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“We’re getting married tomorrow,” TK says as he takes Carlos’ hand in his, much like he did years ago when they, again, were lying on top of the Camaro discussing the future of their relationship.
Tonight is different. For starters, there is no swirl of green lighting up the sky, though the Texan stars are just as beautiful. They’re in the same spot, a private one Carlos knows an hour out of the city, and they’re in the same car, Carlos’ blue pride and joy, but they’re two different people in a whole different world.
Because a lot changes in a couple of years.
TK hasn’t spent the past handful of days questioning everything he’s ever known like he had back then. He’s even more certain of Carlos than he knew was possible, than he thought it was possible for one person to be sure about another, and though there was an element of certainty before, a clarity brought through two near-death experiences within the week, there’s nothing like the clarity of simply just knowing. The clarity of reality, he likes to think.
Which is why we’re getting married is merely a statement, a fact of tomorrow that brings no fear, not now, not anymore.
But Carlos wanted to come back here for the nostalgia. He wanted to remember who they were, as if they were showing the younger versions of themselves who were scared and a little apprehensive, though both certain in their words and in each other, how far they’ve come.
Because they’ve come further than either ever thought.
Carlos never believed he would get married. He wanted to, sure, but his parents’ lack of open acceptance always threw him. He just assumed he’d never get married because he’d never be able to tell them he’d be marrying a man.
And he doesn’t know… If he did meet his younger self—teen Carlos who had just come out, afraid and hurt, or Carlos from a few years ago who didn’t want to admit the fact he thought his and TK’s relationship could be something of a ticking time bomb because he couldn’t admit the truth—he doesn’t know what he’d say. How he’d say it. He doesn’t know how he’d be able to reassure himself everything will be okay in the end, you just have to wait for the right man to come along, because he just knows he wouldn’t have believed it.
But he’d want to look younger Carlos in the eye and say, “You’re going to marry your soulmate eventually, and you’re going to be the happiest man on this planet because everyone you love is going to be there.”
More importantly, he’d want to say, “But you could have all seven billion people on this planet there, and no one will be as important as him,” because it’s the only truth he needed to know back then and the only one he needs now.
Similar words would work for TK. Seven billion people and only one worth looking at. A reminder to the broken part of him who, back then, never thought he’d love anyone again, never thought he’d be able to love anyone again, that he would. He could and would love again, more than ever before, and that one single man would be more important than the rest of the world. Hell, more important than the rest of the universe.
There’s an element of bittersweet for TK, though. Knowing not quite everyone he loves is going to be there is something he’d spent every day since the engagement trying to grapple with, but he’s come to the conclusion that he doesn’t have to. He can be sad his mom won’t see him get married to the love of his life. He can spend hours crying over a white chair with a framed photo of her on it taking pride of place in the front row.
He can be sad all he wants, so long as he doesn’t forget to be happy, too.
Underneath the stars, he knows he’ll never forget.
“We’re getting married tomorrow,” Carlos echoes. He laughs, quiet and nothing more than a breath, but it encompasses the happiness they both feel.
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
This time tomorrow, they’ll be at the Reyes ranch celebrating with their friends and family. They’ll have matching wedding bands on their fingers and a love between them that will never die. They’ll probably be dancing or mingling with family members they hardly ever see. Maybe TK will be dancing with Andrea as she tells him more stories about a younger Carlos, and Carlos will be no more than a stone’s throw away trying to teach a toddler to dance because Jonah will be his brother-in-law, his family, and he’ll never throw away an opportunity to spend time with family, most of all the youngest members of his family. TK will probably get distracted by his husband and end up apologizing to Andrea, his mother-in-law, a hundred times over, but she’ll just give him that look that simply says, “I know.”
This time tomorrow, things will be different.
Tonight, it’s just them.
“I always hoped this day would come,” Carlos admits, but TK already knows that. He just squeezes his fiancé’s hand.
“Did you think we’d ever be back here?” he asks instead, watching the sky above as the stars twinkle. He wonders, briefly, if his mom is up there watching down on him.
“I dreamed of it.”
Maybe not the night before their wedding, but his heart has always been one hundred percent in when it comes to TK. Since he first locked eyes with the other man, he knew he felt something set apart from everyone else. Distantly, he’d hoped and dreamed of what they’re having: a wedding surrounded by the people they love. But he was realistic in his dreams, too.
“I made all your dreams come true,” TK jokes. He laughs, eyes creasing beautifully as he continues looking to the sky, but Carlos can’t tear his gaze away.
He touches TK’s chin, and TK looks at him.
“You did, Ty,” he murmurs. “In every way, you did.”
It’s true for TK, too. The way he believed it wasn’t worth the risk of opening his heart up again yet always dreamed of something grand. The way he hoped beyond all imagination that he’d find his true soulmate one day, that he’d have what his parents never did, not really. Maybe his dreams were different from Carlos’, but Carlos made them come true anyway.
“I would’ve married you beneath the northern lights,” Carlos admits. He should be sheepish, but he can’t be with TK anymore. His heart belongs fully to the other man already. “It was far too soon, but I would’ve. I just kept thinking, please be forever, please be forever, and it is. My wish came true.”
“We could get married now,” TK says after a beat.
Carlos huffs out a laugh. He knows TK isn’t serious. “What, just say fuck the whole wedding we’ve spent months planning and fuck all our friends and family who can’t wait to share our special day? Sure, babe.”
TK rolls his eyes, though he’s grinning like an idiot. “No. We can’t get married without an officiant. Besides,” his grin gets impossibly wider, “I’d rather you fuck something else.”
“TK. Oh my god.” He shakes his head, laughing. “Why am I marrying you again?”
“You love it,” he says, winking. “You love me.”
“I do.”
Two simple words, two words that echo around in both of their heads.
By this time tomorrow, they both would’ve said them in front of a room full of their closest friends and family. They would’ve said them to each other, tying their lives together impossibly tighter than currently. Those words will be the start of their forever in the eyes of everyone watching, but to Carlos, their forever started the night they laid here under the stars before. The night TK took Carlos’ hand as he called them a good team.
It feels surreal. Both to be back here after all this time when so much has happened and to be getting married tomorrow. They've been waiting for months for this day, and now it’s finally here Carlos doesn’t quite know what to do with himself.
“I’m glad we didn’t listen to our friends,” TK says, somewhat wistful as he strokes Carlos’ hand with his spare, taking a moment to glance up to the sky.
The stars are beautiful, he thinks. He never saw stars like this in New York, and as much as he misses the place, as much as he can’t wait to go back in the next couple of months once things have settled down again after the wedding and honeymoon, and he and Carlos can take some time off together again, the stars here feel like home. Or maybe it’s the man next to him, making everything feel lighter and happier and just… better.
“What?”
“Staying apart tonight.”
Carlos had been against it from the start, saying they’d spent too many nights separately, through both choice and otherwise, that he didn’t want to do it willingly again. He doesn’t sleep well without TK, always waking up at random hours and checking the other side of the bed, and TK is the same. He can sleep, mostly because he has to for his job, but he’ll always prefer falling asleep wrapping around Carlos’ body. He’d understood the tradition, though, and their friends wanted to force it on them, all offering one of them a place to stay.
Now, here under the stars together, they’re both glad they didn’t listen to their friends.
“You were tempted,” Carlos points out, and TK laughs softly. “But this is much better, right?”
“It means I can do this,” TK says as he leans over and presses his lips to Carlos’ before Carlos has a chance to react. But as always, he kisses right back, positively melting underneath the touch of his fiancé, and his mind skips forward to tomorrow when they’ll be kissing as husbands.
They don’t kiss for long. The angle is a little awkward, and they did make a pact involving no sex the night before the wedding to make the most of the suite across the city they’ve got booked tomorrow night, so Carlos knows they need to be controlled or else that will get thrown out the window. Not that either would be complaining, but they are getting married tomorrow. They’ve got their whole lives ahead of them for making out under the stars.
“Just that,” Carlos teases when they part, and TK huffs out a laugh.
“Buzzkill.”
They both laugh, then. Effortless and beautiful and in harmony. They’re as one in many ways these days, and TK wouldn’t change it for the world. He’s certain life doesn’t get much better than this.
A silence surrounds them. It blankets them and covers them in its serenity. There is nothing else here. No sirens wailing in the distance, no dogs barking, no people walking past at four in the morning. It’s so different from their downtown loft. Quiet enough to hear a pin drop on the roof of the car, quiet enough that Carlos can hear TK’s breathing.
Quiet enough that it feels like nothing else exists in the world.
TK thinks back for a moment. To when he was younger, afraid and hurt in a way only drugs could solve. To when he first moved to Austin, and he was so damaged and terrified, believed he’d never find anyone to love him like he thought Alex loved him. To the night that led them here before, when his turbulent thoughts quietened down the moment Carlos met him at the firehouse. To laying here with a man he was slowly accepting into his heart. To the journey they’ve been on, both together and apart, that’s led them to this very moment the night before their wedding.
“I didn’t think it was possible to love anyone this much,” he murmurs, looking back over at Carlos. His heart seems to race at the sight, even after so long, and TK hopes beyond his wildest dreams that never changes.
“Me neither,” Carlos says. He holds TK’s gaze. “But you showed me that. The moment I first set eyes on you, something shifted within me. I didn’t know what at the time, but you show me what that was every single day.”
TK swallows thickly. “What was it?”
“My heart loving yours. My soul finding its other half. My life being shown a true purpose.”
He could go on, he thinks. He could write pages and pages on TK and their love and everything it means to him, and he has. In vows he’s written to read tomorrow in front of everyone, to read to TK. The words are his now, but tomorrow they’ll belong to TK. They’ll belong to them.
There are tears streaming down TK’s face, and he can’t imagine what he’s going to be like tomorrow when those words are more than just a handful said under the stars. He sniffs, letting out a wet laugh as he says, “I thought you said we couldn’t get married now.”
“Not officially anyway,” Carlos replies. “But maybe this can be our own private wedding.”
TK raises an eyebrow. “Do we get a wedding night?”
Shaking his head, Carlos laughs. “Tomorrow night.”
With a sigh, TK moves to rest his head on Carlos’ chest. He keeps their hands intertwined as he moves them to point at the sky. “That one can be ours.”
Carlos tries to look, but the warmth of TK’s hand is intoxicating, so he hums in question.
There’s a constellation. Not a real one, TK thinks, but just a set of stars that form something of a heart in the sky. He’s never seen it before, but it seems to be shining brighter than the rest of the sky like it’s looking down on them. It’s theirs sent from someone special.
“The heart.” He moves their hands together, following the outline of the stars with his finger to draw a heart in midair. “I think it’s ours.”
Carlos can see it now, sparkling beautifully in the sky above them, there tonight and forever more.
“We can come back here every year,” he whispers, “to see if we can see it again.”
“Every year, you say?”
“Every year,” he promises. For as long as they both shall live.