in, giving her father a side-eye that could rival her mother’s. “We are going to take a walk through the back property until dinner is ready. Shoot me a text, in case we’re too far to hear you yell, Ma.”
“Sure,” Emma replied. “I can do that.”
The two young adults wasted no time getting out of the kitchen, still connected by their hands the entire time. Calisto waited an extra few minutes, just to be sure they were out of earshot, before he turned back to his wife, knowing she had a million and one things to say to him.
“A little bit of a warning would have been nice, Cal,” Emma said.
“I tried,” Calisto argued.
Emma turned to look out the window in the kitchen that faced the large backyard, and showcased where the property melted into a line of trees and trails. There, Calisto could see Camilla and Tommaso heading for one of the trails that would lead to a little pond and sitting area.
“Wasn’t that like six months ago when he was here last?”
“Yep,” Calisto said.
“Huh.”
“Yep.”
He wasn’t entirely sure how to feel about it, either.
“Well,” Emma drawled under her breath.
“He’s good, as far as that goes,” Calisto said, more for himself than his wife. “He comes from a good man, so that’s a bonus.”
“Well.”
“Spit it out, Emma.”
“Maybe that is the trick to Camilla.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Cam,” Emma said, “and boys. You know how she is. They don’t keep her interest longer than a toy does for a toddler. Maybe he figured out a way around that with her.”
“And how would that be?”
“Distance and space,” Emma offered with a shrug. “One thing at a time, maybe.”
“Emmy, love, no man has the sort of patience needed for that kind of shit.”
Emma looked over her shoulder at Calisto, her expression both soft and serious at the same time. “Really?”
“What?”
“If he loved her, even if it’s crazy to love someone else that fast and know you do, then would patience and time matter if you got what you wanted in the end?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Calisto replied.
“You’ve got time. Think about it now.”
Calisto did. It seemed he might not have given Tommaso enough credit all those months ago.
“Well, then.”
Emma smiled. “As long as she’s happy.”
Yes, that, too.