Summer Fling [Charles Leclerc]

01.

-Felicity-

3rd of August 2021

" Buongiorno, un  mango frappo, per favore." I say or try to say to the girl around my age behind the counter and hand her the money. [Good morning, one mango smoothie please.]

The brunette in question softly smile as soon as the words leave my mouth. " Un frappè al mango." She smiles at me after correcting me. "But the accent wasn't that bad." She then adds with a perfect English with only a tiny bit of an italian accent.

I immediately feel a blush rush to my cheeks because of her comment, feeling a bit embarrassed even though no one else is around to hear my miserable try to speak Italian since it looks like there is only one older woman reading a book at the back of this small coffee shop I found walking around the area.

"Sorry I'm kinda new to the Italian language, I just got here yesterday." I continue in English trying to laugh about the situation. The girl laughs with me before responding. "Don't worry we might not get a tone of tourist around here but I can tell you, you're already doing better than eighty percent of them by just trying."

"Only eighty... here I was, expecting at least ninety five." I fake a disappointed face to which she laughs making the older woman look up from her book and say something that I for sure couldn't understand.

"Mi dispiace, signora" Says the brunette girl to the now very angry woman.

"Don't worry she just told us to keep it quiet and since she comes here everyday I don't want her on my bad side, you know." She then says to me. "Wait sorry, you wanted a mango smoothie right?" When I nod she immediately starts moving around to the side to make the drink while I try to look at what are other things this coffee shop offers.

"By the way, my name is Liliana." She says after activating the blender. "Oh I'm Felicity, nice to meet you." I say a bit louder so she can hear me over the noise. "That's such a cool name. I take it you're British... because of the accent." Liliana notices before turning the blender off and pouring my smoothie into a glass. "I was raised in the UK, and I take it you're Italian since... you know, you're...here." I awkwardly laugh at my weird formulation and Liliana laughs with me.

"Yeah one hundred percent Italian. We could like sit together if you want to talk a bit more, it's not like there's a lot of customers at the moment and I definitely need to sit down a bit." She proposes while putting her hands on her lower back to stretch.

I look through the big windows at the silent street seeing almost no one outside. After all, it was particularly hot, so I understood people staying in their homes to shield themselves from the sun. "For sure yeah." I answer walking toward the closest table so Liliana is still close to the counter if she needs to serve someone.

I'm not the biggest social butterfly. Not at all, actually, so striking a conversation with a girl my age in a small town on my first day is really surprising. In the best way.

When I look back at her, I immediately notice through her yellow sundress covered with an apron that she has a rounder stomach that I couldn't really see behind the counter. "Oh yeah, I'm pregnant." She precises with a smile when she must have seen me eyeing her stomach.

"Oh gosh I'm sorry if I was weird I just didn't expect it and could absolutely not tell if you were actually pregnant." I try to explain really fast already embarrassed because I must have made her uncomfortable, to which she just laughs once again. "Don't worry, I know that I'm not showing a lot especially with that apron so I just clarified. I genuinely don't mind."