Chapter 21
CARLO
“Glad you both could come,” she says in greeting.
The sisters give each other the brief hug they’re allowed before Celeste turns to me.
I stick my hand out for the handshake Tania told me was allowed, and Celeste shakes it, eyeing me speculatively.
From what Tania has said, Celeste is super protective of her.
This feels like taking a very important exam and I’m just glad my palms aren’t sweaty yet when she releases me.
“Don’t look so scared, Carlo. As long as you take good care of my sister, we’ll get along great,” she says playfully. “I’ve heard so much about you from Nia, it’s great to finally meet you.”
“It’s great to meet you, too,” I say at the same time Tania hisses “Jesus, Cece, I can take care of myself.” I lean in and tell her, “We both know you can, but I like taking care of you.” Celeste nods in approval, and we all laugh a little awkwardly as we settle down at the table.
This is by far the most interesting first meeting of a girlfriend’s family I’ve ever experienced. I love it, as much as I’m also nervous.
“So Damian emailed that he met with you the other day, just to keep me in the loop. How did it go?” Tania asks her sister eagerly.
Celeste keeps her voice low since it’s not a good idea to talk much about ongoing cases during visitation or on the phone.
Only talking to her attorney is protected under attorney/client privilege, everything else can be used against her.
I’ve done my research this week in anticipation of coming here.
“It was promising, though I can’t talk too much about it,” she says simply, but there is a spark of hope in her eyes now.
It makes my chest expand that my dad’s friend might be able to help her.
I was horrified when Tania told me what the guard did and I want to get Celeste out of here as soon as possible.
Tania grips my hand, and her face is awash in hope too.
“That’s fantastic,” she says earnestly.
“What about you two? How are those demon kitties?”
“Hey, no calling the fur children demons, they’ve never done anything wrong in their entire lives,” I tell her with mock outrage.
She looks delighted that I’m willing to tease her after her thinly veiled warning and laughs.
It feels like I’ve passed the important exam.
Tania squeezes my hand, looking at me with hearts in her eyes when I glance at her.
I squeeze back, giving her a quick wink.
“We’re leaving for Spain in two weeks,” Tania tells Celeste. “I’ll finally get to see the house my parents grew up in. I didn’t get to tell you about the meeting I had where everything transferred to me.” Celeste’s eyes widen with so much happiness shining through for her sister.
“You’re finally going to take a trip out of the country! You’ve always dreamed of seeing where your parents grew up.”
“I have, so I’m really excited,” Tania says. Then she sobers. “How about the woman you told me about? Is she ok? Are you ok?” Celeste sucks in a breath, her face shuttering after it was just so animated.
“She’s not completely healed, but she’ll be ok physically eventually. I’m not sure if she will ever be ok mentally after that, and I’m not sure if I’m ok,” she says with a helpless shrug.
“I’ll make sure you become ok, I’m going to take care of you,” Tania tells her firmly.
“We’ll get you everything you need,” I add. Celeste looks between us, her face going from shuttered to bemused.
“You two are going to make me sick, aren’t you? Look at all of this affection and teamwork,” she grumbles fondly. “Before I get any help from either of you, let’s wait and see if Damian can work some magic, yeah? We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.”
“True,” Tania says with a sigh.
We all idly chat some more, Celeste peppering me with basic questions and asking Tania all about her tattoo apprenticeship.
Before too long, time is up and we’re exchanging hugs goodbye.
On the two hour drive home Tania and I listen to music and talk about nothing and everything.
We talk about our trip to Spain, the fact that I got accepted into an art program at the community college not too far from us and will start in the fall, and how hopefully if I do well there I can go to a full time art program.
Brian has mentioned that Tania could work full time at the shop soon, because she’s done so well with everyone she’s tattooed up to this point.
So we’re progressing with our passions, which is amazing.
“Do you think you’d miss driving if you leave FedEx for Living Arts soon? I know you love it,” I ask her, stealing a glance at her gorgeous face at a red light. She tilts her head in consideration.
“I like the freedom of it. I think tattoo artistry is its own form of freedom. You can express yourself while bringing someone else’s vision to life.
The hours are flexible too. Both are good for my solitary tendencies, it’s not like I’m working on some corporate team in meetings all day.
That is just not for me, same as it’s not for you to be a lawyer.
” She looks at me with a little smile. “All that to say, I don’t think I’ll miss it if I leave, even though I enjoy it. I definitely won’t miss Don.”
The next morning we go into work together on a lovely spring Monday, and enter the hub hand in hand.
Most of our coworkers seem to know and love that we’re together.
Ray gives us a big wave and a blinding smile.
I see Don is at the window of his office, watching us.
He’s a fucking creep, but I’m not hiding the fact that Tania and I are a couple.
Everyone at work better know that we’re together.
My eyes roll so hard they hurt when I hear the office door open and Don’s reedy voice calling my name.
Tania looks at me with a concerned crease in her eyebrows and I shrug, giving her hand a squeeze.
I follow his annoying voice into his office, wondering what he could possibly want with me.
“What’s up, boss?” I can’t help that it comes out a little clipped, and he notices, curling his lip at me in disgust.
“We need to talk about how long your routes are taking. You’ve been slow lately according to your logs and not as efficient as you could be based on your route.” I cock my head in confusion, because that is not the case at all. I’m always efficient.
“Can you please tell me exactly what I’m doing wrong?
I always get my route done as quickly as I can.
Maybe there has been the occasional traffic issue or someone getting chatty at a delivery but nothing that I think warrants saying I’m inefficient.
” I am starting to truly hate this man, and his darkening expression says that he feels the same.
“You just need to be quicker, you don’t have a challenging route and it should not take as long as your logs show.
That’s all. We’re trying to trim back unnecessary hours,” he says with a fake sympathetic smile.
He is looking at me with completely undisguised hate, though.
This does not feel like a simple dressing down about not doing my route quickly enough.
There is something else going on and I have zero issues with finding out what the fuck his problem is.
I need to keep it professional, though. An instinct tells me to cover myself in this conversation, probably my dad’s lawyer wisdom in my head, so I covertly slip my phone out of my back pocket, making it look like I’m simply shifting in my seat in a nervous gesture.
He can’t see my lap from where he’s sitting behind the big desk, and my phone is on silent, so he doesn’t hear the little beep when I hit the button to record.
“I don’t want to press things,” I tell him in my most patient voice, “but it seems like there is something more personal going on here. Have I done something to you and not known it, Don? If I have, I’ll try to make it right.
I really don’t want any bad blood with any of my coworkers. ” His face goes carefully blank.
“There aren’t any issues except for your route taking too long,” he says in a voice that is trying for bored, but there’s no disguising the heat behind it.
“Are you sure? If there is, I want to talk about it. Between you taking Tania aside that time and now this, it is starting to feel personal.” His mask breaks, his face contorting with disdain.
“How did you get her to go out with you?” It comes out in a petulant hiss.
“I’ve wanted to ask her out for so long, but it went around pretty quickly how you got turned down and that she doesn’t date coworkers.
How did you change her mind?” I rear back in shock, although I guess I should have read between the lines of what was going on a while ago.
“How she and I ended up together is none of your business whatsoever. So that’s why you’ve been giving both her and me a hard time? Your pride took a beating even though you never even let her know you were interested?”
“I wasn’t about to let her reject me,” he whines.
“Just a tip? Let a woman know you’re interested. I took her rejection like a man and then things eventually shifted.” He glares at me.
“I should file a report for Jacob to fire you for insubordination,” he grits out. I wave my phone at him, showing it’s recording.
“If you try, I will play this for him and have you fired instead for letting your personal feelings affect your professional decision making.”
“That isn’t legal,” he sputters.
“It’s perfectly legal, NJ is a one party consent state for recording conversations,” I tell him, thankful that I did pay attention to my dad’s work talk a lot. “I had a sinking feeling I’d need to have receipts for this fun little meeting, and I was right.”
Then I turn off the recording. “Now, I’m not normally a violent man, but if you ever give my woman a hard time again, that may change. You will stay the fuck away from her, do you understand me?”