Letters to Italy

15. stay

"Yesterday was amazing!" I thought while thinking back about how we lay on the grass in each other's arms. Just doing nothing and enjoying being with each other. The date had ended an hour after midnight. And the weather had luckily changed to warm and pleasant. No more rain.

My phone made a noice. It was a message from Gianluca. "Goodmorning amore mio! I miss you! Can you come to the hotel again? Only if you want of course!"

Of course I wanted it. So I prepared myself to go to his hotel again and in less than 20 minutes I was totally ready. I left a note for Liene, who was still sleeping. We didn't talk yesterday. She was already asleep.

It was still very early in the morning when I arrived at the wonderful hotel. 7 am. I hadn't slept a lot but I was full of energy because I couldn't wait to jump in Gianluca's arms again.

I went upstairs to his room. In front of the door I stood still. I took a deep breath and was ready for my second full day with Gianluca Ginoble! The moment I wanted to knock on the door, it already opened and a smiling Gianluca stood at the other side of the door. His smile rising up like the sun when he saw it was me. "Come in gorgeous!"

As soon as he had closed the door, he kissed me full of passion on my mouth. Better than yesterday. How was that even possible.
"It's nice to see you too!" I said and we embraced each other again.

"I missed you last night," he said and I could see the sparks in his eyes make room for a little bit of sadness.

"I missed you too! A lot!"

"And..." he paused a few seconds "...I'm gonna miss you even more when you're back in Belgium! I have no idea what I have to do then!"

I took over a bit of his sadness when I thought about that. "We still have one day and a half!" I said trying to make him feel better. "And a night!" he added, hoping I would understand what he was aiming for. "Stay!" he said.

"I don't wanna miss a second of the time you're still here. I want to be with you untill you're plane takes off!"

He was so sweet. And I knew there was nothing I wanted more than be with him as much as possible. "I'll ask my parents today! But I can't promise you they'll agree with it."

He hugged me and took me by the hand to go to the seats in his small living room.

"Favourite actor?" He asked all of a sudden like the night after our conversation from yesterday didn't even happen.

"Matteo Simoni!" I said.

"Italian?" he asked amazed.

"He has Italian origin!" I said proudly. "But he didn't speak Italian until a year or two ago. He lives since his birth in Belgium. "Ooh, you really love all things Italian, don't you?" He smiled, probably happy with that.

"So it seems!"

"Favourite song?"

"Hmm, difficult one. That's pretty hard to answer to be honest. But right now, on this very own moment, I think it has to be 'Vacanze Romane' in the version of Il Volo."

He laughed. "Good choice."

"But I don't really know what's it about. Of course I hear it's about a vacation in Rome. But I really like it because of the music and style of the song. It's real music! Like every song you sing."

"Oh and if you ask that question tonight again, I'll probably give you a different answer!"

The rest of the day was as nice as the day before. But this time with a bit more action. We went to some nice places in Rome. He didn't want to be recognized a lot so he put his sunglasses back on. But I wasn't sure that was going to help a lot. I would recognize him anyway. But he just tried to be a bit invisible. He said "if you want to be invisible, just think that you actually are invisible! It's gonna sound strange but it actually really works!" he laughed. I knew what he meant. I did it all the time at university, on the street, at a shop. I really was an invisible person to the rest of the world, but it still didn't feel like it.