You & Me

by Tal Bauer

Being around him was easy. Effortless. As natural as breathing.

He was the easiest person to be around that I’d ever met. He’d burrowed into my life and set himself up like he had always been a part of my world. We were a puzzle made of two pieces, and when we fit together, all the sharp edges of life seemed squared off, blunted.

Being near each other was like being trapped in a magnetic field, pulling me to him, him to me.

“When I’m with you, all of that fades away. I can breathe when we’re together. I feel normal again, and I want to hold on to that.”

“You’re classically handsome. You have the face that all men want,” I said, grinning at him. “But there’s so much more to you. Your looks would be empty on anyone else. It’s who you are that fills everything in.”

“I can see your dedication in the lines of your face. Your work ethic in the cut of your jaw. I know you love life when I see you smile, and even when you’re not smiling, the laugh lines show you’d rather be. I know you’re a father when I look into your eyes, and I know you’re a good one when I see those eyes are kind. When you’re you, you light up, and all these different parts of you combine, and everything that you are bursts free. You’re like color exploding in a black-and-white world.”

I wanted certainty and forever and gentle love.

I was head over heels for Landon Larsen. I craved everything about him. And I was absolutely free-falling for him. What the fuck? How had this happened? We were friends, best friends. How had I jumped tracks from friends to…

None of my daydreams came close to the reality of kissing Landon. His kiss consumed me, burned through me like wildfire. The world reduced to him, the feel of him, his body against mine, his lips tangling with my own.

Every day, you’ve been in my thoughts, from when I wake up to when I fall asleep. And then you’re in my dreams.”

“I’m head over heels for you, Landon. You came into my life and flipped my world upside down. Everything has meaning again. I can’t get you out of my head. Your smile and your laugh have become my sun and my moon. You brought color into my world.”

“You are the gradations of undiscovered colors in my soul. You are the inhale before my blank canvas, the moment before my pencil touches the page. You are the manifestation of my dreams. You are my intensity.”

“The things you say… What does the world look like through your eyes?” “It looks like you painted it with all of your joy.”

Perfection. Passion. He consumed me, and I tried to consume him in turn. We kissed like our souls were burning.

“I want to wake up beside you and prove to you that I’m still falling for you. When you wake up, I want the first thing you see to be me, telling you I still want you and me. Us.”

Landon had turned me inside out, had remade my entire world. He made me think about tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, about how many hours until I saw his smile and heard his voice and felt his touch. He made me feel something bigger than happiness and excitement. Things like anticipation. Potential. Forever.

He kissed my cheek, my ear, whispered, “Good morning, lover,”

“Where did you come from?” His words were whisper soft. “How did you find me?”

“Luke, I love you.” “I love you, Landon.”

God, I loved him so much, more than I believed it had been possible to love another person. He was the other half of me. I’d been incomplete until I’d found him.

“You’re the man I dreamed about all those years ago when I was struggling to find myself. You’re him. You’re the man I’ve been searching for my whole life.”

One moment, one act of kindness. One conversation. One decision. One season, one fraction of a life.

I loved Landon more than I thought it was possible to love another. Landon was more than my lover, or my partner, or the man of my dreams. He’d become the foundation of my soul.

“Landon, I want us to be a family. I want to love you and Bowen and Emmet until the end of time. I want to be yours forever. Landon Larsen, will you marry me?”

Both of their arms wrapped around us. Landon and me, arm in arm, our sons holding on to us both. We pushed our faces together, the four of us beaming and sharing our tears, sharing our joy, sharing our love. Our arms linked together around each other, until we all were one big chain, one big ring.

“We are a family,” Landon said. Bowen and Emmet nodded. “We always have been.” I kissed Landon’s cheek. “We just needed to find each other.”

“You and me,” Landon breathed. “And our family.” “Sounds like perfection.”