alberto, tito
01.11.19 | 8:16 am
—
sitting together, our knees touched all night. “somebody told me you have a boyfriend,” you said, confused.
and when i asked you who, and incredulously said it wasn’t true (how many glasses of wine was i in at this point?), you only said, “tell the sin, not the sinner.”
you kept saying over and over that you wanted some of the candy, but you were sure the bar had run out. “will you come check with me?” so we went into the bar together, scoping out the candy situation. nothing. you asked the bartender in your quite perfect french. nothing.
so instead, we found sweet roasted peanuts, paid the one euro, and found ourselves back at the table with everyone to share them.
later, you disappeared, and i floated my way through the other conversations of french, italian, spanish, and english. i grasped on to what i could but i responded to the questions in french with my english. at least my comprehension is improving.
some people went home and you appeared with your food — an order of fries with algerian sauces and moroccan sauce. you stabbed the fries with your fork and put them in my mouth, made me try both sauces, of which our preferences differed. but every time you offered, i gladly took the bite.
later, we walked home together (our apartments are in the same direction anyway). you still wanted candy, so we popped into the épicerie, and you let me choose the watermelon candy i hoped would be sour (it wasn’t). we shared it as we walked, and when i tried to give you the rest, saying it’s your candy after all, you shot back, “no, it’s our candy.”
when we reached the side street i had to take, i said this is me, and you said, “i know, i remember.” we did the french thing, three kisses on the cheek, and off we both went to our prospective apartments.
—
i don’t know if this is actually anything (it’s probably not), but i love getting to know people in this way. we met in real life, we are hanging out with our friends, and if i can have some harmless flirtation with a coworker who says he’ll see me on monday, then why the hell not?