Mrs. Gallo was once again borrowed (briefly) with Guine’s permission. <3 So was Peter.

Word Count: 949

Momma Gallo was the first person Paris told. He called her as soon as he left the studio, out of breath and beaming.

She screamed and dropped the phone to clatter on the kitchen floor, and Paris heard Peter mumbling in the background—“Why are you squeezing me? Mom, I can’t breathe!”—before she composed herself enough to pick up the phone to gush and sob into his ear.

“Oh, Precious, I’m so proud of you! Oh, this is so wonderful! You have to let me know when tickets go on sale! I’ll want to get good seats! I’m sure Beau would be just thrilled to go! Oh, Precious, you must be so happy! You’ve been working so hard!”

He went to the Gallo house that night for dinner. Momma made him a roast stuffed chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and fresh asparagus, and a chocolate cake for desert. They shared a bottle of sparkling grape juice in celebration with Peter, who rolled his eyes but consented to stay at the table long enough to be polite before slinking off to mess around on his computer, while Paris stayed with Momma and asked her to promise not to tell Chris. That was something he wanted to do himself, once he figured out how.

The next order of business was to tell his father. He managed that the following evening, as they sat down to dinner together after Paris came in from work.

“What the hell are you feeding me?” his father asked, staring at his plate and poking at the green stalks on one portion of it with his fork.

“Pot roast,” Paris said. “Didn’t you bother to look and see what was in the crockpot? And that you’re pocking at is the broccoli I made for a side. Eat it. It’s good for you. There are carrots, too.”

“Don’t be a smart a**.”

Paris shrugged and stared down at his plate, eating a few bites of his food before saying, “How are you feeling?”

His father shrugged in return, chewed a bite, and swallowed.

“Do you think you’re ready to take on a few more shifts at the store?” Paris wondered, spearing a wedge of potato onto his fork.

“I’ve been ready. Bored out of my mind, sitting here all day,” his father said, showing him a small glare. “When you quit school to start working, I didn’t think you meant to take over completely. That’s my store.”

“I just don’t want you pushing yourself too hard. You’re sick, Dad.”

“So you keep reminding me.”

Paris rolled his eyes and looked back down at his plate. “If you think you’re ready, you could take over a few of the afternoon shifts. Not all of them. Maybe every other day, so long as it won’t stress you out too much and you don’t end up overworking yourself. I can find someone else to take the morning shifts, and the days you don’t come in.”

“You finally getting tired of it?”

“No, I…” Paris began, and awkwardly pushed some of the meat around on his plate, “I had an audition yesterday.”

His father grunted again, and tried his best not to seem interested. “Is that so?”

“Yeah,” Paris replied. He paused to take a swig of his drink. “With the Destiny City Ballet. They're taking me on for a while,” he continued as he set his glass back down, hazarding another glance at his father.

Henri LeFay seemed about as uncomfortable and unwilling to have such a serious conversation as his son, staring down at his plate as well. “Is that so…” he said again, slower this time.

“Yeah… for a few performances this winter, at the very least…”

His father barely knew anything about ballet. He’d never shown any sort of interest in Paris’s pursuits before, and had only grudgingly allowed him to continue with it after his mother had enrolled him in classes as a child. But even he had to know what “this winter” meant, with all the times Paris had talked about it in the past.

“The Nutcracker, then?”

“Yeah… so I’ll need to spend more time at the studio…”

There were a few more moments of uncomfortable silence before his father grumbled out another reply. “I can take a few more shifts. I’ve been telling you that for weeks now. I won’t have you running my store into the ground.”

He was trying his best to seem as gruff and bad-tempered as always, but Paris could tell it wasn’t quite as genuine as usual.

“Thanks, Dad.”

They said nothing else for the rest of dinner. His father finished first and rose to return to the living room, sitting on the couch to lose himself in the television for a few more hours before bed. Paris took their empty plates once he was done and went to the sink, washing up and putting the leftovers in the refrigerator for his father to eat for lunch tomorrow.

Afterwards, he went into his room and flopped onto his bed, staring up at the ceiling with his arms and legs stretched out as much as his small, narrow mattress would allow. Eventually, he turned his head to glance at his phone on the bedside table, and reached out a hand to pick it up. He scrolled through his contact list, his finger hovering over a certain name, before he pressed it and brought the phone to his ear.

It rang twice before the line opened.

“Paris?”

He took a breath and let it out slowly, and went back to staring at the ceiling. “Hi, Mom…”