Chapter 46

46

DES: KOREA

S tanding in the kitchen by the exit to the apartment, I check my phone and wallet as Mitzi watches us with her head on her paws: She hates being left behind. Alex peers at me over his glasses before pulling down the front of his suit jacket and picking a speck of dust off it.

"How do I look?"

I tip my head on one side and smile at him, then step forward and hook him around the neck, kissing his cheek.

"Like the hottest boyfriend in the world."

He steps back and rubs his face, peering at his hand, my lips. "I can't chat to everyone this evening with lipstick on me."

I laugh. "Maybe it would set a new trend. After tonight, the trends are going to be all about you."

Tipping his head back, he studies the ceiling. "Stop, okay? I'm nervous enough. I don't need you …" He flaps a hand at me.

"What? Being myself?" I pout, but his gaze softens.

"Just don't give me anything else to stress about," he says quietly.

Saluting, I say, "How do I look as the photographer's muse?" I place my hand behind my head and stick my hip out in my best Marilyn Monroe pose.

He tsks. "You know you always look amazing."

My black grungy ripped jeans and chains and a tight charcoal vest that shows off my arms are a sharp contrast to Alex's sharp suit. He trails his hand down my bicep, and a shiver runs through me.

"All this working out you've been doing …"

"Don't stroke me or I will pick you up and take you straight back to bed."

He grins at me and shakes his head.

"Shall we go?" I say.

It's already hit zero degrees tonight, so we bundle ourselves into big, padded coats. And Mitzi whines at us so I stoop down to fuss over her. I still can't believe how easy it was to ship her over here.

Once we're in the elevator, I examine his pale face. "This is going to be great."

My eyes snag on his ear piercing. If Korea has been good for my career, then it seems to have unleashed something in Alex. The shy boy I met eleven months ago has morphed into something else entirely. He's still quiet, but even before we arrived in Seoul, he had meetings lined up with all the top financial companies. And despite the debacle at his old job, where he ended up with a decent payout and an apology, working for one of the top firms in New York had people here snapping at his heels to bring him on board. Now he's earning almost twice his previous salary, even though he told them during interviews that he only wanted to work four days a week. True to his word, the other three days he has been out traveling the city and photographing everything. Photographing me. He's gone to courses and networked and met people, all culminating in a meeting with a guy who ran a gallery. Where his show is tonight.

Physically he's changed, too. He admired my arms, but if anything he's been training harder than me, like he's determined to throw off the last vestiges of whatever he felt he was escaping from in New York. Alongside the piercing, there are several very hot tattoos: they're small and discreet and include a Korean one on his neck behind his ear that I like kissing. It means "North Star" in Korean because apparently, that's who I am to him. I press my hand to my chest. I found him on a cheesy app—that seems like a crime—but I'm eternally grateful to my confused self for responding. Alex has said he wants our time here to be incredible, and the ink is his reminder to always make life amazing. His look has gone AWOL, too, wilder and edgier, and dear God I am loving watching him blossom. My ribs expand. I get to be his support guy . And I want him to achieve everything in this world he wants to.

He turns toward me. "It's a big deal tonight, okay? I want to make it in this industry."

I squeeze his hand. "I want that, too," I say, as his brown eyes meet mine. "Oh! Talking of which, I emailed some of the images from the show to Jo."

His jaw drops. "You did what ? You sent practically pornographic photographs of you and me to Jo?"

The elevator pings, and he steps out, shaking his head as I follow him across the cool gleaming glass of the foyer to the cold street outside.

"It's your art! And by the way Jo loved them, but even more importantly, Janus loved them. He rang me to ask about buying two of the pieces, but also to see if we'll fly back to New York so you can take pictures of baby Phillips."

" What?"

Grinning, I add, "All expenses paid, business class."

"But the Intimacies exhibition is all erotic photography of you and me! That isn't the type of thing you want for the birth of a child."

"Janus asked if you'd take photos of him and Jo together," I say, smirking.

Alex covers his face. "Are you kidding me? Like explicit ones?"

"Probably. You have to be the luckiest dude on the planet to be asked to take pictures of that guy with his shirt off …" Fanning myself with my hand, I lean into Alex. "Maybe with all his clothes off." I press my hand to my chest.

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"It's way too intimate. I mean …"

"You have just created an exhibition of erotic photographs of you and me, mainly me actually. What do you mean you can't do that?"

"God, I'm such a fraud."

My eyes widen at him. "What? Why would you say that?"

"All I did was take a bunch of hot pictures of my boyfriend, often after we'd had sex. I'm not a proper photographer at all. Fuck, I'm an idiot," he mutters.

And he yanks open the door of the orange cab that's now waiting on the sidewalk to take us to the art gallery.

I told Alex about the conversation with Janus because I thought it would settle his nerves, but by the time we arrive his face is one long streak of misery. He's a stewer this lovely man of mine. As we push through the steel-and-glass door and shed our layers, I take in the huge white space, now adorned with enormous black- and-white prints. The head of the gallery, Seo-jun, who I think is secretly in love with Alex—a fact I've shared with Alex many times—comes flapping over.

"Alex!" he simpers. "Oh, you guys look so amazing!" His hand scans theatrically up and down our bodies, his other hand clamped around some books. This guy is more of a drama merchant than I am.

"Is that the catalogue?" I say. I've seen a proof but not the real thing.

Beaming, he gives one each to Alex and me and then scuttles off to greet someone who's just arrived. The book is solid and glossy; a heavy weight in my hands. On the front cover is a nude photograph of me, cropped from the hips upward. Alex took it one night in the kitchen in our apartment in New York without me knowing. The only bits illuminated are my chest and my face, which even in black and white you can tell are flushed and sweaty. My hand is resting on my pecs like I'm recovering, and if I wasn't naked, you'd think I'd been on a run. It's an outstanding picture, very suggestive.

I sigh. "I love this photo."

Alex stares at the book in his hand, then his eyes come up to meet mine. His face is ashen.

"What is it?"

"What am I doing?" he whispers.

"Living your best life, Alex," I say, and lean in and kiss him on the cheek again.

He groans. "They're going to crucify me. I've got no artistic training, nothing." He looks around wildly. "I have to go."

When I clasp his arm and pull him into me, he's shaking. "One step at a time, sweetheart. There are things we need to do. Photographs for the press, interviews, yes?"

He shakes his head. "No way, Des. I don't have anything to say. What the hell can I say about these pictures?" He sweeps his hand toward the walls.

Goddammit. I should have rehearsed with him before we got here. He's so quiet Alex; I had no idea he was panicking so much.

"Just say the concept was to explore the boundaries between public and private exposure. Who says what stays sacred and what is for wider consumption? And who ought to have a say in that?"

"Boundaries between public and private … what stays sacred," he mutters under his breath.

I pull back. "Can you do that?"

"Perhaps. Will you stay here?" He curls his fingers through mine.

I kiss his cheek again. "I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart."

Seo-jun reappears with a man with a camera, who introduces himself as Ji-woo, but just Woo for Westerners, he says with a wink. Grinning broadly, he leans in and says, "This is terrifying taking pictures at a photography exhibition. I want to apologize in advance."

Alex shakes his head. "Not at all. Believe you me, I look at the photographs on the wall, and it doesn't seem like they belong to me, you know?"

"They're amazing," Woo says, gazing around the gallery, and Alex stares at him for a beat before slumping a little. I'll bet my bottom dollar the photographer's opinion is the only one he really cares about.

"What I'd like to do is get a picture of you guys talking together in front of one of the photos."

Glancing down at our linked fingers, he beams. "Holding hands would be awesome, too."

As Woo positions us where he wants us, Alex is still pale. Maybe I need to try to make Alex laugh, because the guy needs some happy pictures, right? So I lean into him and say, "What do you call a man with a rubber toe?"

"What?"

"What do you call a man with a rubber toe?"

"Des, we don't have time for this."

"Yes, we do." I pull on his hand. "Ignore the photographer. What do you call a man with a rubber toe?"

He sighs and tilts his head back to gaze at the ceiling, and I grin at his tipped-back head, and when he comes back down, a small smile is twisting his lips. Woo snaps away.

"I have no idea, Des. What do you call a man with a rubber toe?"

"Roberto!" I say triumphantly, and he places his hands over his face. But I know him too well now, and I caught his half smile before he hid it.

"Why did the can crusher quit his job?"

He drops his hands and glares at me. "What? Stop it right now."

"No. Come on. Why did the can crusher quit his job?"

"This is fantastic, guys," Woo says. "I'm getting some great pictures."

"See?" I say, stepping into Alex and pulling him into a hug.

"Great, great," Woo says.

Alex shakes his head and glowers at me. "I don't know, Des, why did the can crusher quit his job?"

"Because it was soda pressing!"

Even I find that funny, and his lips quirk as I watch the point where he can't hold it back anymore. His lips curl up into the wildest grin. Smiling back at him, I place a kiss right over his laughing mouth and he closes his eyes. When I pull back, his eyes pop open and he rolls them at me.

"That was fabulous!" Woo says, bounding up to us. "At the end there." He makes a kissing noise and shakes his head. "Just perfect."

Turning his digital camera around, he shows us the picture and my breath stalls. I'm grinning at Alex like he hangs the moon and stars for me, and oh fuck, he's looking at me the same way. I stare at the image on the screen. Woo swipes to the next one where I'm smooching him over his smiling mouth and we're both laughing. We look like we're madly in love. I mean we are, but how can a photograph capture it so well? Holy shit. After all this time, all these false starts then thinking I'd lost him. My throat tightens. Shit, I'm going to cry.

I turn away, and as I do, I hear Woo say, "Didn't he like them? There are other ones that …"

Alex clears his throat. "No, no. I think the problem is he liked them too much." And his hand lands on my arm before I'm even three or four steps away.

"Des."

Urgency thrums through his voice, and I press my fingers into the corner of my eyes.

"I'm just trying to get myself under control," I mutter.

He turns me around and pulls me into his arms. "It's okay."

"I don't know what I'd do if I lost you now."

"What? Don't say things like that now. We're about to do the biggest thing I've ever done in my life."

"I'm sorry."

Shifting back, he bends his knees a little to see my face, tipping my chin up, eyes roaming mine.

"It's all right. I feel the same way. You're not going to lose me."

This makes me want to cry more. "I'm sorry, Alex."

He laughs and pulls me into him again. "Come on, you big softie."

"Never mind your pictures, I want the one Woo took framed on our wall."

"Is okay?" Woo says from behind Alex.

"It's great," Alex says over his shoulder. Then he turns around and gets the photographer's card while I compose myself. And when he's moved on to take photographs of the gallery, we stare at the large white space steadily filling with chattering people, and the huge pictures dominating it.

"Funnily enough, I'm not nervous anymore," Alex says with a laugh. "Well done, Des."

I give myself a little shake. I'm here for Alex. I squeeze his hand. "Come on then, let's mingle."

Two hours later, I think I have drunkenly sold all the photographs in the place. Each time a tray with glasses of champagne has gone past, I've nabbed two or even three, pressing them into other people's hands and downing every second glass myself. Everything is becoming fuzzy around the edges. I narrow my eyes on an older straight couple standing next to a picture that I think hasn't been bought yet because of the price tag, so I weave through the crowd toward them. The gallery is packed, and they're clearly arguing. They look American or perhaps European.

On the white wall behind them is a photo of my crotch. Of course, you can't see anything rude—it's too arty for that—but it's there in shadow alongside my stomach and a hint of pubic hair.

I scoot over to them. "Hello," I say brightly, and the man scowls at me.

I gesture at the photograph. "Not sure how I feel about having my junk on display in an art gallery."

The lady blinks at me. "This is you?" She scans me up and down.

"They're pretty much all me, to be honest. I'm Alex's boyfriend, Des." I hold out my hand, which she takes enthusiastically.

"We met before he was out, when he was just starting to explore his sexuality. These photographs show that quality of innocence, I think. I love art from a particular point in an artist's life that could never be repeated, don't you?"

"Never be repeated," the man says in a heavy Russian accent, turning to look at the photograph, then peering over his glasses at it.

"Alex won't ever do work quite like this again," I say, looking at the image, and both the lady and the man turn to stand next to me to examine it. "It's a reflection of what was hidden and what was not. The dark and the light …" I sweep a hand over the picture, then glance behind me across the gallery to where Alex is talking earnestly to a rather large and florid man.

"He was hiding?" the woman says, fascinated.

Pursing my lips at the photo, I say, "Coming out is such a huge step. In private there is less fear, but in public Alex was scared, hiding from the disapproval, from his family. This whole exhibition is an exploration of this, and of course he's from a Jewish background and his parents …"

"He's Jewish?" The man spins to look at Alex.

"Yes," I say.

The man looks at his wife. "That changes everything."

It does? The woman peers at me over her glasses. "And you are not Jewish, I presume?"

I shake my head. The man leans into the picture, far too close to my crotch. "Just like you and I, Lisichka."

"We were meant to have this photograph, I think," she says.

When I catch up with Alex later, he narrows his eyes at me. "What have you been up to?"

I giggle. "Spouting bullshit and selling your photographs," I say as I watch the couple talk earnestly to Seo-jun, who then bends over and puts a red dot on the description label.

Nodding across at them, I say, "I just sold them that picture. I'm wasted in tech."

"What did you say?"

"That it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to buy something the artist would never do again. That you were Jewish, and that coming out was a nightmare ."

" What? "

"Don't you mean, Thank you, Des, my wonderful boyfriend ."

We both watch as Seo-jun hands the Russian couple the credit card machine, talking animatedly.

"He seems pretty happy," Alex says.

I step into him and pull him close. "Of course he is; he's sold everything here. I bet that rarely happens."

Sure enough, as soon as he's finished with the couple and they're happily chatting to someone else, he comes scooting over.

"Alex!" he says arms outstretched as he pulls him into an extravagant hug.

Alex goes a little cross-eyed before Seo-jun steps back and sweeps his hand around.

"All the photographs are sold!" he exclaims with a hand clap. "You have more for me to sell, my lovely Alex?"

Alex purses his lips. "Let me think about it. My photographs shouldn't become too commonplace. And I picked the best ones for this exhibition."

Spoken like a true artist, I think.

Once we're out in the cold night air, having talked for another couple of hours with people who wanted to stay on and hang out, Alex squints down at his phone.

"We should go somewhere glamorous now. I want to show off my boyfriend, and after stressing over that exhibition for weeks, I feel like I deserve a slice of the high life now," he says, blowing out a long breath. "No, amend that: stressing for months ."

My lovely quiet man. Wrapping my arms around him, I say, "I had no idea you were so stressed."

"I'm sorry. I know I don't talk much. The years of bottling things up a home are a hard habit to break."

I step back, pursing my lips.

"This thing with Janus and Jo. Do you want to go back to New York?" Alex says, eyes narrowed on me. And oh dear, I'm too drunk for this conversation.

"You mean permanently, or to do the photos for Jo and Janus or …" I say.

"Either/or," he says, shaking his head. "I still think the idea of photographing those two—sorry, three—is insane."

"Going back so that you can do a photoshoot would be awesome. It'd be great to see everyone. Do I want to go back for good? Yes, eventually. Am I happy here at the moment? God, yes. Very."

He nods at this and gazes off to the side, and a shiver runs through me. This chat doesn't feel like the casual one I thought we were having.

"I don't care where I am, Alex, as long as I'm with you. You're not happy here?"

He laughs. "Yes, I'm very happy, but this is a weighty conversation and I think we need the opposite of that tonight. Lots of people were discussing my photographs in the context of your body and how gorgeous you are, and it's kind of been bothering me," he says.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it made me feel like I'm a voyeur or a creeper, that I'd exposed you to a lot of comment on your body and not taken care of your privacy. They are intimate. Ultimately, you are going to be hanging on someone's wall, naked, for decades."

A laugh catches in the back of my throat. "Alex, I'm as loud as they come and regularly remove my top: It's nothing a hundred, a thousand, people haven't seen before."

He makes a face.

I rub my hands up my face. "Shit."

"A thousand ?" he mumbles, wiping his hand across his mouth. "And I wanted something special, that's just mine. Oh! I sound like a child!" He tosses his hand up in disgust.

Fuck. How drunk are we both? Is this conversation going to veer into disastrous territory? I grab his hand. "You do have something special, Alex."

"But how many men have had an identical experience with you that I've had? Ugh. They were discussing your penis in there, and I …"

Has the art exhibition really brought out all this? "No one, Alex."

He snorts.

"It's not the same with you." I squeeze his hand. "It's never been the same. I know I said yes to this"—I gesture at the warm space of the gallery behind us—"but I agreed to it because the only reason those photographs are intimate is because you took them. It's both how you see me and how I am with you." I shake my head. "No one else." I know this to the depth of my soul.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm just recreating the picture you took of George. And if I am, then does it mean the same as your relationship with him?"

I've never regretted a photograph more than I do that one. Actions I take when my feelings are ungracious never turn out well. I sent it in a sting of pettiness.

"It couldn't be more different."

"God, that photo wounded me so deeply. It took my breath away. I'd just met you and you were this amazing man and then I got that. It was like a slap across the face."

Oh, fuuucccck. How long has he been holding on to this?

"When I look at the photographs I take of you, sometimes I think, is this the same for him? A repeat of that night? If I look on your phone, will there be a hundred pictures of George just like mine of you?"

This conversation is killing me. All my past mistakes piling up like a bad traffic accident.

Holding my phone out, I say, "Take a look." I waggle it at him. "Take a look, Alex."

"You're just so blasé about it. I could never do that."

"What? Pose for someone else?"

He nods.

I press my hand to my chest. "Let me take photos of you, Alex. Let me show you how I feel about you. This isn't casual, not by a long shot. The decision to do the photographs wasn't made lightly: I wanted what they revealed about us."

He scowls down at the sidewalk and scuffs his foot.

"Alex, you sent me a picture of that Tom guy kissing your stomach!"

"Yes, but I didn't feel about him how I feel about you."

"Neither did I! That photo was taken after I showed a guy out after a threesome. George, of course, couldn't even remember his name."

"A threesome?"

"Yeah."

"So not just you and him?"

I narrow my eyes on him. "That makes a difference?"

"Of course it does! That photograph is unbelievably intimate. I torture myself with it sometimes."

What?

" You still have it? Please tell me you don't do that."

His face is a streak of misery.

I step forward and take his hands.

"I've ruined tonight, haven't I?" he mumbles.

And this makes me laugh. "Yes, but you have a great boyfriend who's a genius at raising things from the ashes."

This gets me a half smile.

"Why am I not one in a long line of men for you? If this only lasts two years and then I lose you, it'll kill me," he whispers.

Now is the time. He's just had the most successful first show. We're away abroad, and I don't care how cold it is: This is romantic. Letting go of his hands, I grin at him, then I go down on one knee and his eyes go wide.

"Alex Sachs," I say. "You are the love of my life. Will you marry me?"

And he starts crying.

The hammering in my head when I wake up is like listening to road construction in New York, except we're not living there anymore. When I turn my head on the pillow, all I see are empty, creased sheets.

"Alex!" I call. The sound of my own voice makes the pounding in my head worse.

There's no footsteps or skittering of nails across the slate floor. He must have taken Mitzi out for a walk. I run my hands up over my face. Alex is rarely drunk, I can probably count the incidences on one hand, but all that stuff last night about other men and the photograph of George … It all spilled out of him and over the sidewalk like shattered dreams. How do I even begin to make it right for him?

You went down on one knee. I groan into the silence of the apartment. As the cold seeped into the knees of my pants, he told me to stand up and stop being so silly and that we were wasted and we should forget the whole conversation. Then we caught a cab back, and he poured us both a whiskey and I must have fallen asleep on him on the couch.

God, we need to talk.

The proposal was genuine: I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't, drunk or not, but he didn't answer the question. I sit up gingerly and my head swims, so I stagger into the bathroom and grab a couple of Tylenol, taking a shower by holding on to the tiled wall. It's Saturday, and today is our chill-out day. Usually, we mooch around the apartment or the city.

Two hours later, there's still no sign of Alex. A stream of text messages and ten unanswered calls later, I'm pacing up and down our lounge rug. He could be lying in a ditch somewhere. Perhaps he's gone. Maybe he got up and went back to the US. My whole throat tightens. I close my eyes and sink down onto the couch, letting my head roll back against the cushions. He's never been out on his own for so long. How safe is Seoul? Fuck, now I'm itching to research crime statistics. Perhaps my proposal pushed him over the edge. When will I learn to stop being so impulsive? The answer to a crisis is calming things down, not pushing it further. I'm not an idiot, I know that. Executing it is a different matter, however: Some drama ignites in my blood and before I realize what I'm doing, I'm off down some crazy path.

I'm woken up sometime later by the latch on the door clicking, and I blink over the back of the couch to find Alex standing in the entrance hall to the apartment in his running gear, hair all ruffled by the wind, cheeks pink from the cold.

"Alex." It comes out on a long gusty sigh.

"Hey," he says, frowning.

"Hey? Hey?" I glance at my wrist. Okay, I was only dozing for like thirty minutes. "Where have you been ?"

"On a run."

"Alex, you've been out for hours."

"Yeah, I went too far, and Mitzi got tired. I couldn't get an Uber, so I had to carry her back. Walking." He gives me a small smile. "Let me grab a shower."

Let him grab a shower? My head explodes. "I proposed to you last night, and you basically turned me down and I wake up this morning to find you've disappeared and normally a walk with Mitzi is thirty minutes max and you're gone for like forever and I'm blowing up your phone and …"

"My phone died. We didn't plug them in last night. I plugged yours in to charge and went out."

"That's what you want to say to me? After that whole diatribe, the thing you want to sort out is that you charged my phone?"

He runs his hand through his curls. "Look, I'm sorry about last night. I don't know what was wrong with me. I had a huge panic attack about the exhibition and came out with a lot of nonsense. Truth be told, I'm feeling like a bit of an idiot this morning."

My heart is aching, but at least he's being honest.

I fold my arms on my chest. "How do you think I feel?"

He shakes his head at me. "I'm a fucking idiot," he mutters. "I said some stupid stuff I never should have said to you."

"Like what?"

He huffs and looks away.

"Like what, Alex?"

"About you sleeping with other guys, about George, about that goddamn photograph!" he shouts. Shouting is not something Alex does. "I've always been too insecure for this relationship."

What? What is happening here? We've been so happy since we came to South Korea. It's like the rug has been jerked out from under me.

" But I thought you were happy here? Watching you do all this stuff, experiment, forge a new career: It's incredible for me to see you spread your wings like this," I say.

"I'm trying to live up to you!"

Cold slithers through my veins like ice. Oh no. "You don't want to do all this?" I whisper.

"I don't know." He sinks down onto the couch and puts his head in his hands.

"I thought you wanted to make our time here amazing?"

"I did. I do."

"Alex, you have nothing to live up to. I'm just a cog in a wheel in a startup. There's no glamour in it, as you can see day in day out. I don't know what to say to you to make up for my past." I spread my hands. "I can't change it."

Alex presses his fingers into his eyes. "I don't want you to change it; it's who you are. It's just … all people were talking about last night was how gorgeous you are. I'm so in love with you. I gave up my life to be with you. I'm not saying that to make you feel bad, I was so up for the opportunity, but I jumped off a big cliff and I'm still waiting to hit the bottom."

Sinking down onto the coffee table in front of him, I pull his hands away from his eyes. My throat is tight, eyes itching.

"Do you want to go home?"

"What? No!"

"I'd go back in a heartbeat if it was what you wanted."

He stares down at the rug and shakes his head.

"Alex, when you spread your wings, it takes time to learn how to fly. We all have our time in the sun. Mine might be now; yours might be tomorrow or ten years from now. I've a feeling it might be this year for you, given the response last night. There's no reason to feel insecure with me; you have my heart. What can I do to put you on solid ground here? I want to know everything you're thinking about us."

Laughter gurgles out of him. "No. No, you don't."

"Yes, I do!"

"You want to hear all my insecurities where you're concerned?

"Yes, if you want to listen to mine."

His lips twist, and he shakes his head. "You don't have any insecurities."

This again! "Are you kidding me? Don't discount my feelings like that! My boyfriend was dragged through that whole gallery, and every time I turned around people were looking and talking about him. About what a talent you are, about how cute you are! Then I proposed to you, and you basically said no and disappeared. Frankly, I thought I'd lost you this morning. In my head you were either dead or leaving the country."

He laughs. "That's crazy, Des. I forced you to propose to cheer me up."

"You think I wasn't one hundred percent serious?"

He scowls. "We've known each other eleven months."

"I know , Alex."

His eyes widen on me, roaming my hair, my face, my lips.

"What do you mean, you know?"

"I know that you're the person I want to spend the rest of my life with."

His eyes fill with tears.

"Don't be silly."

"I want to see my ring on your finger. I love being with you. I love having sex with you. Every time I watch you fall, I can't tell you how much of a thrill it gives me, even now ten months later. It's always going to be a delight waking up next to you, Alex. I can't believe how lucky I got."

He stares at me. "You were serious, weren't you?"

"Absolutely."

And he begins to cry. I pull him into a tight hug.

"I think I've known from that first meeting," he gulps out.

"I've known since the night you turned up and cooked me a perfect steak." I grin at him, shifting to go down on my knees in front of him, watching his eyes widen again.

"Alex Sachs, will you marry me?"

He starts to laugh, tears streaming down his face.

"Yes, Des. Yes, I will."

THE END.