“Peter Loupier,” he said.
“Benji Kwon.”
“You just said the newest, most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me, and you framed it as a whiteboard update.”
“The whiteboard is the appropriate medium. It’s where I put the things that matter.”
“I know. That’s why it’s romantic.”
He leaned over and kissed me, right there, on the floor of an apartment he was leaving, surrounded by boxes packed wrong and a cat in a blender box and the accumulated evidence of alife that was about to merge with mine. The kiss tasted like packing tape and afternoon coffee and the specific sweetness of a decision that had been made months ago by two people who had needed six months of hallway crossings to admit it.
“But I do have one condition of your moving into my apartment. It’s important and non-negotiable.”
Benji tensed. I saw it in the skin around his eyes and the way his shoulders rose slightly.
“You’re not teasing anymore, are you? This is a real condition.” His fingers tightened against mine.
“Yes, this isveryreal and very important. I am not teasing at all.”
Benji drew in a deep breath and held it. After an eternal moment, his lips puckered and he slowly exhaled.
“Okay, I’m ready.”
“I don’t want to renew my apartment lease either. When it’s done, I don’t want to live here anymore.”
Benji did the golden retriever thing with his head, cocking it sideways as though I’d used words he could almost understand, just not quite.
“I have six months left. I want us to use that time to shop for a house. Together… forourhouse… like a real adult couple who doesn’t want to rent anymore.”
Benji hesitated,then he squealed in a way that should’ve probably pierced the eardrums of anyone within a ten-mile radius, then he hugged and kissed me until we were both laughing so hard that neither of us could breathe properly.
We carried his boxes across the hallway for the rest of the afternoon.
It was the shortest move in history.
Twenty-two feet of beige carpet, a fire extinguisher, and a flickering light that maintenance had still not repaired. I had stopped wanting them to repair because the flickering had become part of the landscape, a landmark in the geography of a hallway that had been the setting for the most important journey of my life.
The move took four hours.
Not because twenty-two feet required four hours of transport time, but because every box that crossed the threshold of 4B required a negotiation about its contents and their placement.
The negotiations were extensive.
“The curtains go up,” Benji said, holding a pair of deep green fabric panels that I recognized from his living room that were, I admitted with the reluctance of a man conceding aesthetic ground, warmer than my blinds.
“The blinds are functional.”
“The blinds are institutional. Do you wear a jacketwith arms tied in the back? I didn’t think so. Your blinds are what you’d find in a dentist’s office. These curtains are what you’d find in a home.”
“Thisisa home.” I pouted.
“This is a home that’s about to get curtains.” He refused to budge.
The curtains went up.
“Your couch stays,” he said.
“Agreed,” I tried not to let my relief show.
