Caught Up In You

5- Hand in Hand

Previously: Sanem: But before I can even say anything more, he walks into my room. I shut the door and turn around and he's right there, I almost crash into him. "I didn't know you wou...." and he pulls me close to him. Our noses are touching and he just holds me right there, so impossibly close. I look up at him and he touches my face and begins to stroke my hair. I lean into his touch, oh how I missed his touch. He moves my hair to the side and leans into my neck, placing a soft kiss there as he inhales deeply, sending shivers down my spine.

I jump when I hear a knock at the door and Can looks at me quizzically. I smile and say, "Room service, I'm starving."

"Me too." He says. Except, I don't think he's talking about food. 

+++

Can 
I contemplate going to the cocktail hour, but know that I'll only distract her when she needs to focus on impressing the rest of the panel. But I have to see her, so I wait a half an hour into the party and peek in the banquet room. I find her instantly, her smile could light up any room. I'm drinking her in and make a self realization: I can't live without her. I need her in my life, one way or another. My head and my heart are fighting each other and the internal battle scars now sit with my soul. I know we need to talk, I know we both have so much to say to each other, but what I really need is to be close to her. To touch her. To make sure she still feels for me the way I feel for her. The party is starting to wrap up and I quickly get myself out of dodge. I wait around the reception area for a bit when I hear her call come through for room service. Of course - Sanem is always hungry. It's one of the things I love about her. The concierge service confirms her room number, I head straight to the elevators.

I stand in front of her door for what seems like a lifetime and decide to finally knock. I hear her yell, I'm coming! She opens the door and suddenly my lungs forget how to work and breathing becomes difficult.  Her beautiful hair is down, she's barefoot and has her gorgeous cocktail dress on exposing her collarbones. She starts to talk and I just walk in, drawn to her like a magnet. I don't get far before she turns into me and I pull her close. Her deep brown eyes are staring at me, my hands immediately take a mind of their own and start to caress her face and her hair. I say nothing, I just want to be in this moment where I feel warm, alive and at home. The door knocks suddenly and I forget for a moment that she's ordered food until her sweet voice says, "Room Service, I'm starving." "Me too," I respond, but I'm not sure it's for the food. 

Room Service starts to set everything up and Sanem kindly says, "no thank you, I'll do it." And the poor guy just looks at her not understanding  a word of what she's saying. So I start telling him nicely in Italian that we can take it from here. She smiles at me and says with remembrance, "of course, you're fluent."

"Sanem, I know we should talk and we both have so much to say, but I really have one thing I must say first."

"Okay," she says with hesitation.

"We're in Florence, Italy known for amazing food and wine and you've decided to call room service instead of going somewhere?" 

She laughs and says "Can, I was a little caught off guard seeing you and fled to my room so that I could pull my thoughts together. Plus, I was a little disappointed that you weren't at the cocktail reception, I thought maybe you had decided to leave after seeing me."

While stepping towards her to close the space between us I caress her face and say, "I wanted you to concentrate on your audition and I know that the cocktail party is part of that and I knew if I was there you'd be distracted and concerned about us, so I let you have your time." 

"Can, everything I did, I want you to know that I cannot apologize enough for getting caught up in things I didn't know enough about. I truly thought I was helping." She said with tears in her eyes.