Rome is Totally NSFW

There’s this little hamburger place I’ve come to love around the corner from my apartment in Rome. The food is fantastic and, more importantly, the two Romans that work there are beyond adorable. Each time I go in, they insist I eat there and I end up staying for an hour, just laughing and chatting with them. Their English is a little rusty and my Italian is no better than the first day I got here, but we somehow find commonality, so much so that going there is one of my favorite things to do in Rome.

The other night I went there to grab a burger and a beer. The owner of the restaurant, who is quite young, is my favorite. We’ll call him C, partly for the anonymity and partly because, admittedly, I couldn’t understand what his name was BOTH times he told me, so, in actuality, I don’t even really know his first name. But is that important right now? No, my friends, it is not.

C starts telling me riddles. One about people jumping out of buildings and, once he tells me the answer, it doesn’t even make sense. Clearly, this riddle has been lost in translation. But, I don’t mind. Have I mentioned that C is ridiculously cute? I’m sure you could have gathered my swooniness.

Then, C tells me another riddle.

For this one, he needs to take my hand. So, he grabs it and I’m kind of thinking, all right, this is a little odd, but let’s be real here, I’M NOT GOING TO COMPLAIN.

He tells me, with his adorable Italian/English, “There’s a bug on your hand. And there’s water over here.” He points over to his hand.

I say, “What kind of bug is it?”

“Jamie, I don’t know.” He just likes saying my name. He seems to just, say it, a lot. Which only, of course, adds to my swoons.

Then, like a kid, like a giddy little kid, he pulls out paper to draw the bug. I laugh. I still have a full burger in my hand, because I’m so caught up in how much I’m swooning that, really, what did I come here for? Food? Yeah, whatever.

He draws the bug. (A ridiculous drawing that only brings on more laughter from us.) He grabs my hand again. And, he says, “There’s water over here and the bug needs to get over to this land. How does the bug do it?”

“A bridge?”

“A bridge?! There is no bridge, Jamie! What?! You think the bug is going to build a bridge to get across the water? Jamie!”

At this point, both him and I are laughing uncontrollably. He’s rolling his eyes and looking at me incredulously over my bridge comment, but I know, secretly, he’s thinking I’m adorable. I’m psychic like that.

“The bug goes around the water?”

“No, Jamie, the bug can not go around the water.”

He continues to hold my hand and, at this point, he starts tracing the lines between my fingers. He tells me, “The bug can go down this way. And this way. And this way.” Each “this way” punctuated by the soft touch of his finger gliding down the spaces between my fingers.

The first time he does it, I’m a bit surprised.

The second time he does it, I’m thinking in my head, MY GOD STOP DOING THAT. THIS IS, QUITE LITERALLY, NSFW.

And the third time? No attractive man should EVER do this to a woman unless they want said woman to spend the next two days thinking about it entirely too much, in which situations involving countertops have been explored and OMG what if they Google me and find this?

Segue to avoid awkwardness if hot Romans Google me commences NOW.

“Swim? Can the bug swim?”

C laughs. “No, Jamie, the bug can not swim.”

Finally, I say, “Okay, just tell me. I don’t know.”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes. I really do.”

“Jamie, I don’t know how the bug gets over to the land, I just wanted to hold your hand.”

OMG. OMFG. *dies*

At this point, I yell dramatically, “Wow! That is SUCH an ITALIAN thing to do!”

But, really? I’m trying to hide the fact that I’m blushing and dying of the swoons and all I want to do is just be all, “MARRY ME! HAVE MY ITALIAN BABY CHILDREN!”

But, I don’t. Ya know, for OBVIOUS reasons.