Leaving the house at around six o'clock, I took a cab and the moment I got in and had a whiff of that familiar "air freshener" all taxi cabs in this country seem to have, I immediately felt sick and nauseous. It's less of the bumpy ride nor the incessant turns for me. It's more of the smell.. I am absolutely so particular with the smell of an enclosed, fuel-powered vehicle especially when the windows are shut. When I got off—looking at the buildings, the cars, the lights all around me made my head go dizzy. My senses and mental faculty were once again reduced to a condition inferior to that of a simpleton. I couldn't even have the energy to properly admire the fancy district the English traveler chose to stay in. He was lodging in one of the prestigious condominium towers here in the city where I still have to hand over my ID so that I can have a "visitor's pass".

I don't remember being nervous about meeting him since I really didn't like him the way I liked Kaladin, but I still had a few concerns swirling around my head, which is pretty normal when you're going to a man's place for the first time whom you've never ever encountered before in real life.

It was around 6:30pm when I arrived inside the building. I sent him an SMS text asking where the heck he was and his unit because the receptionist asked for it. An immediate response I failed to receive not so disappointingly, for I was in no rush to see him face to face. He was only sixteen floors away now; not much hassle to get to no longer. If anything, I found it a delight to have good enough time to relax at the luxurious waiting area in the lobby and to leisurely stroll about the adjoining hall where on one side of the wall, a gigantic mirror stretched from the floor all the way up to the ceiling, permitting my person to casually have a look at my reflection with my passing.

I wore a long-sleeved red dress that stopped above my knees, red shoes, and a small backpack. I always thought I looked alluring in that outfit and at the same time adorable. Even though nothing romantic was effervescing in the acquaintance Rollo and I had formed, my vanity still wanted to give off a good first impression. Also, I just simply wanted to look cute.

Ten minutes and still no response from him. What is he doing? I was done checking myself out and I didn't want to look like an idiotic outsider now who just came there to loiter for free. Most importantly, I was parched and in a great need of water.

I decided to give him a call straight from my phone number and quickly ended it the moment he picked up. The whole gesture was just to notify him about me, my messages, and my arrival.

"16G"—his answer to my inquiry about his unit.

"Where are you?"—came another text.

"Do you need me to come down?"

That would've been easier, in fact, but I remembered he was injured and I didn't want to cause any more physical trouble for him so I just waited for a couple more minutes before the receptionists were done with the necessary procedures.

After handing over my ID and writing my name down, signature, and the unit number on the log book, at last, I found myself in the elevator with the number 16 button pressed, the "visitor's pass" clasped in one hand instead of wearing it around my neck like an ID.

I didn't particularly have any sort of great anticipation as the lift rolled me up to the level in which he had taken a temporary dwelling in, but I did idly wonder what he looked like in person.. I've always made it my limit that the highest I could go in regards to a man's stature is 6'1 and this gent is an inch taller than that.. Do I make him an exception or do I make another extension of my standards.. Ah, shut. It wasn't like something was ever going to happen between us. I mean, of course, that could always be the case. But despite the uncertainty of how things would go tonight, it would still be foolish of me to rule out the possibility of.. well, the "fun things" he so stubbornly refused to elaborate. I wasn't stupid, I knew what he meant. It was just fun trying to squeeze it out from his awfully obstinate mouth.

Up, up, the elevator went. Doors opened. Red heels stepping out.

16G, 16G.. His room number. Ah, found it. I pressed the switch beside the door and heard a ring inside. Any second now.. Locks were turned, and then the door swung open revealing a tall, nerdy-looking viking in a white shirt and boxer shorts.

"Heyyy!"

We both beamed to each other and I instantly noticed the dashing flash of his pearly-white smile.

Haha! He wore glasses! I thought of hugging him as a greeting, as I usually do, but he didn't seem to be going for it so I just simply came in. Having done so, my nose was abruptly welcomed with a strong smell that so contrasted the feminine flowery fragrance I wore. It wasn’t unpleasant. It was just… strong. Masculine. Giving the place no room for doubt that it was inhabited by a man.

Rollo gave off a strong scent about him, too. But unlike his unit whose aroma was new to my senses, the one he had was something familiar. So familiar. I just couldn’t quite put my fingers into it yet…

I have to say he was a little different from how I imagined him to be but not in a disappointing way. Not in an amazing way, either. Just neutral. It was probably the glasses. Or my still-clinging nausea, which I disclosed to him later on including my dizziness and damaged vision.

Once he had shut the door, I brazenly voiced out: "I'm thirsty. Can I have some water?"

He showed me where the glasses were and the water dispenser at the same time I was taking my mask off. Then he made a comment about my height saying I looked about 5'2.

"Nah, nah. I'm shorter than that. Here, let's see our difference," I said and mildly grabbed him by the elbow so we could stand in front of the full-length mirror, him behind me. I barely even reached the blade of his shoulders even with my heeled shoes on. But to be honest, it didn't look too bad to me. If anything, I still found it adorable just like I did with my ex. I mean, my previous partner is basically 6'1 so there was not a lot of difference from the change. However, since Rollo's got a leansome and slender build compared to Erwin—a man of a rather wide and stocky physique, the Englishman appeared to be a few inches taller. Ah, I swear. I always have an issue with my height yet I keep going for tall men to even magnify that insecurity more.

"Let's watch a movie!" I suggested because literally, there was nothing else to do and the uncomfortable atmosphere during the first meeting was starting to fill the room in thick swirls of smoke.

I watched him march towards the bedside table for the remote control, his gait a little slow and irregular because of the injury. Poor guy.

The unit was just a single room where the bed, sitting area, dining table, and kitchen were all set in that order from the window. Practical for one traveler, I'd say. However, it was a whole lot grander and altogether just so much nicer than the place Four was staying at when he was here in the city. (If you remember the "foreign prince" who gave me a fairytale experience on our first date.)

Rollo stayed in bed, particularly at the right side, and I on the couch (eastward the mattress)—whose placement immediately put me self-conscious upon realising the horror of the whole set-up. Set-up of the furniture, to be exact. You'll find out why soon enough.

He browsed through movie selections on Netflix and while he was at it, he told me I could take my shoes off and I did.

"You're a lot whiter than I thought," I remarked, which was quickly received with a good-natured laugh from his part.

"How did you expect me to look like, Blissetta?"

"I just thought you'd be a little tanned because, you know, you had some sun from all those beaches you went to."

Damn, those black-rimmed glasses really made him look like a nerd. Erwin had glasses, too, in fact, but with his bulky build, he seemed more like a boss. However, as much as I like nerdy men, I'm ashamed to admit my perception of Rollo being one—right at that moment—developed a bit—just a bit—of disappointment in it having enough time now to compare it on his instagram pics. In his photographs, he looked strong and carelessly masculine. And I detest myself for saying this but the man with me in that room seemed not only a nerd but also a weakling giant. Yeah, yeah. His tailbone probably had something to do with it, but.. I don't know. I had only just got in, the night was still young to set concrete opinions about him.

Whilst he was still in the process of picking a film, I asked if I could connect to the wi-fi and with a humorous smile on his visage, he teased: "So you could open Bumble?" He seemed to be always beaming whenever I'd turn to meet his face. How amicable of him.. But with my initial discernment of his character (that, being a weakling nerd), whenever he did this, I thought he looked like, uhm, a loser so eager to answer at every summon of a girl who "finally" gives him attention.

I couldn't look at his face for more than two seconds, though. I'm a shy person. I simply laughed and said: "Nooo." (I wasn't going to open Bumble right at that moment! That would be rude. Maybe later.)

We faced each other for a minute as he gave me the password (him at the right edge of the bed, me at the left side of the couch so we were an arm apart), our eyes on our respective phones. "You can reply to your messages on Bumble now," he pressed on, still in that playful tone.

"Shut up," I told him, unable to suppress my bashful smile. "I don't even get that many matches there. But I bet you do, yeah?" I returned, matching his cheeky energy.

A guilty and timid laughter showed on his countenance as he averted his eyes from me and continued on his business with the remote control, neither denying nor affirming anything. But for the obvious, his cute reaction clearly favoured the latter.

"Ooh! Why, hellooo, Mr. Popular," I humorously addressed him, laughing softly.

With all his teasing about me opening the dating app where we matched, he was the one to launch it first to show to me how "blurreh" my pictures were. I had to get up to get closer to him and we huddled together as there on his phone's screen displayed the grainy selfie of me in glasses with that awkward pose of mine.

"See? So blurreh."

"No, it is not," I disagreed. Was he blind? It wasn't crystal clear, yes, but you could still fairly see my face.

"It's blurreh. There's only one, like.. that's pretty clear," he persisted, scrolling down to the photo of me and my cat.

He was just like Erwin. He doesn't watch horror. This knowledge didn't help improve my prematurely formed view of his masculinity at all. Am I the only one who finds horror as the best option to watch when you're either with a guy you like or don't? When you don't like the person, see, horror can suggest no romantic interest at all. But also, when you like the person, it can be the BEST choice because it can get very terrifying and you'd end up holding each other or whatnot. I still wasn't sure how I felt about Rollo, though. Without the injury, was he as manly as I imagined Kaladin would be? Hmm.. I studied him sitting there.

Nay.. He's terrified of a lot of things. Prolly made the wrong choice to call him "Rollo".

It took about five or ten minutes for us to pick what to watch because the guy wanted a light-hearted comedy and don't get me wrong, I love comedies myself, but I wanted to watch something he and I hadn't watched yet. So we ended up with "The Man From Toronto". To be honest, it wasn't very fun watching it from my position because my eyesight is bad, plus, I was also distracted because of multiple reasons. The main one being with his presence. The most annoying one would be the creeping discomfort of my bra and shorts and the desire to take them off.

We'd talk every now and then as I continued to observe the whole situation I put myself in. Sometimes, I'd glance at him and think:

"What does he want?"

"Is he into women?"

"Is he ever gonna invite me into the bed so I could watch the TV closer…"

Ah, the subtitles were all blurry. I'd have to squint my eyes to read them because it wasn't very loud enough, either. Many instances I had made Rollo repeat what he said because I couldn't hear it very well.

"What?" I'd always say whenever he started talking and my distracted mind was not prepared to listen.

"Holy hell, Blissetta. You're dizzy, nauseous, blind and also DEAF?"

"I told you I have A LOT of defects. And it's because of your accent."

"How the hell did you understand my recordings, then?"

"I could REPLAY them."

Then he'd start speaking to me syllable by syllable as he'd look at me with big, round eyes; as if trying to make himself understood by a retarded person.

"Yes, you should ALWAYS talk like that," I encouraged him.

I actually have an English accent myself, I mean at least according to people, but it's different from his. Why couldn't he just talk like Harry Potter?

Sometimes, when he'd say or ask something and I didn't quite catch his words because the goddamn guy mumbles them, I'd just say "yes", or the affirmation sound of "hmm" just to not ask "what" anymore. But the complication arises when he'd go all surprised and be the one to exclaim "WHAT?" instead. And in my head, I'd be like: "Oh, shit. What did I just agree on…" And came the long process of having to reiterate either ourselves to straighten out any misunderstandings; or the short one where I just let it be. He could think whatever my unconcern for miscommunication had made him believe now, honestly. I scarcely cared anymore.

The TV screen was really making my head spin. I kept needing to pee because I kept drinking water because I kept getting thirsty. Not to mention I was famished. I had candidly voiced out I was "a little" hungry and Rollo said he had a leftover from his chicken dinner earlier.

"Didn't you eat something at the malls?" he asked.

Bro, I didn't even go there. "I had some Korean food which turned out to be a little more spicy for my liking so I didn't have very much of it," came the seamless flow of my fibbing based on real experience. "Plus, I was still queasy from the ride, so…"

"Do you want to eat now?"

"Hmm.." I hummed to think. Despite my hunger, I didn't feel like eating yet so I decided, "Maybe later."

A mirthful laughter would break through from us here and then as we watched the movie. I was beginning to wonder whether I made the right decision ever coming to his place. It seemed like nothing eventful was ever going to happen that night.

"If you're cold, there's a blanket in the closet," he said later on.

There was a heap of neatly folded comforters on one shelf when I opened the closet but I just took the brown blanket on top of the pile, which wasn't very thick, but the easiest one to get. On the shelf below laid his pairs of underwear—folded and aligned in an orderly fashion. Hmm.. He seemed like a pretty organised guy.

I returned to the couch covering myself with the brown blanket now. Honestly, what does he want? Each time we'd squabble, my impression of him being a push-around loser got kicked out of my mind until that whole notion was completely demolished out of my head because albeit injured, he was a mean Englishman! I wanted to transfer to the bed. And not even to get closer to him but just to see the TV better. It was actually a very large screen but it wasn't placed right in front of me. Should I go home after this? But I didn't feel like going home..

"What would make you busy next week, by the way?" he inquired.

"Nah, I lied."

He broke into an amused laughter upon hearing this. "Why would you lie about being busy? You're too excited to be with me?" This he asked whilst flashing me a look filled with delighted curiosity—pearly smile and all.

Cheeky chap, I inwardly groaned. Although, to be fair, I couldn't help sharing the laughter he induced. "Yes, that's exactly it. I told you I'm crazy about you."

Everytime I'd go to the bathroom, which was secluded at the farthest end of the unit behind the kitchen, he'd always pause the movie as if I really cared what would happen next. Frequent was his visit there, too, just as much as I did.

"Are you super cold?" he queried some time later, noticing I was curled up on the sofa.

"Not yet."

This reply seemed to sound so hilarious to him that he cracked a loud laugh and echoed what I said. "Not yet.."

When the movie was over, at last, I finally managed to tell him: "Can I sleep here tonight? I don't wanna go home. Some relatives are in the house." A lie, of course. No relatives. I just didn't want to go home, that's all. I was sick of my sisters, especially now that one of them is pregnant and has become a hundred times more annoying. I needed some time elsewhere with.. the comfort of a stranger.

Ha. Comfort. When do I get that from this man?

"Yes, sure," he said with a cordial smile. "You can have the other side of the bed. This is mine." He was referring to the right area where he had been staying since my advent.

"Ooh, is it some kind of an OCD thing you've got going on there?"

"Haha. I don't know. I've just always preferred this side."

Good thing he does, actually, cos my side is the left, too. But only when I'm with a man because I look really ugly on my left profile so I'd prefer sleeping on the left side of the bed so the guy can only see my good angle. Which was why I had been putting a hand on my left cheek or partially covering it with the blanket the entire time I was on the couch because he had wide access to my bad profile. I mentioned a while ago how the furniture's placement was horrible. This is why.

"Now, what next?" I asked, dreading more awkwardness in the next moments since there was no movie to fill up the silences any longer.

"You can transfer beside me, and… maybe talk. Get to know each other," he suggested with a bit of caution and hesitance as he looked at me with a small smile I couldn't well fathom. It didn't appear perverted—he had never shown any sign of perversion—but there was definitely something in it. Something sheepish, hopeful, a little timidity.. As if careful of being rejected. Still couldn't look him back for more than two seconds, though.. Damn it.

"Alright," I agreed then proceeded to stand up.

"You can get another blanket if that one's a little too thin for you."

On my way to the other side of the bed, I momentarily stopped to gaze outside the window, a lovely view I'd seen in a photograph just that very afternoon in my own room, now painted with the glaring lights against the sombre colours of an urban night. It had ceased raining. I could feel Rollo's eyes behind my back, as each time I'd get up to go to the bathroom or refill my glass with water. Or perhaps it was just my imagination based on me often doing it whenever he stood also.. Nah, sometimes when I'd turn around, I'd meet his eyes already looking up at me. Nothing weird, just something that normally happens.

I settled myself next to him on the bed, finally, with a thicker blanket with me now and we chatted for a bit before I suggested we watch another film because gosh... The amount of awkwardness in the atmosphere made me wish he had alcohol. He's even worse than Erwin because he also doesn't watch thrillers, suspense, fantasy with monsters or witches.. More than once I had asked him how in the world he managed to watch Game of Thrones since the first scene was pretty terrifying and his response never satisfied me.

"How about animated films?"

"No."

Are you kidd—but he was impossible!

Despite his frank disinterest with animated films, I still chose "Rise of the Guardians" in the end, which I have already watched, just to have a background noise as we'd converse. We talked about our siblings, our pets… He's got a dog named Bruno and it was absolutely adorable how he got his phone-cover personalised with the doggo's picture!

His main profile picture on Bumble was actually a photograph of him lifting Bruno up and he was smiling joyously as he looked at him. It was a very lovely picture; who wouldn't swipe right on it?

Continuing... He's also got two small tattoos—a "½" on his right wrist, which he got when he was drunk so it was done out of stupidity; and a 2D boat on his right arm, because he simply likes boats. That's it. Nothing profound, according to him.

"Oh, you can actually put a deep meaning with this '½' one," I stated a moment after. "You're still incomplete and are searching for your other half. AYEEE~!" I made a teasing sound and playfully poked his cheek.

He laughed softly. "Yeah, they've told me the same thing before."

"Oh, you pierced your nose," I remarked, having noticed a silver piercing on his left nostril which he idly touched with his finger upon my mentioning it. This compelled me to touch it, too, and I did.

"Yeah, I got 'em on my ear as well." His fingers reached for his left ear spontaneously as he said it and my hand followed, curiously caressing the two yet another silver accessories on his auditory organ; a regular stud below and a metal ring above.

"Do you also have..?" he began, trying to get a look at my ears.

"Yeah, I do. Both of them." I showed him my gold-studded ears. Unlike me, he was polite enough not to invade my personal space by touching my earrings as I did with his.

He was very hairy. I was still trying to figure out if I felt some kind of attraction for him. I mean, the fact that I decided to stay over and not lie about a curfew to go home early seemed to prove I had. At least it seemed like it. Dormant, maybe, but still a form of attraction enough to show some sort of tolerance for the awkwardness between us—an awkwardness, I'm sure, mostly made bearable because of his good looks; and a patient curiosity of how things would go from such tolerance. Because despite me being tired of my sisters and wanting to be out, if I'm alone with a man I don't particularly feel an attraction for in that kind of set-up, I'd easily go back home to escape such an awkward situation. Evidently, in my case with Rollo, I had chosen to stay.. A curious thing.

We were in bed less than a ruler apart, my elbow would occasionally graze his arm from some casual movements and the warmth from this little touch gave me the desire to.. uhm, ahem... scoot myself closer and snuggle on his chest.

"Isn't it itchy?" I had asked moments after, referring to his beard.

"Nah. It's only itchy when it's a stubble, you know, when it grows after you shave them."

I've never touched a beard that thick and long before. I’ve never even touched a full-grown beard, for that matter. However, with the likes of the length Rollo wore, I thought it was going to be smooth like the hair on your head. It wasn't. Haha.

Some time later, we were comparing our hands because his hands are so much bigger than mine. We spread our palms against each other to see the difference and he kept laughing and snorting at how tiny everything about me is.

"There's not much difference..." I said with such audacity.

"Are you kidding," he flatly replied, voice dripping with incredulity.

Alright, alright. There was an inch or so overlap.

Then he put his pinkie right next to mine and the bastard laughed so hard. "What is this?" he cried in frolic disbelief. "Is this even grown?"

"Shut up. There's not much difference," I kept insisting. But I was laughing, too, honestly, because there clearly was a big difference.

Then he circled my wrist by connecting the tips of his index finger and thumb and that was when he lost it because my wrist just slid loosely in between them. "Oh my God."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sticks and bones," I snapped, flicking him on the arm as he kept making fun of my size. Having done this, I asked: "Does that hurt?"

"Not even close. You can't hurt a fly, Blissetta". Then he held up his index and middle finger together. "Try and squeeze this."

I did.

"More force," he urged, which I easily obliged. "Is that the hardest?" he asked.

"Yes," I replied. "Squeeze mine." I held up my own index and middle fingers, too. He wrapped them with his hand and squeezed them in his turn. "Is that the hardest?" I asked back.

He paused for a second, as if considering gripping my fingers tighter, then decided: "Nah, I don't wanna hurt you."

I swatted his hand away and we both averted our eyes to the TV, watching Jack Frost and the other guardians on the screen.

"You're not enjoying that, are you?" I said after a moment of silence.

He chuckled. "It's fine."

"Let's just watch something else." I took the remote control and began scrolling through movies again. "Spiderman.." I read on the screen. "Ooh, I haven't watched the original."

He looked at me in surprise. "You haven't watched the first Spiderman?"

"I've seen clips but not the entire film. Are you okay if we watch this or will it scare you?"

"I've seen it, Blissetta," he said with a good-natured chuckle despite the sarcasm of my remark.

And so we watched the original Spiderman.

Rollo and I conversed in between scenes and little by little, the awkwardness wore off but we were still so… proper and distant. I wanted to get closer and snuggle into his arms but he wasn't giving off any indication that he wanted something like it so I acted the same. At one instant, I fairly noticed him placing a cushion on his boxer shorts, as if carefully covering something when we had that playful comparisons with our hands and fingers, and I wasn't sure if I saw it correctly but I was almost certain I caught a trace of his private underneath the thin fabric that covered it before he had concealed it completely; and it made me wonder if what I saw was an.. erection, because underneath the garment, it looked, ahem.. quite enlarged. Or perhaps that was just its natural resting form..

Damn.

But was he into me or not? Why wasn't he making any move?

Eventually, I finally asked: "Rolloliyo, do you have a girlfriend?"

"No, Blissetta.. I wouldn't have invited you into my bed if I had one," came his response in that very familiar way he spoke in sarcasm.

"Well, maybe you're in some sort of open relationship," I pointed out.

"No, I do not have a girlfriend," he responded in a pronounced tone intended to make himself clear. "And you? Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Yes. I actually came here to cheat," I jested.

Turns out he had a girlfriend he met in Bali last year (2021) but they broke up some time ago. They lived for two months together (I'm not very sure of this information, I couldn't listen to him very well because he was mumbling again with that Brummie accent of his), then he went back to England in October, then traveled back to Bali this May, and…

"I saw a message pop up on her phone that said: 'Oh, I can't wait to fuck your body again, bla bla…'"

I looked at him with utmost surprise spontaneously followed by sympathy. "What? Oh my God.." That was probably the first time I had given him a regard longer than two seconds. But only because he had his eyes down the entire time he spoke of it.

"So yeah, we broke up."

I was a little stunned. "Rolloliyo.." I started most commiseratingly, my voice gentle with compassion. "I didn't know you had a story..."

He made a light chuckle. "It's alright. I'm over it now."

"Oh, are you? That's why you're on Bumble! To heal your heart."

We both laughed at this together, breaking off the momentary seriousness in the atmosphere. But it was strange to think he was capable of such sentiments because how I see him is someone who.. I don't know. Maybe because I haven't seen the rest of his sides yet but this is the impression he gave me. I couldn't imagine him crying and loving someone and telling them "I love you" and actually meaning it.

He met the girl on Tinder, by the way, which, I'm betting, was where the girl also found the Frenchman she bedded.

"How many girlfriends have you had?"

"She was my first."

"What? Shut up. Like, in everything?"

For a brief second, I thought he was inexperienced only freshly tasting the lascivious pleasures in the world the previous year, until he explained: "No, no.. I've been with women before. She's just… my first relationship."

This quickly flipped my whole thought of him upside-down.

"Ooh. You were a fuckboy, weren't you? Am I with a fuckboy right now?"

"Am I with a fuckgirl right now?"

"What's a fuckgirl?"

"However you define a fuckboy."

What is, indeed, a "fuckboy"? I don't have a very clear definition of it. When I brought it forth, I thought it was just a guy who sleeps around with plenty of women.

A few times I opened Bumble—away from Rollo's eyes, of course—just simply out of habit. Still no words from Kaladin.. Sigh.

My bra and shorts were really turning insupportable now. It was an uncustomary discomfort for me because normally, at home, I'm usually naked so the longer I had them on, the more insufferable they felt until I just couldn't support it any longer. So when Rollo went to the toilet for I don't know how many times now, I removed these godforsaken undergarments and shoved it inside the drawer of the nightstand from my side on the bed. Besides, I was covered with the comforter so my little undressing episode would remain unknown to him.

"I thought you like the cold," he told me later on when I adjusted the blanket over my tiny body.

"I doooo," I replied, which probably didn't sound very convincing as I wrapped myself even tighter upon saying it.

"Do you want me to decrease the temperature?" he asked, proceeding to get up whilst complainingly adding: "I'm gonna have to sweat for you, Blissetta."

"No, no. No need," I stopped him. "I like the comforting warmth underneath a fluffy sheet when it's so cold."

When he made another moan of pain when he laid himself back on the bed, I asked which stairs he had slipped on and had his tailbone damaged. Apparently, he slid on some steps on his way to the gym nearby or maybe back from it, I don't remember exactly.

"It had rained before that and, yeah. I slipped."

"Did somebody see you?"

"Thankfully, no one was around to see it."

Snickering, I candidly told him: "I would laugh."

Then he shot me an appalled look. "You'd laugh? Why are you evil?"

"I imagined it and it looks funny."

Occasionally, we'd pay attention to the movie and me, who was my first time watching it, had some questions. One of them was when the protagonist discovers the correct hand-form to shoot out spider webs and of course, I was curious why it had to be the "rock n' roll" sign and not the "peace sign" with the two fingers like a pair of scissors. Rollo said because they look weird but honestly, he was the weird one because the hand-forms could've easily been anything. The "rock n' roll" hand only seems natural because that was what the movie "chose" and "introduced" to the viewers to be the correct hand-form.

"Don't cry, Blissetta," said Rollo when it came to the part where Spiderman's uncle died.

"I'm not crying. You're crying," I returned, throwing a sharp glance at his direction.

"No, you are."

"No, you. Look at your eyes. They're all red and moist," I insisted as this time, I risked looking him straight in the eyes for at least three seconds.

Because of all that puerile banter about who teared up, the subject arrived at my visual impairment where he took his glasses off and made me try it on. I didn't even have the time to properly wear it when I hastily removed it from my face.

"That's even worse!" burst my exclamation.

"Ah, so you're near-sighted," he inferred as he held his spectacles back in his hand.

Sometimes, he'd randomly sing my name (Blissetta, etta, etta, eh, eh, eh) and when I'd turn to ask "What?", he'd just go on and completely ignore me.

For real now, what does he want?!

Since the Spiderman setting takes place in New York, he imparted how he was originally from there and that how he was also an American. With this, I looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Really?" expressed my skepticism.

Then he explained how he was actually born there and that one of his parents—I don't remember which anymore—is an American and the other, Irish. And that at the age of four, they moved to England.

"Can you do an American accent?" I asked after he told me he has dual citizenship.

"No," he replied with a chuckle.

I placed my eyes back to the screen and after a moment's silence, he began talking again.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

When I turned to face him, he was regarding me with a smile expectant of a "yes" answer, as if it bothered him I might have thought he was lying about the whole thing. To be completely honest, I really didn't care. But I said, "Well…"

"I know, I know, I'm always sarcastic but what I'm saying is true. In fact, I can show you my ID," he offered, gesturing towards the direction eastward, wherever his card was.

Why was this so important to him?

"There's no need for that. Haha. I believe you."

The renowned upside-down kissing scene seemed to be taking place any moment now. To be honest, I slightly dreaded this part...

"Ah, the famous spiderman kiss," I began when the girl was about to close the gap between her and the hero. And then it happened. I didn't notice this from the clips I've seen before, but..

"Why didn't she just take off the entire mask? The opportunity to know his identity is literally right in front of her." Couldn't believe bitch just pulled it down halfway. LOL.

"It's just a movie, Blissetta," Rollo calmly reminded me as we watched the screen.

"Yeah, but it's just stupid. How can she just thoughtlessly kiss someone without knowing what they look like? What if that's her cousin or something?"

"You're a sick person, alright?" Here, he finally turned to me as if he just had had enough. "Why are you being so inquisitive? IT'S. JUST. A. MOVIE," he slowly spat in exasperation, albeit good-humoured, as he looked at me with big, wide eyes; as though trying to make himself understood by a dimwitted person.

So I slapped his stupid face.

Kidding.

I thought the scene would make the atmosphere even more awkward but with our little dispute, it didn't get to that point. Thank God.

When the movie was nearing its end, we touched the topic of languages and next thing we knew, we were singing in French because I told him I spoke it.

“Voulez-vouz,” he started, pausing for a second to remember the next word.

“Coucher avec moi,” I helped, which put him back into singing it with me now—“ce soir,” we finished, followed by laughter from both of us, because it was the only line we knew from that popular French song.

Do you want to sleep with me tonight? The line practically translates. I wondered if he knew it…

I guess he did, otherwise I wouldn’t have heard the faint ring of awkwardness in the laugh we shared together after singing it.

Well… did he? Want to sleep with—

Nevermind.

When the clock struck several minutes past eleven, the movie came to an end, at last. However, my feelings of frustration and disappointment only grew with this. We sat through three films and nothing, NOTHING, happened at all. That's how far my tolerance had stretched on. Three blasting movies.. What a great evening. I was actually hoping that by watching Spiderman, it would create the ambiance that would eventually gravitate us closer into each other’s arms because it’s romance, and by the time the hero and the heroine kiss, it would entice our lips to do the same, too. That’s why I settled with that whole blasting film to begin with. Instead, we bantered and now we were about to sleep. He took his glasses off and killed all the lights, the room quickly turning dark only illuminated now by the glow outside the window. All of this in silence I observed with a clinging hope that there might still be an opportunity for us to be more familiar with each other in the language of physical closeness.

That was when, as he stood on the other side of the bed, he began taking off his shirt and boxer shorts and mumbled something about how he normally sleeps in just his underwear.

'This is completely a normal situation..' I convinced myself as I watched his tall figure, only in his boxer briefs now, sauntering towards the window to close the blinds—the abrupt total darkness made me anxious in both fear and anticipation.. In a minute, my vision adjusted to the obscurity of the place and from my peripheral view, I watched him settle himself near the edge of the right side of the bed, covering himself from his waist down with another piece of that brown blanket I had. (Or was it the same one I had used?)

When I glanced at him, he already had a black eye-mask suspended on his forehead and seeing my regard, he muttered something about how he couldn't sleep without it.

"Are you comfortable enough? Is there anything else you need? More blanket, perhaps?" he asked in what seemed like an attempt to sound accommodating in the tone of a host annoyed by his guest's presence.

"Nah, I'm good. Oh, wait. Is there any more pillow?"

"There's another cushion on the couch."

"Can you please get—oh, nevermind, you're injured."

I had already sat up when he put an arrest to this action of mine by getting up himself—grunting at the struggle as he did so, and dismissively saying, "Nah, I'll get it." I watched him limp towards the couch and took the remaining cushion. When he turned back around, he THREW the thing right on my face. "There."

My mouth fell open from shock just as soft as the cushion. "Mean!" came my exclamation of surprise.

He chuckled and remained standing to look straight at me and say ever so sarcastically in that Birmingham accent of his: "Anything else you need, Queen?"

"No more, thanks," was my snappish reply as I laid back down.

He returned to his territory on the bed, making slight movements to make himself comfortable with his back towards me. Twisting his head to my direction, his fingers gripping the lower edge of his eye-mask, he said: "Goodnight, Blissetta"—before he pulled the black mask down to cover his eyes and completely turned away from me.

"Goodnight, honey," I playfully returned with an air of a wife, all the while being displeased of how this night had turned out to be. What the hell? How could he sleep already?!

'Oh, this is completely a normal situation, alright. Being in bed with a man whom I just met for the first time, and… Yep. Being just in bed. Nothing more.'

"Where are you going?" Rollo questioned a few minutes later when I stood up to go, his head twisted again and lifted a little as his eyes—temporarily freed from the mask—followed my steps.

"I'm leaving, Rolloliyo. I want divorce," I told him without meeting his gaze as I proceeded to go to the bathroom.

When I came back, I laid in bed pondering about this whole uneventful night. It was at that point I wrote that entry where I stated how I was in his lodging and he was in the same bed next to me in just his underwear. What a disappointing evening, indeed. Was I really going to waste my Saturday night sleeping back to back with a cute—albeit annoyingly sarcastic—Englishman when I could be in his arms?

I turned my phone off, placed it next to me to my left, looked straight ahead, and then in the silence, called: "Rolloliyo?" My voice came out softer than I had intended.

"Yes, Blissetta?" came his eager response, turning his head around and partially lifting his eye-mask to look in my direction. From his tone, it was evident he was still wide awake and wasn't close to sleeping at all.

My gaze still fixed ahead, I said: "I want cuddle."

Silence.

I rolled my head to finally transfer my eyes towards his side.

"Sure.." he finally said after a moment of dead quiet, beginning to move so his back was no longer turned towards me. A few arrangements of the sheet were executed on his part, including the complete removal of his mask, before he invited me to come closer. "Come here.."

I willingly edged myself towards him until my back was against his chest and he finally had me wrapped in his arms, my whole body fitting perfectly inside his embrace. Ah, at last. The comforting relief a cuddle does.. Now this definitely was a "comfort of a stranger" I talked about. The best form of it.

"I didn't know you'd want this. You weren't giving off... such vibes," confided Rollo.

"You weren't giving off such vibes, either," followed my retort.

I felt his body vibrate against my little one with a light laughter from the truth of my statement.

"You never make the first move?" I asked.

"Hmm… Nah, I do. But it usually depends on how the girl acts."

Well, that was VERY respectful of him. Too much, EVEN, to my vexation, enough to render me impatient. Three movies… We could've snuggled to—to at least one of them! Well, I guess now you could say I just experienced the literal form of "netflix & chill". LOL. And aye, I could most definitely say he was passive. We held hands but it was me who initiated to intertwine our fingers together.

"Your hands are so soft," I commented as I felt his fingers from his other hand with my free one. "Are you sure you work out?"

He chuckled. "I do. I even have callouses."

Ah, yeah. He did. But still..

"They're so soft," I persisted. "I'm jealous."

"Yours are soft, too," he pursued, squeezing my hand that was entangled with his.

"Nah, they're man-hands now." I really felt they were because I had been doing more chores now ever since the eldest witch got pregnant.

He adjusted both of our sheets and his position when he said with an amused light laughter: "It's funny how we're in.. separate blankets."

This observation immediately earned a laugh from me, too, because it was rather, indeed, strange, to be cuddling whilst wrapped in different covers. Me, in a thick duvet; he, in that brown fluffy sheet. "Yeah," I agreed.

"Because I'm white and used to cold temperatures..."

Another silence followed which no longer wrapped us in the same awkwardness as before. This time, there was warmth included into the mix. Comfort. Trust. Lingering anticipation…

“Do you have Adam’s apple?” I asked afterwards, reaching through the thicket of his beard to come in contact with a conspicuous protrusion of bone upon his neck.

“What do you mean—of course, I do.” He laughed upon my touch. And I was delighted. I have a strange fascination and attraction for Adam's apple, the prominent ones, and Rollo possessed this exact size. Sadly, it was hidden behind his magnificent beard but I didn’t mind. I am attracted to facial hair, too. And he has both.

“Do you have Adam’s apple?” he returned shortly after, remnants from his laugh clinging about his voice as he reached for my neck as well.

“Everyone actually has it,” I told him, laughing a bit as he felt for mine. “It’s just more obvious in men.”

“Wait,” he began in a tone that was slightly alarmed, before whispering: “Do you have a penis?” This, he said so close to my ear, I could feel his breath. Had he asked this on text, my response would probably have been somewhere in between teasing him if he wanted proof, or accusing him that it was just his way to say he wanted to see my… ahem. My you know what.

But asking that so close to me, our bodies entangled, I could only laugh.

When the talks had ceased, we cuddled peacefully in the silence of the dark, his one hand still intertwined with mine, the other softly fondling a small area on my arm with his fingers. Ah, this felt nice. It had been quite a while for me, being spooned by a man. I could spend my Saturday night like this. I closed my eyes as I basked in the warmth of his embrace. His familiar scent... strong and masculine, smelled even fiercer under my nose now.

So familiar...

Like a mouthwash!

That was when he lightly tipped my chin with his hand to turn my face around. And the moment it did, I was met with his lips pressed onto mine..

Damn. Rolloliyo kissing… me?

Foshan@1234 's Dear Diary