DEREK

“Want to sit here for a few minutes?” I asked, glancing at two Adirondack chairs on the lawn at the Laguna Beach Ritz Carlton, as if I hadn’t already chosen it as the perfect spot. “Watch the sun set before we go to dinner?”

“Sure.” Maxim smiled, and my heart beat faster, the way it always did. But tonight was different.

We were celebrating six months together, the sale of the house I’d fixed up, and the completion of his first course in screenwriting.

We were also about to get engaged, but he didn’t know that.

We sat down side by side, and I took a drink from the glass of champagne in my hand before setting it on the table between us. Maxim set his down too, and pulled out his phone to take a few pictures of the pink and orange sky as the sun sank beneath the hazy blue horizon. It was a pleasantly cool fall evening, wind rustling the palm trees overhead, the temperature hovering around sixty, but my skin felt warm beneath my jeans and gray sports jacket. I was glad I hadn’t worn a tie.

“I almost forgot how beautiful it is here.” He shook his head as he put his phone back into his jacket pocket. “A photo could never capture it.”

I reached over and took his hand. “No. It couldn’t.”

He looked over at me, his blue eyes appearing even deeper in the fading light. “I’m remembering when we were here last time.”

I smiled. “We’ve come a long way since then.”

“We have.” He looked out over the ocean again. “Every morning I wake up and wonder if it’s all just a dream.”

“I do the same. But then I open my eyes and you’re there next to me, and I know it’s real.” Waking up next to him every morning was a gift I’d never take for granted. He’d kept his own apartment for a couple months, but after that I’d begged him to move in with me. We spent almost every night together anyway, and the nights we didn’t, I missed him too much. I’d wasted enough time, and I didn’t want to squander any more of it.

Not that the road here had been easy. My friends and siblings had accepted our relationship without question, but my parents were still struggling. At first they’d been mostly confused, then they’d ignored it, as if by refusing to acknowledge the truth it might simply go away. My father thought it was part of the “lunacy” that had caused me to cut back my hours at work so I’d have more time to devote to the house I’d bought, and told me I needed to go talk to a priest, like the devil had possessed me or something. But I stood my ground, stating that Maxim was part of my life now, and if they wanted a relationship with me, they had to accept him, too.

They were slowly coming around—we’d been invited to Thanksgiving dinner and it had gone well, if a little awkwardly—and it was Maxim who always reminded me to have patience with them. Give them time, he’d say whenever I got frustrated with their reluctant support. Remember, it was hard for you too at first.

He had the biggest heart of anyone I’d ever known.

We finished our champagne as the sun disappeared, bathing the lawn in twilight. “Should we go?” he asked, squeezing my hand.

“Yes.” But once we stood, I turned to face him and slid my arms around his waist. “Just a second. There’s something I want to say.”

“Of course.”

My legs trembled slightly as I took a deep breath. “Before you came into my life, I didn’t know who I was. I had this idea about who I wanted to be, and I tried hard to fit that mold, but I never felt right in my skin. I think one of the reasons I was so concerned about neatness and order in my life on the outside was because I had no control over the inside. I didn’t trust myself to feel the right things, so instead I focused on being perfect in other people’s eyes, because I could never be perfect in my own. And I never let anyone see the real me.”

Maxim put both arms around me, pressing his lips to my shoulder.

“Then I met you. For the first time, I trusted someone with all of me. I let someone in. And I did it because I looked at you and saw the part of myself I’d never understood and thought was wrong, but it was beautiful. Finally, with you, because of you, the pieces of me all made sense.” My chest and throat grew tight. “I fell in love with you that very moment, and it happens all over again every time I look at you.” I released him and reached into my pocket for the ring. My shaking fingers closed around the box, and I pulled it out as I dropped to one knee.

His eyes widened. “Oh my God.”

“Every single day, I thank God you got on that plane. And your bag was stolen. And my sister called me. I don’t know if I believe in fate, but I believe we were meant to be together, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” I opened the box, revealing a thick platinum Cartier band. “Marry me.”

“Oh my God,” he repeated, his eyes tearing up. “Are you serious?”

“I’m serious.”

He closed his hands over mine, leaned forward and kissed me, and I thought my heart was going to explode. “Yes. Yes.”

I stood up and slid the ring onto his finger, my sight going blurry with tears. He threw his arms around me and we held each other tightly. “Ya lublu tebya,” he whispered, which I knew now meant I love you. “Never in a million years did I think I could be this happy,” he went on, his voice cracking. “You are everything to me. Navsegda.”

“What’s that one again?”

“Forever.”

The lump in my throat grew, and I swallowed hard as we let go. Then I turned him to face the hotel behind us, where Ellen was crouched about a hundred feet away on our second floor balcony, filming the entire episode on her phone. Next to her stood my brother and sister-in-law, and Gage and Lanie, and they all started cheering. “Say hi.”

“Oh my God.” Maxim put his hands to his face and burst out laughing before embracing me again, burying his face in my neck. “This is the best day of my life.”

I laughed too. “This is only the beginning, babe. The best is yet to come.”

* * *

A few minutes later, everyone met us out on the lawn with tears and hugs and smiles and more champagne. Ellen made a toast.

“To my big brother Derek, whom we all thought was being too picky all those years, but who knew all along that perfection was only six thousand miles and one stolen bag away. And to Maxim, for chasing the dream that brought him here and never giving up. I can’t wait to call you my brother.”

“Cheers!” shouted Gage, prompting a chorus of them.

“Na zdorovie!” I added, then looked at Maxim. “How did I do?”

“Perfect,” he said, eyes shining. “You’re perfect.”

Later, after we’d celebrated at dinner and then some more in the bar, everyone went back to their rooms, and we discovered that ours had been decorated with rose petals and candles, courtesy of the hotel.

We lit the candles and appreciated it all for approximately one-point-five seconds before falling onto the bed and tearing at clothes. With the last of my psychological barriers broken, sex with Maxim was even more intense, unclouded by thoughts of guilt or shame. My desire for him was something I loved about myself rather than something I hated, and I reveled in all the ways I wanted to express it, whether it was getting inside his body or welcoming him into my own.

That night we took turns, flip fucking each other in hot, sweaty madness until we couldn’t hold back anymore and watched one another fall apart in the most achingly beautiful moment two people could share.

Afterward, we lay wrapped in each other’s arms, the balcony door open so we could hear the waves, the candlelight flickering, the air scented with rose petals and sex.

“I can’t stop looking at the ring on your finger,” I told him, lacing his fingers with mine above my chest.

“I want to put one on yours.”

I smiled. “When do you want to get married?”

“Is tomorrow too soon?”

Laughing a little, I kissed his forehead. “Probably. But we don’t have to put it off.”

“Good. I don’t want to wait.” He pressed his lips to my chest for a moment. “I want to be your husband. I want to have a family with you. I want to belong to each other, now and forever.”

My throat felt thick when I tried to swallow. “I want all of that too.”

He looked up at me. “And years from now, we can tell our kids the story of the night we met.”

“We were not a very likely love story,” I said.

“We were better than that.” He kissed my lips, and I felt it in my soul. “We were a real love story, and those never end.”

I kissed him back, my heart swelling like the ocean, vast and full and deep.