When two paths cross

Seventeen

It was now the weekend and Joe and Dianne's parents had a surprise planned for Dianne. Her brothers were coming over to visit. Andrew and Brendan were quite a few years older than Dianne, they were at the age where they can live by themselves so when the family decided to move to the UK, the boys decided to stay in Australia. Dianne missed her brothers like crazy, she would FaceTime them most days and message them all the time, and she never shut up about them. When Rina had told Joe about the surprise he wanted to get involved, he knew how excited she would be when then arrived. So today, Joe was taking Dianne out to the shopping center where there was a few attractions such as bowling and mini golf, and then he was going to bring her back home when her brothers were there.

"Just let us know when you want her back Rina." Joe said as he and Dianne were about to leave her house.
"Okay, have fun." She said giving Dianne a hug.
"Addio! Did I get it right?" Joe asked.
"Very good Joseph, she'll have you speaking Italian before you know it. Addio." Rina added and then the teens left.

"So my darling Dot." Joe said making Dianne laugh, "where do you want to go? There's mini golf, a Cinema, bowling, the arcade?" Joe asked as they walked into the shopping center.
"Can we go mini golf?" Dianne asked, Joe nodded and they walked over. "I've got money Joe, you don't need to pay." Dianne told him as he started paying.
"I know, I want to though." He said as he handed the money over and the guy on the till gave them both their golf clubs and let them choose a colour ball each, Joe picking green and Dianne going for red.
"You don't happen to have a smaller bat do you?" Dianne asked, her club was far to big for her.
"It's called a club dot!" Joe laughed, the guy on the till laughing as well as he handed Dianne a smaller club. "Thank you." Joe said and they headed in.

It was about an hour later and they had finished their game, Joe winning but only because Dianne took about 20 hits on one of them so she ended up loosing.
"I thought you'd have won that." Joe said as they headed out.
"I was close to, it was that last one that just wouldn't go in." Dianne told him as she took his hand. "Can we get food?" She asked as they walked through the food court.
"Yeah sure, what you feeling?" Joe asked her, already wary of the time and that Rina would want Dianne back soon.
"KFC? I feel like one of those rice boxes that they do." Dianne said.
"Of course, miss healthy." Joe laughed as they headed over to KFC and bought their food, Dianne buying Joes as he payed for golf.

"Mums messaged. She wants us back." Dianne said. "I don't know why, she's being pushy. She's put, I'll ready it in English, Dot, home now!" Dianne laughed.
"Oh well, let's go. Maybe she needs to see you or something like that. Maybe it's important." Joe rambled.
"You know something don't you?"
"Maybe I do maybe I don't!" Joe said taking her hand and walking out of the shopping center.

The whole way back Dianne was trying to get it out of Joe what was going on but he wasn't giving anything away. She hadn't guessed the one thing that was actually happening, purely because she didn't think her brothers would be coming over any time soon so the idea hadn't even come to her head.

"Mum we're home! siamo tornati!" Dianne shouted as they walked into the house. "perché hai detto vieni adesso" She asked, Joe stood quite confusing with all the Italian speaking but was starting to pick up on some of it as Dianne spoke it often.
"Stop speaking Italian, we can't understand you sis." Someone said from the living room, Dianne starred at Joe with her jaw dropped.
"No way." She said then ran into to living room, "Oh my god!" She said as her brothers stood up and she ran straight over to give them a hug. "I've missed you both so much." She said as she started to cry.

Joe walked into the living room and got his phone out and took some pictures that he would show Dianne later. He knew she would have been so happy to see them but didn't expect her to cry. He wanted to go into the hug and make sure she was okay but he knew this was a moment between her and her brothers and he didn't want to intrude.

"You gonna introduce us Dotty? He looks petrified." Andrew joked once they had finished their hug and Andrew noticed Joe stood watching.
"Yeah, this is Joseph, my boyfriend and the bestest friend I could ever ask for." Dianne said pulling him over and giving him a hug.
"Aww cute, well, welcome to the family Joe, it's great to finally meet you." Brendan said giving Joe a hug, Andrew following.
"Nice to meet you two. She never shuts up about you both." Joe told them.
"The same with you, we've watched some of your videos with her in, you can tell you both really like eachother." Andrew said, the pair still hadn't told eachother that they were in love with one another but they both felt it, just too nervous to say.
"Yeah. She is pretty amazing."

Joe got to know Dianne's brothers for a few hours, rina cooking them all dinner before getting up to tell them some news.
"So Dot, we've got some news. You've got one week left in school until Easter and then you've got 2 weeks off haven't you." Rina said. Dianne nodded getting a bit excited. "So on Friday after school, we're going to the airport." Rina said. "We're going to Australia for Easter!"
"No way! Really!" Dianne said jumping up. "With Joe too?" She asked
"No darl, I was asked don't worry but I didn't want to intrude, you need to go back and see your family. But I'll message you everyday and be waiting at the airport when you get back." Joe said, Rina had asked Joe the other week if he wanted to come but he politely declined the invitation.
"Oh okay. I can't wait! Just need to get through this week." Dianne said, suddenly going quiet think back to school, as much as she loved school, she wasn't enjoying it as much at the moment due to everything going on.
"Hey, you'll be fine. You've got Stacey, Lauren, Faye and Ashley and you know you can always come find me." Joe told her, she nodded.
"Is this about those girls picking on you Dotty?" Andrew asked, Dianne nodded. "If you need us to go in at any point and talk to a teacher we will."
"Thank you, but I'm all good."