The Middle | Hemmings + Styles AU

18. such a gentleman

The morning after my date with Luke I sent my parents the shortest email I ever have.

Amsterdam looks amazing! But mum, never, ever refer to yourself and Dad as Augustus and Hazel. It's wrong on so many levels. Dad, your finger is still covering part of the camera lens. Love to you both.

I pressed send and looked around the empty lounge room, trying to decide what to do with my day off. Olivia still hadn't surfaced from her date with Oliver. All of my calls going straight to her voicemail so mostly out of pure boredom, I put on some Green Day - no the American Idiot album because I stand by what I'd told Michael; it sucked - and cleaned the house.

I vacuumed, I mopped - who knew we even owned a mop? - and, between the couch cushions and the pockets of unwashed jeans, I found a total of $21.85 in change which I shoved into the pocket of the pair of jeans I was wearing for pizza later.

When Aunty Peg showed up in the afternoon, I was in the middle of cleaning out Ringo and Penny Lane's fish tank."You're willingly cleaning?" She was shocked, concerned. "Are you ill?"

"Ha, ha," I rolled my eyes, moving the two fish from the bucket of water and back into the newly cleaned fish tank. "You know, you look old when you worry." That shut her up quickly.

"I came by last night, you weren't here," she tried to sound nonchalant as she sat down on the couch but here's the thing about Aunty Peg: she doesn't have a subtle bone in her body. She was fishing for details. "You missed out on wine and the Catfish marathon."

"Firstly," I said, sprinkling some food into the fish tank and then sitting on the arm of the couch. "You know I don't like wine and I'm sure the only reason you keep bringing it is because you want it all to yourself. And secondly," I straightened up a little. "I was out doing something much more fun than the Catfish marathon."

"Something or someone?" she grinned with a wide smile. Seriously.

"You are the most inappropriate aunt ever," I told her, and after she got over pretending to look offended, I caved and began telling her about my date with Luke. Maybe there was a part of me that was fishing too.

So far, the only dating advice I'd gotten was from Olivia's bag of tricks and I figured I could use something more useful than blow him in the movie theatre or have sex in as many public places as possible.

After I'd covered all of the details: the store, the pizza, the conversation, the kiss - I kept those details to a minimum, though. Aunty Peg didn't need anymore encouragement - she said, "He sounds like a perfect gentleman."

A little too much of a gentleman, I thought quietly. When he dropped me home, I'd invited him inside to watch movies. And he'd said no. Was that normal? I mean, it's not like I was ready to sleep with him but some more kissing - preferably horizontal on the couch while Ed Sheeran melodies hummed quietly in the background - would have been nice.

"He sounds like Vincent Walters," she reminisced in a low, paper-thin voice. "He was a little bit too much of a gentleman, if you know what I mean." (The fact that I knew what she meant was deeply disturbing but I listened on anyway.)

"I was only sixteen at the time, and had briefly joined your mother in celibacy vow - which didn't last long but that's for another story - but let me tell you, Vincent Walters made that very hard."

Celibacy vow?  That's the end of this conversation. I tossed one of the decorative cushions at her. "Is that Catfish marathon still recorded?"

We ordered pizza - Vegetarian instead of Pepperoni because it's healthier, according to Aunty Peg - and ate the entire thing while watching hopeful couples meeting for the first time. After two episodes, as Aunty Peg was leaving I couldn't help but ask her what happened with Vincent Walters.

"He kept my attention until Samuel Swanson came along," then she smiled the most perverted smile that's going to be burned into my traumatised brain forever. "And let me tell you, he was no gentleman."

Before she could scar me any further, I kissed her cheek and gently pushed her out the door. When I sat back down on the couch, an old Madonna video was playing on tv and beside me, Penny Lane and Ringo were swimming around their fish tank, seemingly smitten with each other. Or, at the very least, happy to be cohabiting a fish tank.

For some reason, I thought back to Samuel Swanson. He was the one with the accent that she'd mentioned before. Before I went to bed that night, I wondered if Aunty Peg had any stories involving a cute boy buying her a pet fish.

i know it's short but there will be more lella/hella soon. hope you don't mind a bit of backstory/character development stuff