time and touching.
It turns out that when in a bed, Willow tends to sleep diagonally. He woke up that morning holding onto the edge of the bed for dear life. And she hummed in her sleep. Some of it was just tuneless hums, others were more…erotic sounding.
And he seriously hoped those were because she was dreaming of him.
Mainly because whenever he did manage to sleep last night, Levi sure as hell had dreamt about her.
“Willow and Irene are very close,” Donald said, changing the subject. “I swear, Irene talks about her all the time, and it means the world to her that the two of you are going to be here for her party tonight.”
“It meant a lot to Willow too,” he said, smiling.
“We’re glad you came with her,” Tom, another one of the Romeos, chimed in. “We all adore Irene, and we think the world of Willow…”
“But…?” Levi prompted.
“But her folks are hard to be around,” Johnny replied. “They’re nice enough, but they don’t seem to know how to relax, and both Willow and Irene tense up around them. Hopefully that won’t happen tonight since it’s a party.”
“And you’ll be there to protect Willow,” Donald said.
“Protect?” he repeated. “Is it really that bad?”
Vinny, who looked like he could have been in the movie Goodfellas, spoke up. “Every time I see the two of them when they come to visit Irene, I want to take them for a nice walk and tell them how things are supposed to be.” The man not only looked like a Goodfella, but he sounded like one too.
Levi swallowed hard.
Note to self: Don’t piss off Vinny.
“How has Willow described them to you?” Barry, the last of the Romeos, asked.
“I think she’s been very careful in how she talks about them. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that they stress her out and that I was going to have to be a buffer for her. I hate it for her.” Shaking his head, he went on. “Believe it or not, I felt guilty talking about the relationship I have with my parents because I didn’t want her to feel bad.”
“You’re close with your folks?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. Really close. And we stopped at two of my sisters’ places on the way down here, and I could tell it took her a little while to relax and understand our relationship. The one between each of my sisters and me. We laugh and joke around one minute and then we’ll fight the next. I think she found it weird.”
“Poor kid,” Donald said. “Irene worries about her. Tell me, has she found a job yet?”
“Not really. She’s babysitting and doing the dog walking business, but…that’s just filling the void temporarily.” He paused. “I don’t get it. She’s really good with kids. Why would her parents push her into getting a degree in something she didn’t want?”
“Once you meet them, you’ll understand,” Johnny said with a hint of disgust. “The first time I met them and Irene mentioned what I did for a living, they both looked at me like I smelled of something offensive. Now I just like to taunt them with it.”
Oh, God…
“So…I should be worried,” Levi said nervously, looking around the table.
“That depends,” Vinny said, giving him a level stare. “Are you ashamed of what you do?”
“Hell no,” he replied firmly. “I love what I do and I’m good at it.”
“Okay then,” Vinny said with a nod of approval.
“But just to play it safe, maybe I should avoid talking about my job and maybe just…praise Willow, right?”
“It can’t hurt,” Barry replied. “But they won’t let you get away with that for long. They like to analyze people. They’ll observe your body language, the way you speak, and want to ask you questions about things that really aren’t any of their business.”
“Well, in their defense,” Tom interjected. “He’s dating their daughter. They’re going to want to put him under the microscope based on that alone.”
There was a murmured agreement amongst the Romeos, and for the first time since he offered to help Willow, he was beginning to regret it.
What if he made things worse for her with her parents? What if they pissed him off and he told them off? Or worse, what if he blurted out the truth about…everything to them and hurt Willow?
He groaned.
“Yeah, we feel ya, buddy,” Johnny said, clapping him on the back. “The only silver lining here is that you only have to deal with them tonight, right? You and Willow