My Beloved

Chapter 10

Cara Mia didn't understand why Gianni hadn't answered most of her texts yesterday. He chalked it up to being busy and tired, but she just felt like something was off. She didn't have much time to dwell on it, because today she and Giovanni were starting tryouts for the Vagabond Dance Troupe. She was so excited. She felt like this role was made for her.

Cara Mia smiled brightly as she looked on at all the dancers stretching in the dance room behind the backstage area. "Thank you all once again for coming. Giovanni and I will be the judges throughout this process so feel free to ask us any questions. We will begin shortly." She smiled as she noticed Rachelle giving her a thumbs up. She was so happy that her best friend was auditioning and knew that her talents would speak for themselves and get her a spot.

Each dancer was asked to perform from a genre that they deemed was their specialty, as well as, a group performance that Cara Mia would be teaching that afternoon. She sat back down in front of the stage near Giovanni and smiled.

"She's pretty," Cara Mia said at the beautiful blond on Giovanni's phone. He looked up startled and smiled. "Yeah she is." Cara Mia knew that smile well. It was the same one Gianni would sport whenever she'd catch him looking at her.

"Girlfriend?" Cara Mia asked, but he quickly shook his head. "No, we're just hanging out." Cara Mia looked at the picture again and then looked at him. "How long have you two been hanging out? I ask because no girl lets a guy she's into see her with bed hair and no makeup for at least a year." She chuckled to herself.

Giovanni joined in and sighed. "We've been hanging out for six years actually." Cara Mia's eyes bugged out. "6 years? You're not married?!" Giovanni nervously chuckled and scratched the back of his head. "No. Guys in our line of work don't really have time for the commitment stuff." Cara Mia thought back to the similar lines Gianni fed her.

She thought it was just because they needed time to prove that the women weren't gold diggers, but 6 years was more than enough time. Giovanni could see the wheels turning in Cara Mia's head. He wanted to tackle things gracefully to help his brother as best as possible.

"Petrillo men don't do commitment," he offered with a sad smile. "It's not in our nature. We have feelings for others...strong feelings...but we don't do labels or titles and are content with keeping things casual and lowkey." The reality that things may not progress into much of anything with Gianni had Cara Mia reeling a little bit, but she wasn't going to let Giovanni see that.

"That's interesting, but que sera sera." She smiled but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "You ready to get this process started?" Giovanni nodded as Cara Mia gave the thumbs up to Giovanni's assistant who was helping them today.

They had over sixty dancers to get through and by four o'clock they had finally seen everyone. Cara Mia had taught them all the group performance routine to 'Beggin for Thread' by BANKS and they all seemed to love it.

"I want you all to be sensual. I want you to be passionate. We are selling sex, lust and desire with this performance. Every man should want to be with you ladies and every man should want to be you fellas. Let's get it!" Each group performance was fabulous.

They only had room for 35 dancers and Cara Mia knew this was going to be a tough decision for both of them. Everyone was dismissed by 6 o'clock with instruction that they would be called by Friday latest.

"Thank God we recorded all of the performances." Giovanni stated as he handed Cara Mia a USB drive of all the dances. "I say we look these over tonight and meet up at my office tomorrow afternoon to go over who you flagged and who I flagged and go from there." Cara Mia nodded in agreement as she packed up her bag. "I might not be able to get much done tonight," she smiled. "I've got a date with your brother." Giovanni looked a little surprised.