Letters to Italy

24. How to survive 40 days like these?

Half a day left again. The other half I would be traveling to Belgium, thinking back about how beautiful this vacation was. The most beautiful vacation ever! Even better than the one in Rome.

I was still lying in Gianluca's arms, surprised I didn't fell out of the bed. Because the bed was meant for one person.

"Buongiorno princes Aline!" he said softly. I felt his breathe running over my cheeks. He came closer to give me there a first kiss. "Are you awake?"

"No, I guess I'm dreaming!" I laughed.

"Then we have the same dream! Because that's exactly what I was thinking!" I turned my face more towards his face, so I could look at him better. We looked in each other's eyes for a few seconds and he was playing with my hair, what was kinda a mess but he probably thought it was perfect like that.

We were lying like that for over five minutes but then he crawled out of bed, after first passing me. Then he stood next to the bed, the sunlight lit up his face, so I could see it again very clear. He smiled at me and I saw his arms coming back to me. He lifted me up with both his strong arms. Like they did in honeymoon scenes I saw a few time in movies. I laid my arms around his shoulders and didn't want to let him go anymore. It seemed like he thought the same because he walked with me through the whole hallway and put me down on my feet again next to the shower. "You! Shower!" he pointed to me and then to the shower. "I'll be back!" he said then.

A few seconds later he was back with some of my clothes. "Good choice!" I said. He smiled.

"I'll leave now but hurry up so we can still have a long 'short' day together!" he smiled a bit but he was very serious at the same moment. I think he really wanted me to hurry up so we could spend every other second together until I had to leave again. I was okay with that.

When I was ready, Gianluca showered too, very fast. He was already back in his room after 10 minutes. But he was perfect like he just had spent two hours in there.

I was lying on his bed when he came back into his room. He let everything fall out of his hands and then put them in front of him to ask my hand. "And now," he smiled, "let's really start the day!" He led me to the dining room to have breakfast together. We were first. No one else was awake yet. Maybe that's why he wanted to hurry up, he just wanted to be alone with me. He took a lot of delicious things out of the fridge. Apparently his mom had made all those things the day before, because I would've noticed it if Gianluca had made this. "Wow, what a surprise! It looks amazing, very tasty I guess."

"My mom is the best cook!" he said. "Aaah, la mamma!" I laughed. "Of course!"

"Haha, yeah, mia mamma è la migliore del mondo!" he laughed.

We ate a lot of the delicious things his mom had prepared for us. I ate more than on regular mornings. It was just too delicious. He was right, he had a very nice mother. Our breakfast felt more like a dinner date that morning. "Buongiorno!" I suddenly heard Gianluca's brother say. "Ernesto..." Gianluca responded. What followed was a list of Italian words, he said so fast, Ernesto probably had difficulties too to understand what Gianluca was saying. They smiled to each other and then Ernesto immediately left the room. Gianluca looked to me again, smiling. "You probably know what I said to him even though you didn't understand a single word!" he laughed.

"There's a big present for you in the living room and if you don't open it in 5 seconds, it will all explode!" I responded. He laughed more with it than I actually expected him to do. He was so cute when he laughed like that. But of course he was always cute, even at moments he tried to be 'cool' or 'serious'. But I preferred his gorgeous smile! Then his eyes lit up too. With the result I smiled too and my eyes lit up too. It was a chain of reactions. Or no, more a vicious circle. Because when he saw me smiling as a reaction to his smile, he smiled even more. And then I smiled more. And we kept looking to each other without saying a thing. And so on, and so on...