After our adventure a couple of nights ago, we decided to find our accommodation before exploring the area. We were staying in the annex of a family-owned house; a cozy one-bedroom-and-living-room conversion with whitewashed walls and dark wood furniture. It looked traditional and lived in.
Once we had the keys to our accommodation, we asked our host what the best options to explore the historical center were. It turned out that we were only a twenty-minute walk uphill from the main entry gate, so we decided to leave the car and explore on foot.
The place was heaving with tourists and school trips, and most of them seemed to be interested in the small artisanal shops selling handmade products that lined both sides of the small cobbled streets. Some shops had displays of embroidered tablecloths, tea towels, and aprons hanging on the door due to having limited space inside, while other shops sold all the traditional hand-painted crockery in bright colors.
We walked the shops and then turned down a quieter street that had a promising sign for a tavern restaurant. A couple of turns later we found it. The seating space outside was on a raised deck with tables and benches, each on a swinging platform.
We took a seat and ordered a few snacks and a couple of beers since neither of us would be driving again today.
“What a cool feature,” I said, putting my foot on the platform to make us swing. There were no other tourists or noises around, so it felt like we were in a little oasis. There was even a small breeze.
“This is perfect,” David said, holding my hand and running his thumb in circles over my knuckles.
His touch was so soothing. I took a swig of my beer and closed my eyes for a second, just taking in the scent of the flowers that were hanging from the wooden beams above us, giving us some shade.
I opened my eyes and looked at David. He looked so relaxed and happy. The way he was smiling at me was doing all sorts of things to my heart. I smiled back, not daring to open my mouth for fear I’d say the words that were starting to fight to get out.
After lunch, we walked all the way around the top of the wall of the castle. The views were beautiful, but from the height of the walls, I preferred looking at all the houses contained within. I wondered how long they’d been there. Had they been passed on from generation to generation? Had they been destroyed and rebuilt as wars were fought and time went by?
Some of the gardens I could see from above had orange and lemon trees or a small chicken coop. Others were completely paved and only had some outdoor furniture. I was so distracted that I didn’t realize we’d come to the end of the wall and had to turn to go down the stairs.
As I turned, David pushed me against the wall, and while holding me in place with his own body, his lips crashed on mine. I put my hands around his waist, and as we continued to kiss, I felt my body relax against his. Before my brain noticed he was kissing me openly in daylight, he stopped, and resting his forehead against mine, he said breathlessly, “I’ve been dying to do that.”
When David grabbed my hand to go down the stairs, I saw a few other tourists smiling at us, clearly having seen the obvious display of affection. David looked back and winked. He knew those people were behind us. And he still kissed me. Fuck.
We were engulfed by a group of school teenagers as soon as we turned a corner. All we could do was lean against a wall while the group moved on animatedly. David held my hand as we stood side by side, and as the kids were walking past, he squeezed it and whispered to me.
“Look.” He nodded in the direction of a boy and girl who were holding hands as they walked. The girl was chatting with another girl who was walking beside her. I looked at David not understanding what it was he wanted me to see.
“Now look at that boy over there.” There was another boy walking almost outside of the group, wearing a yellow T-shirt, keeping his head down with headphones on his ears. He looked like all the other kids, but there was a different stance to him like he was wearing a shield or some sort of invisible armor.
“Look back at the boy who’s with the girl.”
That’s when I noticed it. The boy who was with the girl had his eyes locked on the yellow T-shirt boy. With his headphones on and his gaze fixed on the floor, he had no idea he was the object of the other boy’s attention.
We kept our eyes on the group until they turned another corner and were out of sight.
“I was that boy,” David said. “The one with the girl.”
“You liked another boy when you were in high school?”
“No, but I pretended to like girls while I was trying to figure out why my eyes kept fixing on the boys,” he confessed.
“It must have been confusing for you.”
“It was, at least until the summer,” he said.
“The summer?”
“The summer we kissed, and the last time I saw you.”
“Oh.”
“After that, I knew.”
