“Those are cute,” I said gesturing toward them.
“Yeah, that’s part of Ez’s LEGO plant collection. I’ve been gifting them to him since we started dating. It started as a bit of a joke, but he adores them and I love getting them for him. They’re all over the house. You should see the ones in the book loft. It’s got this whole Asian botanical garden aesthetic.”
The way Micah spoke about Ezra held so much naked adoration. Love was not just a feeling, but a practice, made tangible in small, silly, and beautiful things. I wanted that. I wanted a love that made room for silliness and sentiment. With inside jokes and visible pieces of affection scattered across furniture and built into the home we inhabited.
I’d thought I had that once, with Vincent, but now, in hindsight, I realized I’d only ever been the one giving, and Vincent had accepted it all like I owed him.
“They’re lovely,” I said.
“Ezra says they oxygenate the soul. He claims LEGO plants are the pinnacle of floral design. A way to commit the aesthetic sin of fake flowers, but with a certain whimsical flair no one could consider an affront to interior decorating, while still coming with the benefit of no watering and no wilting, only permanent joy.”
My fingers reached out to touch one of the petals. “You two seem happy together.”
“We are. We’ve hit our bumps in the road, and it took me a long time to believe I was worthy of what Ezra offered. But he kept showing up, again and again. He made a habit of loving me, and somewhere along the way, I started to let myself believe I could be loved like that.”
I was curious about what made Micah think he wasn’t worthy, namely if it might help boost my own confidence, but it would be inappropriate to ask someone I’d just met such a personal detail.
We walked the rest of the way to the kitchen. Micah gestured to the center island. “You can set everything here.”
I put the bag down and began unloading.
“Benefit of being an adult is that I don’t have to wait till after dinner to sample dessert,” Micah said, grabbing one of the snickerdoodle cookies and taking a bite. “Wow! This is the best cookie I’ve ever eaten. Are there ribbons of toffee throughout?”
“Yes, I find it gives a deeper richness and keeps it nice and soft.”
Ezra’s voice drifted into the space before his body did. “Micah, are you already devouring the sweets?” He stepped into view, rolling in the LEGO cart.
“Guilty,” Micah confessed, around another mouthful. He held the cookie aloft. “But in my defense, this one seduced me. I couldn’t resist. Its siren song of cinnamon and toffee proved too powerful. I crumbled faster than the cookie.”
“I see. For that offense, you’ll be receiving extra green beans tonight.”
“If that’s how it works, then Luke needs three extra helpings of green beans. He sampled all the cookies before we left,” I said.
“Hey now, it’s not nearly the same. I was testing them for quality assurance,” Luke said from next to me. “You think I’d let us show up with untried desserts? Please. That’s amateur hour and bad form.” Grabbing a paper towel off the counter, he reached into the brownie pan for a piece, taking a bite. “Yup, confirmed. We bringeth the most incredible desserts thanks to the ever-talented baker beside me.”
“Looks like I’m missing out,” Ezra said, leaning forward and taking a bite from the cookie Micah held.
As if it were the most natural thing in the world, Micah leaned forward and pressed a soft kiss to Ezra’s mouth, catching a stray crumb. “You missed a bit,” he whispered, smiling against Ezra’s lips.
Their affection made no apologies for existing. Luke had warned me, but I’d assumed he’d been exaggerating. He hadn’t been. Over the years, I’d come to believe that a love like theirs belonged only to imagination, yet here it stood, real and undeniable.
I turned away, the edges of my vision blurred, not with tears but with the pressure that comes before them. Witnessing a love so easy and profound left me raw, especially when I couldn’t quite believe something like that would ever be mine, despite my wish for it.
“Hey.” Luke’s voice broke through my thoughts. I glanced to where he stood, his hand hovering in the air like he’d started to reach for me but pulled back at the last second, unwilling to presume but unable to let the impulse go. In truth, I wanted him to reach for me. I liked the way Luke touched me. His hands carried a gentleness that untangled knots.
He cocked his head toward the kitchen entryway, taking a step back, inviting me to follow. Luke guided us out of the kitchen, while leaving us a clear view into the room.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I whispered, stomach fluttering. Luke noticed me in ways that Vincent never would have, or at least, would have ignored. It was a heady thing. “It’s just I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a love so tender-hearted. Even when I thought I had that with... well, you know, it wasn’t ever like this. What they have, it’s beautiful.”
“It is beautiful,” he said, nodding toward Ezra and Micah, who had their backs turned to us now, standing at the stove. “But if you’re worried we can’t compete, I’d like to go on record and say, we may not be them but we could still give them a run for their money.”
“In what way?”
“The sappy, sweet stuff. Romantic relationships don’t own the copyright on endearments and tenderness, despite what media and society would have you believe.”
Breaking of a piece of the half-eaten brownie still in his hand, he wiped a streak of the fudgy center across his cheek. “Now is the moment where you say, ‘You have something right here,’ then you reach out and wipe it away.”
