At Peace

His blue eyes locked with mine and I held his glare.

“Fuck,” he muttered, giving in which was more lunacy. Cal didn’t give in and now he’d done it twice.

“Language in front of the girls,” I snapped.

“Baby, they hear it all the time,” he returned and I felt my eyes get wide in motherly affront.

Cal looked at my face then over the seat to the girls and asked, “You gonna say fuck because I say fuck?”

“No,” Kate answered immediately.

“No, ‘cause Mom doesn’t like it,” Keira replied waspishly.

Cal looked back at me and raised his brows.

I gave in this time, throwing my door open, getting out and pulling the seat up so Keira and Kate could get out safely on the street side.

Cal slammed his door, rounded the hood and walked to us, waiting as the girls got out. As Kate alighted and closed the door, I looked around Cal and saw a dark haired man in a nice, semi-shiny, dark blue polo-necked shirt and dark gray pants stalking toward Cal.

Getting close, the man shouted, “Yo! Can’t park there.”

Cal turned, the man skidded to a halt and stared up at him in wonder, as if he was seeing a ghost.

“Shit, fuck me, Cal?” the man whispered.

“Hey, Manny,” Cal returned.

“Cal!” the man, apparently named Manny and apparently someone Cal knew, was now yelling.

I stared as he leaped forward and threw his arms around Cal, pounding him on the back in a way that sounded painful then he pulled back and looked at him.

“Holy fuck, man, Pop’s gonna be frickin’ beside himself, Ma too. They’re both here. Holy fuck!”

“Manny,” Cal said, moving toward me and pulling me to his side with an arm around my shoulders, “Vi gets pissy when you say fuck in front of her girls.”

But Manny wasn’t listening and I wasn’t moving out of Cal’s arm mainly because I was worried that Manny was having a heart attack and I’d have to jump in and attempt CPR (something I’d never done). His eyes had bugged out and he appeared to be fighting for breath as he looked at me, Kate and Keira.

Then he whispered, “Fuck me.”

“Seriously, Man, the language,” Cal warned, his voice going low.

Manny’s body jolted then his face split into a huge smile and he jumped forward, arm extended to me. “Yo, hey, I’m Manny.”

“Hi,” I said back, taking his hand and he gripped mine hard, not shaking it, just holding on tight. “I’m Violet.”

He nodded. “Violet, nice.” Then he let me go and turned to Kate, hand to her. “Hey, pretty lady.”

“Um… hi,” Kate replied shyly, taking his hand. “Um… I’m Kate.”

“Katy, like it,” Manny told her, let her go and turned to Keira. “And you are, sweetheart?”

“Keira,” she took his hand too, staring up at him, openly fascinated probably because, I belatedly noticed, he was a very good-looking, well-built Italian-American.

“Keira, pretty name. Excellent,” Manny finished his round robin approval of our names then he let Keira go, moved quickly toward the door of the restaurant and announced, “Let’s get you in, get your asses in a booth, I’ll get Ma and Pop then we’ll get you some Chianti and a big pie, yeah?”

Without much choice, we followed him; Cal’s hand in the small of Kate’s back, guiding her in front of us. I guided Keira with a hand at her waist. Cal’s arm was still around my shoulders.

I looked up at the green neon sign over the door that said in slanting script “Vinnie’s Pizzeria.”

Seeing it, it startled me as I’d heard of this place. Tim and I had always meant to find it and eat there. Rumor had it that it was a hidden gem, one of the best unknown restaurants in Chicago especially for pizza or pasta which, if that was true, was saying something, it being in Chicago. But it wasn’t easy to find, we knew it was in Little Italy but Tim had looked and they didn’t even have a phone listing. He’d always meant to use his cop resources to find the address but he never got around to it and, in the end, time ran out.

Manny went in first, holding the door and we all piled through. There were benches on either side of the door filled with people, more people standing around obviously waiting for a table and there was a bar, totally packed, again with people waiting for a table. They might not have a phone, evidenced by the fact that these people obviously didn’t have a reservation, but they were far from unpopular.

Once we were in, Manny shoved by us and pushed through the people to the hostess station.

“Yo, Bella, next booth that’s open, Cal and his girls sit there,” Manny ordered a young girl who had to be no more than eighteen and the minute he issued his order her face went straight to attitude and not the good kind.

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