Nora hadn’t been kidding.

He really did get ten percent off his black candles when he mentioned “Mistress Nora sent me” to the guy at the counter. He bought a dozen, which he hoped would be enough for what he had in mind. Then he returned to their apartment and went into the little art studio Griffin had set up for him in the spare bedroom.

Time to work.

It took all of Saturday and even Sunday morning before he was finished. Griffin wouldn’t be home from his trip until about ten o’clock, and it would probably take until then to get everything set up just the way Michael wanted it. Good thing he’d slept so well the past couple of nights. Even alone in their big bed, Michael had rested well, having already made up his mind. He considered that a good sign, that his decision was helping him sleep better, not worse. Usually he took the train back to school on Sunday nights, but this wasn’t an ordinary Sunday night. Griffin could drive him back tomorrow morning. If he bothered going back tomorrow. He’d only miss two classes and there was a lot to be said for spending the entire day in bed with Griffin.

At half past ten, Michael started getting nervous. He tried walking the nervousness off by pacing the apartment. Crazy that he’d lived here with Griffin for three years and he still couldn’t completely accept this was his home. It was on the top floor of a tall Art Deco building in the Village and everything in it was fashionably old or brand new. Stainless steel appliances and hundred-year-old fireplaces. Everything Wi-Fi-enabled and original exposed brick walls. He loved the place, but when he gave people his address, he felt like he should put an asterisk by it. He hadn’t paid for it, not a penny, and if Griffin kicked him out, he’d have nothing to do but leave. Once they were engaged maybe that “yours” versus “mine” feeling would turn into “ours.” And maybe that was part of why Griffin wanted to get married, so Michael would start feeling less like a foreigner and more like a native.

Even now the apartment seemed different somehow. The light from the street streamed in the windows and set the rooms glowing. Everything the light touched spoke to him in memories. The leather sofa, which was the cause of his first fight with Griffin… and also the scene of their first time having make-up sex. Over the fireplace hung the flat-screen television where they’d watched a thousand terrible movies together. Griffin particularly loved watching bizarre foreign films—“The Frencher the better,” Griffin would say, while Michael preferred campy sci-fi flicks. Didn’t matter what they started watching. Griffin could never get through an entire film without forcing Michael to make out with him like they were kids on their first date in the back row of a movie theater. It wasn’t even sexy making out. It was just ridiculous, Griffin yawning and putting his arm around Michael’s shoulders. Michael inching away, playing hard to get, until Griffin leapt onto him like a feral animal.

They’d had a small dinner party here one night, a double date with Nora and Father S, which sounded weird in theory but ended up being one of the more fun evenings of Michael’s life that didn’t involve sex and kink. He got to see his priest for the very first time hanging with Nora outside of church, see how relaxed he was around her, how much they made each other laugh. Griffin made them all play Cards Against Humanity and Father S, seemingly so serious and intellectual, had wiped the floor with them all. He’d won on a killer hand. The question was “How did I lose my virginity?” Father S’s winning card was, “The Make-A-Wish Foundation.” Griffin laughed so hard he slid off the sofa onto the floor and took Michael with him. That night had been a blessing. It had been Father S giving Michael and Griffin his blessing. Later that night when they were alone, Michael had confessed to Griffin that a little part of him wished it had been his parents hanging out with them at their place, eating dinner with them, playing games. “Your dad doesn’t know what he’s missing,” Griffin had said. But Michael knew.

Michael walked to the kitchen for a glass of water. His mouth was dry with nervousness. The gray granite countertops in the kitchen reminded Michael of all the Sunday breakfasts he and Griffin had cooked together. Neither one of them had been naturals in the kitchen, but eventually they’d figured out eggs and bacon and toast. Kingsley had even taught them one morning how to make his lighter-than-air pancakes. He’d never teach them how to make crepes though. He said he could not share the recipe with anyone not-French as it would be an act of treason.

Michael went to the bedroom he shared with Griffin, stood in the open doorway, and stared into the shadowy room. Saturday morning before his flight back to New York, he’d had breakfast with Father S and Nora. They’d eaten al fresco on Nora’s back porch—shrimp and grits that had blown his mind—while Michael told Father S what was happening. He had simply nodded his noble head and said, “I’ll pray for God’s blessing on your home.”

Michael closed his eyes and prayed his own prayer. It wasn’t a prayer asking for blessings on their house or that he and Griffin would have a happy life together or for protection from harm or evil or anything like that. He just prayed Griffin would hurry up and get home. Michael missed the man.

The front door rattled with the sound of a key in the lock. The door opened. Prayer answered.

Michael stepped into the hallway. Griffin had on his ripped “holey jeans,” his Mets jersey—#43 for R.A. Dickey, Griffin’s all-time favorite Met—a baseball cap on backwards, and a five o’clock shadow. His usual long-flight ensemble. Michael was wearing his old standby of jeans and a plain black t-shirt, because he hadn’t known exactly what one should wear when getting engaged. Dress up? Dress down? Wear nothing?

They met halfway down the hall. They didn’t say anything. They hugged each other for a long time, that’s all. No kissing at first, only holding like they were holding on for dear life.

Then Griffin kissed him. Michael initially thought this would be a normal kiss—lips on lips, tongues just touching, sexy without requiring sex before, during, or after. That’s how it began. It didn’t stay that way. Griffin’s hands came up to Michael’s neck as the kiss went deeper. Before Michael knew it, his back was against the wall right outside their bedroom, Griffin’s tongue inside his mouth. Two strong thumbs pressed into the hollow of Michael’s panting throat. Michael was hard and wished they could skip over the formalities and get right to the kink and the sex. But they had things to say to each other that couldn’t wait, not even for kisses. Griffin seemed to know that, too, because he broke off the kiss and put a little space between them. But not much. He placed both his palms on the wall on either side of Michael’s head. Their bodies barely touched. While the touch made it heaven, the barely made it hell.

“What’s the verdict?” Griffin said, his first words since walking back into the house after leaving it four days earlier.

“I can’t tell you,” Michael said.

Griffin cocked an eyebrow at him.

Michael smiled. “But I can show you.”

“I like the sound of this,” Griffin said. “Show me.”

An order was an order. Michael ducked under Griffin’s imprisoning arm and slipped into their bedroom. He found the lighter on the bedside table and lit a candle. Griffin waited in the doorway as Michael moved around the room lighting candle after candle until the room glowed with soft flickering fire.

“I know it wasn’t easy for you,” Michael said as he finished lighting the candles. “You like to do things big and I like things small. So instead of asking me to marry you with a flash mob or skywriting…”

“I was seriously considering a scavenger hunt,” Griffin said.

“You just asked me here at home alone and you didn’t make me answer right away,” Michael said. “But since you were nice enough to do that for me, I thought I could do this for you. If you’re going to get engaged, it should be kind of a big deal, right? So I made this for you.”

Michael had lined up the candles on the bedroom’s low fireplace mantel and placed a two-by-three-foot canvas on top. Griffin walked over and stood in front of the painting which was part acrylic paint and part candle wax for added texture.

Griffin stared at the painting for a long time.

Michael took a deep breath and began to speak. “You’re the only adult I know who owns a pogo stick,” Michael said. “And you hop around the apartment on it sometimes, which is hilarious and insane just like you are. And you look as good in a suit as you do dressed in your roller derby gear. And when you’re in your roller derby gear, you always let me blow your whistle and you don’t let anyone else blow your whistle. You make me get out of the bed on Saturday mornings to go to the gym with you, which proves you’re the sadist of my dreams. There’s all these huge tough weightlifting bros at the gym and if I weren’t there you’d fit right in with them except you don’t because you hold my hand in front of them sometimes, kiss me in front of them sometimes, and I don’t think you’re telling the world we’re together to spite them or piss them off or anything, I think you just like holding my hand in public. You learned to make really good scrambled eggs because those are my favorite and you came to rescue me at school when I was sick and you treat my friends like they’re your friends. You’re amazing at flogging and even better at fucking and you kiss me like you had Navy SEAL training in kissing.” Michael took a step closer to Griffin. He didn’t realize he was doing it until he’d done it. “You bought me from my Dad with a check and you threw him against a wall to protect me from him. And you got me these,” Michael said, holding out his hands, wrists up. “Tattoos make scars and I already had scars on here from when I tried to kill myself. It doesn’t make sense that putting scars on top of scars can make something this beautiful, but it did. And that’s kind of what we are together, you know. My scars and your scars and together they’re…wings. So since you gave me wings, I thought I’d give you wings.”

The painting on the mantel was of black wings. Michael had spent hours upon hours texturing those wings, using the tip of a knife to cut through the wax and black paint. From a few feet away the lines in the wings looked like brushstrokes from the paintbrush, but close up, if one looked carefully, as carefully as Griffin was looking at it right then, one could see it. The wings were made up of teeny tiny little words. One word, actually, repeated over and over again a thousand times or more.

Yes.