From London to Rome

Chapter 36

"I can't believe you willingly spent an hour at Ikea with me."

"Honestly, it's not that bad. You are a very efficient shopper."

"Thanks for coming with me. And for getting us a car for the afternoon."

Luca borrowed a car from one of his friends so he could drive us to Ikea to get me some bookshelves. We got some cube cases and we're going to put them under my bed. I saw a video on Pinterest of someone doing it like this and I hope it will work. If it doesn't I'll just need to find another place to put two bookcases.

"No worries, baby. But the real work is yet to be done."

"Putting Ikea furniture together is the easiest thing ever. Almost all of my furniture is from Ikea and we had everything put together in no time."

On the way back to my flat we stop for some takeaway coffee and doughnuts. If we're going to be putting Ikea furniture together we'll need the caffeine. I'm equal parts excited and nervous about this plan we have. I'm excited to do a project like this with Luca, I love doing these small projects around the house and to be able to share that with Luca is amazing. I'm super nervous because this feels like a relationship test. Putting furniture together requires some fine teamwork and communication. I'd say we worked on our communication a lot these past days but this will be the real test.

"God I love doughnuts."

"You love everything with extreme sugar contents, baby."

"Can you blame me? So good."

"You sound like you're close to getting an orgasm."

"Foodgasms are a real thing, you know."

"If you keep this up I'm going to be jealous of a goddamn doughnut."

"Don't worry baby, you're my one and only. No one can ever replace you."

A faint blush makes its way to Luca's cheeks. He looks so adorable when I make him blush. Not that I will ever utter those words to him. I like seeing I can affect him just as much as he affects me. I never thought of myself as a fun or flirty person, but Luca does a great job at bringing out that side of me.

"Let's get started on these shelves so we can have dinner in a clean room tonight."

Aside from the bookcases I also got some more decoration for my room and some kitchenware I still needed. Now I at least have a vase to put my flowers in.

We take apart the packages and sort all the different pieces and screws. Putting together Ikea furniture is my hidden talent, give me anything and I'll put it together. If it wasn't for the large pieces I would probably have put it together on my own. We love us some independent ladies.

"Can you hand me that short piece?"

We work together even smoother than I expected. We hand each other parts, we screw everything together and the bookcases are standing proudly in the middle of my room. Now the hardest part of my plan comes, raising my bed with the special blocks I got and hoping the bookcases fit underneath it. I triple measured everything and according to my very precise calculations, it will fit perfectly. If there's one thing I'm good at it's working with numbers and it's not like these calculations were anything close to the difficulty of stock yields.

Lifting the bed up on the blocks is a serious struggle. I don't have much room around my bed to stand but we managed to pull the bed from the wall a little so Luca could lift the bed and I could crawl on the floor to put the blocks underneath.

"Look at those biceps." He flexes his arms a bit more showing off all that arm muscle. He must have spent hours, days, months, years in the gym to grow these muscles. "You're making me imagine things."

"A whole bunch of dirtiness I hope." A smug look shows on his face as he damn well knows my thoughts are nothing other than dirty at this moment. I let my eyes wander all over his body. He's one fine man. I love how his muscles are visibly there but not too big.

We slide the bookshelves under the bed and they fit perfectly. Barely a centimetre of room left in between the bookcases and the bed, perfect. I'm glad this plan worked out.

"Do you want me to help you organise your books?"

"If you don't mind."

"Are you crazy? You know I love books by now, I want to see every single one you read and loved."

We could have put the books away within half an hour but we take a few hours instead. By now we have already ordered some Indian food and we're only halfway through my books. Luca asks me to tell him about every book we put away. What it is about, what I liked about it. He adds a few of them to his own TBR list and I tell him he can borrow them anytime.

I can't believe how many books I have collected in the past nine months. I left most of my books at my parents' house, knowing I wouldn't have enough space to store them in my room here. I do miss all of my classics and all those books I read in high school. One of my favourite things when I go back home, is to sit in front of my large bookcase and go through all of my favourite books again.

"Maybe I can show you my collection at home sometime this summer. It's much more impressive than this."

"I would love to."