Letters to Italy

21. vacation

One day later

Gianluca had picked me up with his car. A very classy one, the one I wished I could have too if I had a car. He focused on the road but sometimes, just a few seconds, he looked at me.

"What?" I giggled.

"I just love to look at you!" I was flattered by that sentence. "But if you think it's annoying, I'll try to never do it again. But that I can't promise!"

"No, it's great! I mean, you can look at me but then I don't really know what to do!"

"You don't have to do anything. I look at you because you are you! Because you're beautiful in every way! I don't expect you to do something! And you can look at me too, if you want."

"That's a deal!" I said. "You can look at me when I do nothing special, and I can look at you when you do nothing special. But you will always BE special!"

"I wish I could kiss you right now!" he said but he nodded towards his steering wheel to show me he couldn't.

"So tell me, do you have any plans the next days?" I asked curious. I really wanted to know if he had something to do for his 'job'.

"Nope, nothing at all. Sometimes we need a bit vacation too!"

"You deserve it!" I said. He turned his head to me and his lips curved upwards.

A moment we didn't say anything but he kept smiling, his eyes on the road.

"What are you thinking about?" I asked curious.

"I'm sitting next to the most beautiful girl in the world! And she's mine!"

"Per sempre!" I added because I had the idea he was going to say that.

"Per sempre!" he smiled. It had become our two little words! Per sempre. Like it was a code, to finish each little conversation.

A few minutes later we arrived at the house of the Ginoble family. Nervousness invaded my whole body. I was going to meet his family. I already saw his dad in Rome. We didn't have long conversations that time. So I was nervous to meet him again, like it was the very first time.

I never saw his mother before, except from social media pictures. She was a beautiful woman in my opinion. I hoped she was as beautiful on the inside as on the outside. But actually I didn't doubt it. And of course was I also nervous to meet his little brother, Ernesto.

"Here we are! Welcome in our home!" he showed me the way to the living room of the home where his parents lived, and where he also lived often. His apartment would be a place for later. His parents and Ernesto were waiting for us to come. They were very welcoming. After just 10 seconds they all already had embraced me like I was their lost child that came back home after years. I really felt at ease immediately. And luckily they could all speak English because my Italian wasn't really good yet.

That evening we had dinner with our five. His mother was a really good cook. And I soon found out she was indeed as beautiful on the inside as on the outside. She gave me a lot of compliments about my piano skills. Apparently Gianluca had showed everyone the video that was actually only meant for him. I felt a bit uncomfortable when they wanted to watch it again because it really was meant for Gianluca only. But they all said it was very cute.

After meeting his family, we went for a walk in his hometown, Montepagano. We finished at the beach of Roseto. Finally I could see the place he talks a lot about. His real home. And it was as beautiful as he told all the time.

We walked with our feet into the water, hand in hand. Without saying too much. Sometimes he hummed a few sentences of a song. At the end of the evening he probably had sung pieces from ten different songs.