Page 141 of Effortless

Tommas looked to Tom, and shrugged. “My apologies, son. Apparently, you can be nervous. What the fuck do I know?”

Tom stared up at the ceiling and wished it would swallow him whole. He didn’t think that was asking for very much, considering. Right?

“It’ll be over before you know it,” his uncle said.

“And easier than you’re making it out to be,” his father added.

“Please, shut up,” Tom muttered.

Chuckles echoed back from the men surrounding him at the table. Really, Tom didn’t mind their jokes even if he did pretend otherwise. There were the men whose feet he had grown up under. These were the men who had guided him through every milestone in his life, and put him on the proper paths when he had lost his way.

He supposed, in a way, it made sense for them to be here for this milestone, too.

People passed by the front windows of the restaurant, distracting Tom for the moment. The men at the table went back to chatting with his father, but he wasn’t paying them much attention. He was too lost inside his own head to care.

It took his father touching his shoulder to finally break Tom from the daze. Tommas gave him a knowing smile.

“He won’t refuse you,” his father said. “You know that, right?”

“Do I?”

“What reason would he have to refuse you, Tommaso?”

“The same reason any father with a daughter might refuse, Dad.”

Tommas shook his head. “He knows you’re a good man. You’re worrying for nothing, son. He likes you.”

Tom laughed dryly. “So?”

“He has probably known this was coming for a while now.”

“Aren’t all fathers the same?”

“How so?” Tommas asked.

“They find their daughters hard to let go.”

“You’re overthinking this, son.”

“She was always his, Dad.”

“Not when she became yours, Tommaso.”

“New restaurant?” Calisto asked.

Tommas nodded. “It is, actually.”

The Donati boss shook hands with Tom’s father. Tommas waved at the open chairs waiting at the table for Calisto and the men he had brought along with him to sit. Behind the man, his underboss and consigliere waited for the greetings to finish.

Cross, still relatively new to being his father’s underboss, nodded to Tom. Wolf Puzza—Calisto’s consigliere—kept his attention on the meeting bosses.

“Sit, Cal,” Tommas said with another wave.

Once everyone was seated at the table again, Calisto’s gaze turned on Tom. “There’s a very young Capo at the table today. Any particular reason for that?”

Tom’s father laughed under his breath before replying, “The title is a matter of semantics for Tommaso, now. I’ve learned that my son doesn’t quite fit the position. He does his best work for me elsewhere.”

Calisto’s gaze drifted toward Cross with a knowing nod. “Yes, they do have a way of surprising us like that. Don’t they?”