From London to Rome

Chapter 53

Luca

Meeting Skylar's family is nerve-wracking. I have talked to her siblings on the phone and I'm definitely not worried about her sister, but her brother and dad are a different story. I sure as hell know how I would behave if Adriana brought a boy home, so I'm afraid I'm facing the same faith.

It ends up being fine. I get the if you ever hurt her speech but after that everything was fine. Her mother clearly spent a full day in the kitchen making cakes and pies and I can see where Sky's baking skills come from. It's still odd to me how both Sky and her mom love to spend time in the kitchen, trying new recipes. My mum only goes into the kitchen to get coffee.

After tea and cake, we go out to the park in the neighbourhood. Me, Sky and her siblings and Abby, who apparently now is dating Noah. We just walk around, talking, telling each other stories of the past months. I love hearing Sky's siblings talk about her. They definitely have a lot of fun stories I'm dying to hear.

Most of the days were filled with eating too much, playing football with Noah and his friends and sneaking into Sky's room every night. Her parents got the spare room ready for me but Sky told me that they probably wouldn't mind me sneaking into her room. Ignorance is a blessing. I cannot believe how much fun we had in just a few days.

Seeing Skylar with her family makes me miss the presence of my own. Adrina and I have always been close, but my parents weren't home that often. Being in the same room with the four of us is a rare occurrence. Even on the holidays, my mum would be at the office to finish work. I miss the days from when I was little, dad would be home a lot and would do fun things with us after school and he always let us help him make dinner. Mum would be home late, but every night she would come into our rooms to wish us good night. I think that was the closest our family has ever been and we have been nowhere close to that in the past years.

I wouldn't mind staying with Skylar's family for a few more days, but we have a plane to Italy waiting for us. We will fly to Rome and spend a few days there. Rome is an amazing city with so many beautiful, historical sights. I already arranged a car so I can drive to nonna's town once we're done discovering Rome. There are so many places I want to show Sky, nonna already talked about giving me cooking lessons and teaching Sky some of her own recipes. Anzio is a beautiful town. The coast, the harbour, the World War 2 history, the coloured houses.

Sky's parents just drove us to the airport and we all had some coffee together before Skylar and I had to get in line for security. I've always enjoyed flying. The kick you get when the plane loses all contact with the ground and you climb higher and higher into the sky. This time it will only be better. I'm not travelling for work, not even for a normal holiday. I finally have the chance to show Sky the place where my roots are, the place I feel most at home.

Her parents asked me a dozen of questions about Italy and about my family and my roots. I was more than happy to answer all of them, I love talking about Italy and nonnina. Aside from Sky, it's my favourite topic to talk about. Not that I'm going to tell her own parents about her. I doubt they would want to know the specifics about our relationship anyway.

Luckily the flight isn't too long. It will only be around three and a half hours which is half of the length of the flight from New York a week ago. I know how Sky loves looking out of the window, so I let her have the window seat while I take the middle seat. Lucky for me, the aisle seat remains empty so I can stretch my legs a little.

We fill the hours easily. We got a bunch of snacks before boarding, so we won't have to go hungry. I show her pictures of all the places I want to show her these next two weeks. We got lucky when the sun starts to set and we have the best view possible to see the colours blending together in the sky. It's her favourite time of the day and the smile on her face when she looks out of the window only confirms what I already know.

She's the one for me.

I felt it the first time I looked into her eyes. When I looked into her eyes for the first time in the middle of that bookstore something stirred deep within me. This voice in my head, no in my heart told me that I had to see her again. It told me that I had to get to know her. Now I know that she is a piece of the puzzle that is my life. She is the piece that I was looking for all along.