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She knows he loves her, it's all in the little details.
When you walked me home one night
It was way too early to know but after that stupendously thoughtless, reckless, stupid, amazing first kiss, Ele always knew there was more to Edo's feelings towards her than he let on. She withdrew from him at times, he walked away during others, and they both went through so much immediately after getting together that when it was all said and done, Andrea no longer in the picture, the chair incident behind them, their friends no longer making jokes about sneaking off to have sex, it felt like there was something missing between them.
There were no distractions so they could avoid it anymore, but of course, Edo would be the first one to say it.
And obviously, be drunk when he did.
"When did you get here?" Falling face-first into his pillow, he looks the very picture of wrecked. His shoes are still on and he half-heartedly kicks at her hands when she tries to unlace them, cocooning himself in his blankets when she starts rummaging through his drawers for some pyjamas.
"I've been here the whole time."
"No."
"No?"
"Yeah. No." It's all muffled, half his face covered by the blankets and the other half pressed into his pillow - so he's really just a lump right in the middle of the bed, slurring his words and most probably pouting like a child. "I missed you. You said you couldn't come."
"To the kitchen. I was staying with Eva until the other girls came."
There's a pause and then, quietly, "Oh. So you were there?"
"Yes. Now put your pyjamas on."
"I feel disgusting," The blankets slip away from him as he sits up, hair ruffled and losing its curl as he tugs it away from his eyes.
"You can shower in the morning."
"I want to shower now."
"I don't trust you to not drown yourself."
"Come with me," He grins at her cheekily, already trying to step up and reach for her at the same time but the action clearly doesn't agree with the amount of alcohol the boys pumped into him tonight. He groans and sits back down, tugging her with him into the space between his legs so he can rest his forehead against her stomach and play out his little pity party.
"How about," She sighs, running her fingers through his hair and directing his attention up to her, "We'll both shower in the morning, but you drink the tea I make you and sleep now."
"Deal," He slurs, nuzzling his nose against the button of her shorts, and then, much softer, "I love you."
Everything in her short circuits for a few seconds, but then he's pushing her out the way so he doesn't vomit all over her and she has more things to worry about then what he just said.
Even drunk, he manages to lull her to sleep first by running his nails gently against her scalp and rubbing her hip with his thumb; and he distracts her enough with mumbled apologies about having to be parented against her skin in the shower, so it's not until he's walking her home a few hours later that it really hits her what had happened.
"How's the headache?" She asks, cupping his elbow with her hand as they walk. He seems pretty chirpy for a guy that spent his first conscious hour this morning swearing off all alcohol for the first of his life, but she suspects the shower and then the lazy makeout in the kitchen probably helped that.
"Not so bad," He shrugs, sidestepping a puddle and knocking their feet together, "Thanks for leaving me that Aspirin."
"Thought you might need it."
"Smart girl," He slaps a kiss to her forehead and shakes her hand off him to wrap his arm around her shoulders and pull her into his side, "I'm very lucky."
"Incredibly lucky," She sighs, sliding her arm around his middle, "Most girlfriends would be annoyed that their boyfriends said they loved them for the first time immediately before throwing up but I just promised you a joint shower. You're either stupidly lucky or I'm just stupid."
He stops short, right in the middle of the sidewalk. "I did what?"
"Said, and I quote, 'Deal. I love you' then threw up all over your shoes - which I didn't clean up, by the way. They're by your back door so have fun with that when you get back."
"What?"
"Your shoes. Vomit all over them, incredibly disgusting and I had more to worry about than cleaning it up. For instance," She's teasing him, which she thinks he deserves after dropping that bomb on her, "The whole thing about you loving me. It was really distracting."
"Oh god." Ele's never seen her boyfriend look pale before, so the fact that he's whiter than he's ever been makes her giggle and circle her arms around his waist. The only other time she's ever seen him speechless before was when she'd called him out in front of all of his friends for how he'd treated Silvia, so it's kind of nice to reminisce.
"Edo," She smiles, laying a kiss to his chest over his tee-shirt and ignoring the loud hammering there, "Do you love me?"
"I didn't want it to happen like that," He blurts out, fast and stumbling over his words as he digs the heel of his palms into his eyes, "Oh god, I had a- I was going to- No."
"No, you don't love me?"
He drops his hands to her cheeks, gifting her a hurried kiss, "No, no- yes, I love you. Obviously, Ele, but... I had a plan."
"A plan? Do tell." It's dark and the lights from the windows above cast a glowing halo around his curls, playing with the sharp contours of his jaw and cheekbones. He's no longer as pale as he was, just a little red, and a little sheepish.
"I just... It's stupid," He keeps her close but toes at the crack in the sidewalk, not meeting her eyes, "It was just... you know? I was going to give you this stupid plant and let you talk my ear off about how to take care of it, blah blah blah, tell you that you could leave some at my place. Maybe some clothes or something, too, for when you stay over and that way you're not rushing back to yours before school starts. And I was going to make you this stupid dinner you'd seen on that show you like and tell you that I love you. It's stupid."
"That's not stupid," She didn't know that Edo had knocked the wind out of her until she had to start talking, knocking it all back out of her again when he meets her eyes and cracks a tiny smile.
"No?"
"No," She presses a hard kiss to his mouth to ground herself - tries to think back to when his kisses stopped making her world spin and started setting everything into place, making everything fit and make sense - before knocking their foreheads together, "A lot better than leaving your girlfriend to take off your vomit-shoes after you pass out."
He laughs and it's music to her ears, "Have I said sorry yet?"
She shakes her hair from her face, smiles when he tucks it behind her ear and rubs her cheek, "No," She sighs, gives him a little shrug and a playful roll of her eyes, "It's a good thing I love you then, or I would be pissed."
There's a moment where he doesn't say or move, just smiles at her and ignores the cars passing them and the cheesy Italian song playing overhead. Eventually, he sighs against her mouth and starts walking again, leading her by the hand this time.
"Well, there's no way I'm just dropping you off now. Come on, I'm pretty sure your neighbours won't like it if I started undressing you right here."
There was snow everywhere, it was turning to sleet
Rome after a night of snow looks ten times more magical than any other day, in Eleonora's opinion, and it being the first time she's seen it, she's dragged whoever let her to check out all the touristy landmarks. Edoardo relents pretty easily when she mentions it, but he'd been tucked up in her bed with two heaters aimed his way and a mountain of blankets on top of him that she'd threatened to take away - plus, you know, he loves her and all, so she's found he's really just putty in her hands.
Eva's a little less reluctant to go and even manages to drag Sana and Silvia out of bed and to Ele's in the time that it takes her to get Edoardo and Filo both out of bed and in the process of getting ready. Filo was easier to wake up, considering he's the one that likes going to the main tourist spots and watching people trip up because they're not looking - all Ele had to do was mention the ice on the floor that's going to make people slip and he was shooing her out of his room so he could change - but Edoardo seemed to have other plans.
His hands are always the softest in the morning, more gentle and lazy against her skin, kisses insistent but just as slow as the rest of his body. He cradles the back of her thighs in his palms, flexing his fingers occasionally, dragging those breathy little sounds from her mouth that he teases her about.
"We have to go," She mumbles, scratching down his back, lost in tranquillity as he nips at her bottom lip and pushes her further into the mattress underneath her. His mouth travels down her neck, hands pushing her shirt up to her ribs before he kisses his way down the path his hands had just created. It's difficult to argue with him when he knows what makes her bit her lip, and he knows that.
He's whispering words into the divets of her hips, along the waistband of her shorts, up the lace of her bra and back down again. Eleonora never knows what he's saying but she knows she loves the words spilling from his lips anyway, just because he looks up at her through his lashes and that alone makes her feel like the most important person in the world.
There's a stretch of pale blue trimming of lace on her underwear and Edoardo's mouth quirks up at the corners when he unbuttons her shorts and spots it. He sucks a mark just under, fixing the lace back into place on top of it so the red he's just created peaks out before he buttons her shorts back up and slides back up her body to claim her mouth.
If she could go back in time and tell herself that he was going to be that person for her, she would have laughed right in her own face. But he's here, making her feel like the prettiest thing on earth just by the way his mouth tugs up at the corners when he looks at her, the way his eyes soften around the edges when she asks how his day was.
"We have to go," She says again, a little less conviction in her voice but he just slots a fleeting kiss to the corner of her mouth and climbs off of her in search of his shirt.
They get the train into the city centre and meet Nicco and Luca outside a coffee shop right outside the station. "Edo said you wanted to see the snow," Nicco shrugs as an explanation, "As locals, we know the best spots."
"We live here too." Sana points out, but the boys are already walking towards the first location, and Edo's pulling Ele along by their interlocked hands, making sure to avoid the puddles of sleet and sheets of ice dotted around.
They get breakfast first, at some corner cafe that only serves Spanish desserts, but it's in prime view of watching tourists slip around the Trevi fountain. She's sat in the middle, right beside her brother and Edoardo, his hand still enclosed in hers on his lap. When she looks up at him, he's already looking at her, everyone else distracted by the American couple yelling obscenities as they fall.
"I didn't take you for a snow fan." He comments, knocking their feet together and stealing a sip of her coffee.
She shrugs and takes her coffee back, "I didn't get to see the snow a lot as a kid. My mother liked all the hot places and made sure we went away to all these different beaches once it started getting cold here. When I was in Manchester it snowed, but it just turned black and sludgy straight away."
Edoardo squeezes her fingers and leans forward to brush their lips together, "Well then, sounds like we need to make today the best snow day we can, huh?"
He's always attempting to make her day the best day ever, even if all they're doing is lazing around on her couch, and there's something about the unconscious effort he puts into it that tells Ele more than he could ever say. He absolutely hates pistachio ice cream, but always keeps it stocked in his freezer for when Ele stays the night, and the action of knowing he just keeps it in the house makes her day. He nests really hard, always trying to feel comfortable wherever he is and it shows when they're at someone else's place, but he falls instantly into a calm state when he collapses in her bed, always puts up a fuss to get up, always whines he's too comfy to turn the light off and she should do it, and the knowledge that he feels at home surrounded by her belongings stirs something in her that's never been there before.
And when she breaks down; from stress or from memories they'd rather never have; he's there in a heartbeat. Filo knows better than to touch her when she's in a state like that, but then Edo came along and suddenly the only way that she wanted to be calmed down was by Edo wrapping his arms around her and soothing her out of her struggle. And just when she thinks her day can't get better, that she's reached rock bottom and she's stuck there, he holds out his hand and pulls her right back into the light of day.
He's looking at her now like he's planning the best day ever for her behind his eyes, and there's no reason to shy away from the silent stare he's giving her. Ele wraps her free hand around Edoardo's arm and kisses him again, "Thank you."
But I knew when you looked up at me
When he looks at her it's difficult for her to breathe steadily. There's no reason to hide behind masks anymore, and he lets himself look at her so openly and fondly in front of everyone now. It's difficult to maintain a steady heartbeat when she can feel his eyes on her from across the room, or from opposite ends of the courtyard, from up close with their foreheads together or when they're standing next to each other cooking dinner.
The way he looks at her doesn't change depending on what she's wearing either. His eyes trail up and down her if she's wearing jeans and three layers on top of her vest in the exact same leisurely path they take when she dons one of his shirts in the morning and little else. If this were another boy, in another city, the fact that the same look she gets when she's naked in front of him is the same look she gets when she's wrapped up in several layers and battling a clogged nose would terrify her. She'd be itching to cover even more, to completely disguise herself from anyone and everyone.
It's no secret that she loves the way he looks at her. The girls make fun of her for it constantly, and her brother shoves them in the direction of her room before he slams his own door shut, but none of it matters when Edoardo looks at her so unabashedly.
It feels like she's walking on softer ground when he looks at her, like her feet aren't really stepping but gliding over the space between them and there's something about being looked at like she's the prettiest person in the room that makes her chest swoop in all the best ways.
"Are you nearly done?"
"Five minutes."
"You said that twenty minutes ago."
"And then you distracted me," She says pointedly, meeting his eyes in the mirror, arching her eyebrow at the sight of him. The way he's reclined across her bed makes it seem like they're not about to go spend the rest of the night out with a very loud and exhausting social group - he even still has a hint of the red lipstick on his mouth that used to be on hers.
He huffs but lets her get on with it, but it's not until she's done fixing her lipstick exactly five minutes later that she realizes he's been looking at her the whole time. Their eyes lock once again through the mirror and she catches the soft gaze in his eyes before he quickly wipes it off to take up a faux-boredom one instead.
"I'm nearly done," She says, forcing her eyes back to focus on her lipstick.
"We can just stay home," Edoardo shrugs, picking at the blankets on her bed, "We don't have to go to every party."
"It's Nicco's birthday, we do have to go."
"Nicco's been drinking since he woke up this morning, I promise you he won't know if we ditch."
"Edoardo-"
He huffs again and falls backwards, stretching his arms out above his head and letting his shirt stretch over his chest. Quietly, he murmurs, "You look pretty."
"Thank you," She chuckles, capping her lipstick and making sure everything's in her bag - including Edoardo's car keys in case he decides a drunken midnight-drive is a good idea. She's pretty rusty behind the wheel but decent enough at getting them from point A to point B when Edoardo lets her drive and seeing as she's not planning on drinking at any point she figures driving them home would be a better idea than wrangling a drunk Edo onto a bus.
He scrambles to sit up now, noticing as she walks towards him, and he's quick to cup the back of her thighs in his hands, pulling her into the gap between his thighs as he spreads his knees to accommodate her.
"I like this shirt," Ele comments, wrapping her thumb around the collar and tugging slightly, exposing more tanned skin.
"I know," He grins, "That's why you bought it for me."
He's leaning up to kiss her so she doesn't dignify him with a response, but she does focus heavily on the way his fingers drift down to rub at the tender flesh behind her knee as soon as she pulls away and taps their foreheads together.
Edoardo's a tactile toucher, always finding a way of getting his hand on her skin in the most innocent ways possible, and each and every time he achieves in skin-to-skin contact it reduces her to a puddle of mush. He's tactile with pretty much everyone he considers his family, but he's more aware of it with her; like he's itching to get his hands on her all the time and only a small fraction of that has less-than-innocent intentions behind it.
He keeps a hand on her thigh when he drives, always links their fingers together when they're walking; he'll sling an arm around her shoulders or waist when they're huddled with their friends in the courtyard, he'll loops their pinkies together when they're sitting beside each other at lunch; plays footsie with her under the table wherever they are; leaves kisses to her neck and shoulders and cheeks, any place of exposed skin he can, and whenever he hugs her he'll cup the back of her neck in his hand, rubbing his thumb in smooth circles.
He'll splay his fingers out across her ribs when they're tangled in bed together; will fumble for her hands as he breathes heavily against her neck; mouth at her collar and nip at her earlobe as he whispers in her ear. He'll cradle her body against his afterwards, never letting her more than a few inches away before chasing her to the other side of the bed, burying a laugh into her neck and his fingers in her hair.
Ele loves the way he handles her, the lingering touches that all say different things, but it's the look he gives her each and every time that sets every fibre of her being on fire.
"Stop looking at me like that," She murmurs, using her thumb to uncage his bottom lip from his teeth.
"Like what?" He whispers, arching up to ghost his mouth over her jaw, "I'm not even looking at you."
"Not now you're not," She grunts, forcing a step back and tugging him up with her, "We gotta go."
He hums, stealing another kiss before winking at her. "Let me get ready and then we can go."
"Edo!"
This was where I was meant to be
"Can I tell you the secret now?"
It's her birthday. She's eighteen now and decided there really is no better time to indulge in the alcoholic side of the party than her first night as a legal adult. Edoardo's taken it upon himself to mix her drinks for her, batting her hands away whenever she reaches for something that looks good, and has also adopted a hovering technique to supervise her that will definitely be mocked in the group chat tomorrow morning.
"Stop, Ele-" He swats her hands away again, jutting his chin in warning at her when she diverts her hands to slip around his middle, but he drops one hand to the small of her back as she squeezes between his body and the counter and he keeps her steady there as he mixes her another drink, "You have a secret?"
"The secret," She corrects, the corners of her vision a little blurry but it makes him look all soft around the edges and decidedly less annoyed when she presses against him tightly in a way sober Ele would never do in public.
"Okay," He grins at her, apparently done with whatever drink he'd been mixing her and instead slides his free hand to curl her hair loosely around his fist at the back of her neck. "What's the secret?"
Ele leans closer, her chin brushing against the buttons of his shirt, and Edoardo shuffles impossibly closer too. The action makes the counter dig uncomfortably into the bottom of her spine, but the alcohol thumbing in her system blocks it all out in favor of admiring the way Edoardo's eyes dance in the strobe lights Nicco's set up.
"Your hair's not that shitty," She whispers, giggling as Edo's eyebrows raise and his mouth quirks.
"You like my hair," He smirks, "That's not the secret."
"It is!" She cries, fisting the front of his shirt to keep him close despite neither of them moving, "I told Eva but she just thought I was joking."
"I already know you like you my hair, Ele," He murmurs, brushing the back of his knuckles against her cheek, "But thank you."
"How did you know?" She pouts, swaying now that his hand has left her back, "I'm so good at secrets. You didn't know."
"You're right, I had no clue," He entertains her, leaning down to brush his mouth against hers before pulling away and passing her a cup full of amber liquid, "Take it easy with this one."
"You never take it easy," She mutters around the rim of the cup, gripping his fingers as he guides them around Nicco's ground floor. It's packed with people, some who Ele's pretty sure just stumbled in from the street and, apparently, everyone has something to say to Edoardo tonight. He brushes them all off politely though, tugging her closer as he navigates them to the front door and it definitely makes her feel ten times more special when he practically hurls her in the opposite direction they were headed just to avoid a drunk Fede ranting about politics.
Edoardo's a mother hen, desperate to take care of his friends, and the last time Fede was drunk enough to willingly discuss the topic of the Italian government it ended badly. Ele knows that Edo should really ought to bring Fede along, but as soon as they get outside he just tugs her back into his chest with a gentle hum and all thoughts of Fede fly out the window.
"Have you seen-"
Edo interrupts, carding the tangles in her hair out with his fingers, "Sana's with Nicco, Luca took Silvia home about an hour ago. Eva and Federica are out back playing a few games with the other guys. They're all okay, have a drink, relax."
"I thought I needed to take it easy?"
"You do," He presses a kiss to her forehead, "But I'm not making you another drink after this one."
"Meanie," She pouts, but secretly glad of it ten minutes later when the cup's empty and the alcohol starts making her stumble.
"Okay," Edoardo laughs after she falls back into his chest for the sixth time, "Let's get you into bed."
"Perv," She mutters between giggles because apparently everything's funny right now.
Edo rolls his eyes and bundles her into his car, texting someone on her phone as she struggles with the seatbelt for a few minutes before he shoves both of their phones into his back pocket and clicks her belt into place with two movements.
"You're so clever," Ele whispers, fixated on the buckle of her seat belt in wonder, "How'd you do that?"
"Magic," He teases, reaching to stroke the back of her neck with his thumb until she looks up at him, "Hi. You feeling okay?"
"Hm," She hums, feeling her eyelids flutter at the way he's looking at her so she closes her eyes and leans back into his hand, "I love you."
"I love you too," He says it instantly as if hesitating would be the worst thing in the world, "You're going to hate me tomorrow."
"I could never hate you," She says just as quickly, eyes flying open to looking at her boyfriend. He's grinning at her, teeth and eyes gleaming as Ele feels her cheeks warm. They've been warm all night, but they heat up rapidly under his gaze, and she kind of despises the alcohol right now for highlighting her stupid crush on her boyfriend.
"That's the secret by the way," She declares, nodding confidently at the quirk of his eyebrow, "Not the hair."
"That you love me?"
"No, everyone knows that already," She tries to sit up straight, but the belt gets in her way and no amount of glaring makes it disappear like she's hoping. Edoardo chuckles and reaches over to unbuckle it, guiding her arm through it until she can sit on her knees and lean over towards him, "The secret is, I could never hate you."
"Yeah?" He's not drunk anything tonight, she knows because he'd insisted she celebrates her birthday the way she wanted to. They still had the decorations from Nicco's set up, and Nicco had been all too happy to be the one hosting once more. He'll regret it tomorrow, what with half of his father's wardrobe now dumped in the pool, but Ele's just glad that Edoardo's house is empty right now so she can curl up in his bed and not feel music pound in her head.
"Yep," She nods again, "Never ever."
"Never ever?" Edo teases, gripping her hip so she doesn't fall over onto his lap. It's a small car and she's reaching across the space between so she can press her forehead to his and smile at him, "That's a long time."
"Sure is," Ele nods, "But I'm meant to be here so it's okay."
And she is meant to be with him. They've gotten through so much, fought so hard to get to this position. It's a little frightening that they don't know what's ahead. Ele had always measured their relationship in the next step. They had targets and they always hit them; tell Silvia they were a thing, tell Edoardo about his brother, confront Andrea, get Edoardo to talk to the police, wait for Edo's college decisions; and now that there's nothing but a blank canvas in front of them Eleonora's really started to notice just how far she wants to go with Edo now.
Sure they've always had steps to reach before, but they were always pre-drawn for them. Always marked out before they even got there. Now, they have to draw those steps themselves, fight around whatever obstacles get in their way alongside it all - Ele's never been all too good with drawing out her own steps, she's always just bounced off of those laid out already, but looking at Edoardo right now has her coming up with some pretty good ideas for their next steps.
He's looking at her so soft and pleased, like she just told him the best news imaginable, "Meant to be with me, huh?"
"Yep," She repeats, curling her fingers through his hair, "You don't think so?"
Ele thinks so. She thinks so because the last time she let herself get this drunk there had been a part of her that was worried what would happen with the guy in front of her. Now, there's not an ounce of her being that's scared. She knows Edoardo's going to take her home, wrap her up in his clothes that she's claimed as her own; he'll play with her hair until she falls asleep and then when she wakes up he'll have tea and breakfast ready for her, will wrap himself around her in bed and wait for the headache to pass. Because that's what she does with him.
Because that's what they do.
"I think," Edo whispers, running his thumb across her bottom lip and baring his teeth at her when she bites into his thumb, "That you and I are the luckiest people in the world."
"You are," Ele shrugs, falling back into her seat and raising her arms, letting him buckle her back in with a laugh.
"Just me?" He quirks an eyebrow, starting the car but not moving them anywhere.
"Yeah," Nodding, Ele looks out the window away from him and tries not to laugh, "I mean, I'm still with you even after the packing tape-"
He cuts her off as he launches towards her, digging his fingers into her ribs and laughing as she shrieks, trying to duck out of his hold only to realize the car's limited her movement.
She gets a mouthful of his hair in the struggle, and when she wakes up the next morning she blames the bruise at her elbow on Edoardo not letting her out the car as he practically assaulted her, but he just rolls his eyes and forces her back under the covers once she's brushed her teeth.
"I love you," He murmurs against her temple, soothing whatever headache was threatening to brew.
Ele smiles, curling into him more, definitely knowing she belonged there when she fit just right, "I love you too."