“I booked two rooms,” he mutters under his breath, stopping and setting the bags down so he can tap at his cellphone. “Last night, after I got back from dinner.”
Amused, I watch him check in with the hostess at the front desk. I glance around at the shiny marble floor, and potted plants. The arched doorways draw my eyes upward, to a ceiling painted in the fresco style. I step a little closer to Roman as he checks in, listening in on the off chance he needs me to interpret anything. He doesn’t, nor does he apparently need any help carrying the luggage as we take the stairs up to our floor.
“I can carry my bag,” I tell him. He looks at me, eyebrows slanted downward.
“No,” is all he says in return.
“What do I owe you for the room?” I ask somewhat nervously. This is an expensive hotel, and I don’t need to check the internet listing to know so. I’m not bereft, by any means, but this is more luxury than I’ve encountered outside of a work uniform.
“Nothing. I want to pay.” He smiles and nods toward a door, dropping his bag with a thump and handing me a key for what is apparently my room. I’m disappointed we aren’t sharing, which is even more ridiculous than heading off on a tour of Italy with a stranger. It’s a good thing we have separate rooms. Safer.
“Coming in?” I ask, somewhat desperately. After spending all afternoon eating, neither of us is hungry enough to go foraging for an early dinner. But I don’t want the day toendhere.
“Want to walk?” he asks hopefully. I relax, relieved that he’s not sick of me after an entire day spent in my company.
“Absolutely.” Bringing my bag into the room, I give the space a cursory glance before joining him back in the hallway. “Fancy,” I comment, which makes him chuckle.
“Not a lot to choose from when you’re booking the night before,” he admits. “I didn’t exactly shop around—kind of just went with the first one that looked cool.”
“Well, it certainly looks cool,” I confirm.
Roman barely steps a foot into his own room, next door to mine, before tossing his bag in and closing the door. I watch him re-lock it, wondering how anybody could manage to be this appealing without actively trying. He catches me watching and smiles softly, holding his hand out, palm facing upward.
As we did the night before, we stroll hand in hand through the streets. Having already been to Florence, I’m familiar with the city, but there’s something undeniably magical about visiting it with someone who hasn’t. Roman keeps a tight hold of my hand and his head on a constant swivel, as though tonight is his one and only opportunity to take it all in. I’ve never seen eyes so wide.
The only time he lets go of me is when he needs both hands to steady his cellphone as he snaps pictures. Adorably, he appears to want a picture of everything, including things as innocuous as parking meters. He also wants a picture ofuswith everything,which gives me the kind of feelings I would be better off ignoring for now.
We take a selfie next to every piece of architecture Roman likes, which admittedly, is all of them. He’s going to be sore, from all the squatting down he’s had to do, to put his face close enough to mine for a photograph.
“This is incredible,” he says for the dozenth time, gazing fondly around the Piazza del Duomo. When he notices an angle he somehow missed getting a picture of, he brings his phone up and snaps six in quick succession. I wait—feeling painfully fond of him—for what I know comes next.
“We need someone to take our picture together,” he says, glancing around. Gamely, I stop a young lady and ask, in careful Italian, if she wouldn’t mind assisting us.
As he’s done each time, Roman puts his arm around my shoulders and leans down so his head is against mine. I wrap my own around his wide waist and don’t even have to reach for a smile—it’s as easy as breathing.
“These are so good,” he comments, flicking back through his album and glancing up to smile at me.
“You’ll have to share them with me.”
He peers down at his phone, looking confused for a second, before hacking out a delighted, and somewhat embarrassed, laugh.
“I don’t have your phone number,” he says wonderingly, holding his phone up for a visual. I bite my lip to contain my own answering laugh.
“We’ve really gone about this in a backward fashion, haven’t we?” I muse, Roman chuckling gleefully as he hands me his phone. I type in my number, as well as my full name—which he heard me use at the restaurant, but might not know how to spell—and add my email address for good measure. I stop at puttingmy home address in Finland, but it’s a close thing. I want to make sure he always has a way to get hold of me.
“Perfect. Niilo Ahonen,” he reads. “Thank you. Now you’re stuck with me.”
“Perfect,” I echo, as my phone chimes with forty-seven air-dropped photographs.
Roman knocks so lightly on my door the next morning, I question whether it was a knock at all. Pausing, eyeliner pencil millimeters from my eye, I wait and see if I imagined the noise. It comes again, a little more sure, so I drop the pencil and answer the door with only one eye finished. Roman beams at me, holding his hands up to show me the coffee and paper bag he’s carrying.
“Good morning,” I greet him, stepping back to let him inside. “You’ve already been out, I see.”
“Wanted to bring you breakfast,” he says, as though the hotel he’s paying for doesn’t offer that service on-site. Walking back over to the table I’ve got my mirror propped up on, I pass my hand over his lower back on my way by.
“That was kind of you, thank you.”
I don’t think I’m imagining the way the words make him straighten, or the way his smile brightens, as though I’ve bestowed an incredible compliment. Maybe he does consider being called kind as the highest of praise, which only makes me like him more.
