“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 are leaving in the morning?”
“We hadn’t set a time to get on the road. We were sort of playing it by ear.”
“Trust me,” Donald said. “Don’t let them talk you into meeting them for brunch or anything. Irene will completely understand if the two of you need to cut out early. Tell them you need to get back to work or convince Willow to tell them she has a job interview. It will be best for everyone.”
“But…what about Irene?” And yeah, it felt weird to be calling her that after twenty-four hours’ worth of calling her Gammy. “Is it fair to leave her to deal with them?”
“Oh, she can handle herself,” Tom said with a hearty laugh. “Right, Don?”
Levi was shocked to see the old guy blushing, but he gave Levi a reassuring grin. “Her son is a bit of a pompous ass, but he certainly doesn’t disrespect his mother. And I’ll let her know what we talked about, so if the two of you suddenly have a reason for heading out early in the morning, she’ll play along. That’s one of the best things about Irene, she’s always got your back.”
And Levi didn’t doubt that for a minute.
“So now we’ll all play the over-protective grandfather,” Tom began seriously. “Are things serious with you and Willow?”
“Oh, um…this is all still kind of new. We’ve only been together for a few months.”
“And how’d you meet?” Barry asked.
Now it was Levi’s turn to blush. “It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I was at the pub. I was cleaning the front window and I see this cute brunette walk by. She was smiling and looking up at the sky, and then she tripped and fell on the sidewalk.”
There was a bit of laughter from all of them.
“Sounds like Willow,” Johnny said.
“Yeah, well, I ran outside and helped her. She was all scraped up, and I carried her into the bar and sat her down before running back outside and getting the things she’d dropped. After I came back in and got her cleaned up with the first-aid kit, we started talking, and…that was it. I was hooked. She started coming to the pub on Friday nights with her girlfriends and we just…progressed from there.”
None of it was a lie, so he didn’t have to feel bad.
“She’s a good girl,” Vinny said, now more menacing
