[need to get some things out of my drafts, enjoy]

I was running, skipping, slowing down and jogging again. I buzzed with energy. The voice inside my head would not shut up. Oh god oh god oh god. One more street. I was slowing my pace, trying to calm my breath as my hands fidgeted with the hem of my shirt. 

Only one corner left and something in me yelled to stop. I stood. The voice inside my head yelled at me to turn around and run away. I made a quick decision, if I wouldn’t see him standing there, I’d just run away around the corner again until I gathered myself. I nodded to myself and started walking again.

I turned the corner- 

And there he was already walking towards me.  Shit.

My heart skipped a beat. No going back. This is it. This is happening. 

As if in trance I kept a steady pace, his happy smile meeting my nervous grimace and I didn’t know how to hold my arms. I came to a stop before him and he smiled wide, backpack on and pulling his hands out of his pockets. Not an ounce of nervousness or anxiety on him. “Ciao bimba mia.” 

This voice. 

The voice I’ve heard a hundred times over voice messages and phone calls was in front of me, echoing through my brain. Did I say it back? Did I greet him? No idea.

He held up his fist and I bumped mine against it, making the awkward finger wiggle. We fist bumped, the way we said we would. And then he pulled me in for a hug. I felt my body stiffen as a board as his arms wrapped around me, holding me close. I slowly inched my fists around his back and up, holding them against him. My body was ridgid. My head inches away from his, my breath shallow, my heart hammering in my chest as if I had just run marathon. He pressed a kiss against my temple and my eyes went wide. Too close. This was just too much and too close. 

I unraveled myself out of his embrace and we started walking. Some easiness rushed back into my body and I let go of the tension in my shoulders, my fists, my neck, my jaw. Then I felt his arm around my shoulder and went stiff once more. Too much. Too close. 

The voices inside my head wouldn’t shut up and I had to concentrate to listen to what he was saying to me. The conversion felt awkward and weird. I didn’t look at him. I felt him look at me. My hands clutched the sleeves of my cardigan and I was trying to focus on a straight walk. Did he ask me something, maybe how I felt?  We said hi and ciao a bunch of times. He was so at ease, looking at me, taking me in. How could he be this comfortable around a stranger? But I suppose I wasn’t a stranger. I was his bimba. The same he had texted every day for a month. The same he had shared phone calls, video calls and car rides with. And so much more. 

I couldn’t look at him looking at me. The nervousness, the anxiety. I clutched my hands. I was avoiding him.

We reached the corner on the main street and he stopped. A roaming look over my tensed up body made him offer a kind smile and shifted his head. “Would you like to get dinner somewhere else?”  I released a breath. A decision, I had to decide. What did I want? Was it okay if he came home? I couldn’t even form a decision because my mind was still rattling about how this is happening and he really came here for me and how he walked there beside me and looked so good and happy and at ease. 

He was here.

He was here he was here he was here he looked at me and stared and observed me and my frantic eyes and how I clutched the sleeves of my cardigan. Those big brown eyes. I let my look linger a second before ripping it away again. It was too much. Too intense. 

We reached the restaurant and sat down opposite of each other and this was worse than our walk. He stared at me. The smile too wide for his face, eyes scanning every spot of my face and staring into my soul. I couldn’t escape this look. Being perceived like that almost felt like a kick to the stomach. But of course he stared. He’d wanted that for a month.

And here we were here we were here we were. There he was. He was there. He was here. Here here here. For me.

He reached his hand out for a high five, to ease me into this. He read me. Saw my shaking hand and my grimaced face, the way I spun around my ring on my hand. I overcame my anxiety and high fived, but I quickly pulled my hand away. 

But I remembered the touch.

So warm. Soft. Comforting. 

A minute passed and he placed his hand on the side of the table, ready for me to grab whenever I wanted. Whenever I’m ready. He waits for me. Patient and happy and easy and he was looking at me again with this grateful look. Just happy to be here. Happy finally arrived. Happy to see me. And he looked and looked and looked and I asked him to look away. And he did.

I breathed. I was lost in my anxiety.

He wiggled his fingers and I put my hand in his has fast as I snatched it back. He shot me an amused look and left his hand out. 

I took it again. Not for long. And again. A bit longer.  He sighed a happy and content sigh and I was able to withstand the eye contact longer. 

Then our food arrived. He served himself and I served myself and he looked at me again as my eyes gleamed over the fried dish. He commented on it and I smiled. And he smiled back and for a second I forgot my anxiety. 

I took my first bite and everything else disappeared for a moment and I just tasted the delicious food and smiled and felt at ease. 

The rest of the dinner went by in a similar way. He continued to look at me and I continued to ask him to stop staring. He smiled, I nervously smiled back. We ate and drank, and he refilled my cup. The lollipop resting next to my plate. 

After dinner he asked me if I wanted to go for a walk before settling in and I agreed. We brought his backpack to my place and I got him something to drink before we left again and strolled around the block. 

He put his arm around me a couple times and we just talked about the day, about his journey, about what we wanted to do the next few days. Or maybe we just talked about the weather. I can barely remember. He carefully avoided any anxiety triggering topics and I internally thanked him for that.

I could feel the way he wanted to hug the world. Everything in him practically stretched out to squeeze me and the world. To squeeze me like the many times we talked about. Squeeze his bimba. Make me squeak and giggle and hang on to him.

We walked back to my place and he handled the old lock of the door, led us inside and walked in as if it was his own place. I admired his comfort. I wished I was more comfortable. Relaxed. At ease.

I took my shoes off and put our jackets away before standing in the middle of the room, not knowing where to sit or what to do, whatnot talk about or how to hold my arms. I let them dangle at my sides.

He observes me for a second before he strode over with that relaxed and smooth walk, a few steps and he reached me. He took my hands and pulled me closer, I held my breath. His eyes looked at me with the softest expression, a warm smile on his face. Little creases crinkling at his eyes, his eyebrows raised ever so slightly.

“Come on,” he softly said. And I let him guide my hands around his neck. He hugged me and after a few moments I wiggled out of it. It was too close. But it felt good.

And I knew… I knew I’d be alright. I wished I was already comfortable enough to hug and squeeze and climb him. I wished I wouldn’t waste my time being awkward. But I knew I was going to be alright. That it was going to be great.

I went back to the kitchen nook and gave him a glass of water. Anything to distract myself from the man in my bedroom.

The man in my bedroom the man in my bedroom the man in my-

oh. OH. 

He hugged me and picked me up, spun me around and I laughed and squealed and asked him to let me down. He couldn’t just pick me up like that! Without warning!

“What are you doing???” 

“Just twirling my bimba,” he calmly replied. He let me down again and looked at my flushed face, a wide smile on his lips and he did it again. He just picked me up again and spun me around. 

My breath got shallow and I clutched his shoulders, thankful for feeling the ground under my feet again. I took a step back from him but his wish to touch me was bigger. His mission to use every second. His mission to not let me go.

He hugged me again before leading us to the bed. Then he folded me in half and held me, he just held me like his baby. Head kisses. Temple kisses. Nose boops. And he kept his arms around me in this strong hold, I couldn’t escape, I couldn’t wiggle out.

And I didn’t want to.

He was warm and soft and he softly spoke about some things that my mind couldn’t hold onto and his gentle touch made my eyes flutter and I didn’t want to escape anymore.

I changed into my short pants when he left the room for a moment before I sat back down on the bed in anticipation. Anxiety and anticipation. He walked over to his backpack to retrieve his pajamas, I watched him.

Man in my bedroom. Man in my bedroom.

Then something hit me. He had tossed something to me that landed perfectly in my lap and I looked at him, puzzled, as he wiggled his eyebrows and grinned.

The Hoodie. 

The day before he said he’d bring me a hoodie. He’d give me a hoodie. For me. To keep. “Duh”.

He grinned widely at me as I picked up the piece of clothing. A soft navy blue hoodie. Navy blue. His favorite color. Probably one of the best he had in his closet. And now it was mine. Mine.

“It’s navy blue,” was all I could get over my lips. 

“And it has green on it, too,” he stated. A green logo on the front, small, embroidered. My favorite color. His favorite color. 

“Yes.” 

“I sprayed my perfume on it.” My gaze shifted from the hoodie to him and back to the hoodie before I closed my eyes and sniffed. Him. Fuck. So good. So soft. So perfect. I would know, I picked the perfume.

Weeks ago, I told him to get a different perfume. And he just did it. He just did that.

“Th-thank you,” I managed to say. Or maybe not. All I could think of was one of his best hoodies in my hands for me for me to keep for me to take back home. For me to take back to my country. For me to hold on to.

He laid back on the bed and we started cuddling. me on his chest, his hand on my back. I couldn’t believe i was already snuggling with this man. I’m my shorts and crop top. In my bed. With a stranger. With him.

With him with him with him with him

But he felt so good.

His hands caressed my body. My arms and back, my thigh and head. They grazed over my butt and my sides. I could feel how much he wanted his hands all over me, under my clothes. How much he just wanted to feel my skin. Touch me. Taste me. It was an overwhelming amount of desire that radiated off of him.

Gingerly I reached my hand out to his face and started caressing him too. The soft skin of his temple… down his cheek… raking my fingertips through his beard. So fucking soft. I kept tracing patterns over his beard, his cheeks and chin.

When my fingertips came closer to his mouth he nipped at them. I gasped. He did it again, kissing and nipping on my fingers before he swiftly took the tip of my finger in his mouth.

I shuddered. So soft and wet and good. Why did that feel so good? I pulled my hand back, suddenly unsure what to do with this feeling and went back to cuddling as his hands stroke over my back and thighs.

A hand sneaked under my shirt to caress my back and we just kept doing that for a long while. And I couldn’t believe how at ease I was with the stranger in my bed. With him in my bed. The way he was dying to kiss me, to touch me. To feel me. The way he was holding his breath each time I got closer to his face. The way his heart was drumming against my hand on his chest.