Love of my life

Declaration of love

Since the scene of the kiss, and his embarrassing hug, Patrick noticed that Vera was behaving differently around him. She was still polite and courteous, still funny, but she sometimes averted her gaze, somehow embarrassed. She should have surely realized he was harbouring feelings for her, the way he touched her after that scream was unmistakable. Although, he tried to act as nonchalant as possible around her, so as not to let her grow any more suspicious of his ardent sentiments. But he somehow knew that maybe, it was too late.

"Checkmate" she said, once they were playing chess, still with her gaze lowered "you're not very good at chess, you know. It's the third time I beat you." She said, satisfied.

"I know" he said, laughing.

It was a very calm, still evening. She stretched her arms, putting them behind her head. "Wouldn't an ice-cream be nice?"

"Good idea! I'll go and grab it, what flavours do you want?"

"No, we're going together." She said, getting up lightly.

They went to the bar, where a lady served them a nice gelato, strawberry and cream for Vera, chocolate and mint for Patrick.

"Oh, it's delicious!" said Vera, tasting the strawberry.

"Yeah, it's really good" said Patrick, tasting the chocolate "one of the best I've ever eaten."

"Not as good as the Italian gelato in Italy" Vera said, wiping her bottom lip with her index finger.

"You've been in Italy?"

"Oh, yeah, a lot of times."

"Really? I'm a huge fan of Italy, country of arts and especially music, you know how much I like music!"

"Yes, I know!" said Vera, laughing.

"What's Italy like? Is it really like they describe it?"

"Oh, it's better, much better! I've been to Rome, Venice, Naples, Florence, and they're such a spectacle to the eye! The music, you can hear it even in the streets, street artists can make one of the best music you've ever heard, combined with the beautiful sound of Italian language. When I was in Naples, three months ago, I heard this beautiful song, I asked one of my Neapolitan friends from there, who now works as a filmmaker in Los Angeles, what it meant. She taught me the lyrics. How does it go? Oh, yeah...!"

And just like that, she started singing a Neapolitan song he'd never heard. It came suddenly, and took him completely off guard. His heart started beating fast at the tone of her melodic, beautiful voice. He never would have thought, in a million years, that she could sing like this.

Quann te me vo bbene

Je' m attacc a stu' bene e nun trove 'chiu a mme'

[...]

As she finished, she turned to look at him.

Just then, Patrick realized he had held his breath the whole time, and exhaled.

"It's... It's a beautiful song... Extremely beautiful."

"I know. Maybe I could teach it to you, one of these days."

Patrick smiled tenderly "why not now?"

Vera smiled "OK, let's go back to the hotel, shall we?"

They went back to the hotel, and spent the whole evening reading that song's lyrics, with Vera teaching Patrick the pronunciation and the meaning. It was a love song. He knew, just then and there, that he not only wanted her, not only lusted for her, but downright loved her.