Dramatic, Mushy, Complicated Love

in exchange for English lessons at a local TAFE. But her job as she saw it was to keep her husband happy and well-fed, the house kept perfect and raising her kids.”
“Huh,” I said non-committedly, accepting that was once the way to do things back in the day. Now it was a different world, and I could just imagine Trish sitting back and letting her husband take care of her every whim–not.
“Well, my parents are slightly different to yours,” I chuckled, “very different in fact.”
“Tell me about them,” Luca encouraged, his hand clasping mine tightly.
“Oh lord, where do I start explaining Lennie and Trish to someone who doesn’t know them? Hmmm.”
“Lennie and Trish? You call them that?”
Nodding, I laughed, “Oh yes, they insist on it. They were very young when they had me, eighteen both of them. They aren’t traditional in any way, shape or form. Lennie is an interstate truck driver and is away from home for a fortnight at a time. He has been driving trucks since he and Mum found out that the condom failed miserably, their words by the way, and Trish currently works in an art gallery. She probably won’t last the year at that job. She has a habit of getting bored, she calls it itchy feet. I call it ADHD.”
“Explain, please,” Luca pressed, looking completely engrossed in the history of Lennie and Trish.
“Trish gets bored easily, and it doesn’t matter if it is a movie she just started watching, eating a meal or a job. She can’t sit still, she has a problem with sticking to her decisions. For example, in the last two years, she has worked at a chicken farm as a chicken inspector and a forklift operator at a recycling plant. She painted over graffiti on overpasses on the highway outside of town for two weeks,, but she hated that she was covering over peoples’ artistic artwork, so she quit. Then she worked at an animal pound, but they sacked her because she initiated a sit-in protest for the animals. Her reason, she didn’t like the size of the cages.”
That had been a hilarious time for the family, Trish got arrested for disturbing the peace, and Spring and I had to bail her out because Lennie was in Far North Queensland hauling heavy machinery to a remote gold mine at the time. Spring had not found it funny, but Dad and I had.
“Arrested?” Luca gawked, then grinned.
“Yep,” I cackled, shaking my head at the memory, “Trish is not your typical cupcake-making mother. It made for an interesting childhood having Lennie and Trish for parents.”
“Sounds like fun, try having parents that pushed you to excel at everything they chose for you; sports, education, friends. My mum and dad drove us to be the best we could be. Me in particular, being the only male child.”
Luca’s tone bordered on resentment, but his eyes held a warmth as he spoke about his parents. I got the impression he was torn, his respect for his deceased father and sense of responsibility to his mum not allowing him to speak his inner truth.
“You know, my brother Brecken is the only male child, and trust me, Mum and Dad wouldn’t trust him with feeding the dog,” I told him, chuckling, “some people are meant to be leaders, and some aren’t. It must be a heady thing, looking after a family, stepping into your father’s shoes and all.”
“Up until recently, I thought that, yeah,” Luca answered thoughtfully. “But it gets a little annoying when it spills into my private life. That is why I moved out, Mum was always looking over my shoulder, setting me up with her friends’ daughters, constantly asking for grandchildren, shit like that, you know?”
“Actually, I don’t. Trish and Lennie aren’t exactly the grandparent kind. Their philosophy in life was to let the kids find out and see if they learn from it. I moved out of home at eighteen, so did Spring. Brecken still lives at home, but he takes after our parents. To quote Spring, ‘he is an airhead’.”
“How old is he?”
“Just turned twenty-two, there are three years between he and I and only seventeen months age difference between Spring and me. Don’t get the wrong idea, our parents love us. A lot. They cared when we fell over and hurt ourselves, and I lost count of the amount of times Lennie stood out front of the school gates looking tough and scary when he heard about kids picking on our names. They just didn’t force or molly-coddle us; if we wanted to do sport, we could. If we didn’t, they were fine with that too.”
Huffing out a laugh, I shook my head ruefully. “I have painted a picture of a crazy family life, haven’t I? You probably wish you had not asked me out and started this ‘get to know one another’ conversation.”
Honestly, I was expecting Luca to laugh, maybe try and assure me he was having fun while secretly waiting to go to the restroom and sneak out. What I wasn’t expecting was a low, manly growl and for his fingers to tighten around mine, not quite painfully but close.
“Look at me, Meadow,” Luca ground out, sounding almost angry. Of course, I lifted my eyes to stare back at his fiery blue ones.
Damn, he is hot when he is pissed.
“What’s wrong?” I blurted out, suddenly worried. Was the story about Trish getting arrested too much of a share for a first date? Maybe I should have just gone with sleeping with him first and said fuck dinner.
“Stop what you are thinking because it is more than likely whacked, Meadow.” Luca leaned over the table, his large frame blocking out the people sitting behind him. With him this close, memories of a week ago filtered through my mind. The same cologne scent filled my nostrils, the same clean and fresh breath tickled my face. And the same overwhelming thought that this man was my one bombarded me. Even angry,