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When he comes home, home, your life starts. You’re aware it’s silly and dependent, but it feels like a breath of fresh air when British arms overlap your body and a sweet lilt fills your ears. You weren’t home before, no, your home came to you.
You’ve loved him for a while, you think you have before you even knew about it. Things were different between you and him, than between you and your other friends. It’s nice, to know someone like that, to have that strong connection with someone even if you don’t know what it means.
You learn what it means quickly, when you’re together. It’s like Florida is the catalyst, and you and him are driving through the quiet streets of Orlando at two in the morning and he’s in the passenger's seat, and your eyes are on him.
“I don’t know if it can get better than this,” he tells you at a stoplight close to home. He looks over at you, his head is tilted and he’s smiling at you, a perfect crescent moon illuminated with a color he can’t see. “It feels like deja vu. Like we’ve done this before, but it’s better because you’re actually here and not on my phone.”
You smile, and you look in the rear vision mirror and your cheeks are tinted the same color as the stoplight before it goes green. You start to drive and you look back at him, but he’s still looking at you.
He says your name, mockingly, and you force yourself to look forward and drive the rest of the way home without glancing at him.
You fell in love because it was destined, written in the stars delicately with emerald green ink in looping letters with heart-dotted ‘i’s.
It’s easy: to be in love with George. You think it’s because you’ve known him for so long, but he makes it easy too. He’s pretty, and he takes every piece of bait you offer. Every platonic interaction is tainted with cherry-colored affectionate feelings and before you know it, you and him are too far gone and you can’t control it. He’s there, in front of you, pulling you into an embrace that is warm and so full of love it makes you emotional.
It’s only a matter of time before you fall further than you can take it, when pining becomes all too painful. It's late when you realize all you want to do is kiss him. And he’s lying in your bed next to you, snoring softly because he fell asleep watching a movie with you, and all you want to do is kiss him.
You wait, because even though waiting is painful, it’s familiar. But he’s not so far now, he’s in front of you: tangible, palpable. You can hold his hand, and it’s almost the same as confessing. You let yourself love him, and the affection keeps growing. You nurse it close to your chest, the roots entwining around your heart and thorning your skin to make a home.
You love him in South America, and it’s easy, because he’s beautiful and there’s a mole on his shoulder that begs to be kissed whenever it’s exposed to the sun. You love him even when there’s mayo all over his face after he’s eaten a sandwich in Chile. You love him when his breath smells like fish, and you love him when he’s pulling on layer after layer of thick clothes in Antarctica.
You’re sick the whole time you’re in Antarctica, and in between content shootings, he is by your side, spoon-feeding you soup and rubbing your back. It’s easy to fall into his half-embrace, nuzzle your cold nose up against his neck just because he’s there.
“Shhh, baby, it's okay,” he says, and the pet name feels like velvet against your skin. You shiver in response, and he mistakes it for coldness and pulls you in tighter. You don’t complain.
He wraps his arms around you in a sleeping bag made for one, and you don’t complain when his frozen toes rest against your shins. He uses your chest as a pillow, and your new favorite way of calming yourself down is running your fingers through his hair.
You love him in Europe, over awkwardly iced drinks and a camera on a selfie stick. You duck in and out of stores with him, handing over a shiny card to pay for expensive Spanish meals and bottles of water. You walk around with your hands in your pockets, listening to him talk and smile and laugh, with fans that are as excited about him as you are.
He follows your wishes, and as much as he wants to show you off to the world as you do to him, he keeps the camera pointed away from you, and you don't hold hands or wrap your arms around his front when you’re waiting in line for gelato. One of your fans gifts him a jersey of his favorite soccer player, and it’s impossible to control the smile on your face, with your lips drenched and dripping in fondness.
You’re in love in Madrid, and everyone sees it, but you don’t care. How can you care when, the moment the camera is off and you’re tucked away and out of sight, he is curled up in your arms breathing in your scent? He holds you close, leading you to bed so you can cuddle your way to sleep.
You talk about your day as if he didn’t spend it with you, and you talk about the jersey and the food and how nice the restaurant was. He laughs at a joke you say, and his smile twinkles like rose quartz caught in the light, gleaming in a shade of love so potent it’s calling you. You anticipate your face coated in rose-berry blush, a hue it regularly is these days. It's easy to love him, it’s so so easy when he makes you feel like this.
And you haven't confessed, and you haven't said it yet, but he tells you he loves you by peeling oranges and sharing them with you, by giving you the olives off his pizza, and by soft gazes that only turn softer with each consonant of your name. His hands are in your hair; his clothes are in your room, and it’s the next best thing.
You love him in L.A., when you buy a new house just so traveling isn’t so hard, so you aren’t separated too long. He loves L.A., and now you do too.
You love him when you share sushi in a vacant kitchen, and you love him when you parade around a pottery barn, searching for the best matching side tables with two drawers. He holds up horrible ornaments and obscure abstract sculptures in some high-end store he wanted to go in, just to see which ones make you laugh. There’s a larger version of an ornament that already sits on his bedside table at home, pink and small, but you buy it anyway, teasing sentimentality because it means as much to him as it does to you.
You make sure that your new house has two bedrooms right next to each other, so you can sneak into his room in the dead of night and feign insomnia as if you need a cover to want to be close to him. Half of your wardrobe is scattered across his floor, and the three books he cycles between reading are stacked on your bedside table.
In the midnight rain, you hold him against your chest with a warm hand rubbing circles and triangles and hearts and other shapes into the bare skin of his back. It’s comfortable, and paradise, and you want to live it in slow motion as the cerulean water pitter-patters against the new roof of your new house. It matches the pace of his heart, beating strong and steady against your own.
Sleeping together is easy, when he’s warm and soft and the beautiful lilt of his voice lulls you to sleep without even trying. Oxytocin floods your bloodstream when he’s around, and you lose your breath when his mouth has a thin strip of drool and his eyes are dusty with sleep. He’s so handsome, it kills you.
Your hair is messed from slumber, and you know you have pillow creases across your cheeks but you can’t care when he is enraptured in the way your hair has fallen over your eyes, and his fingers stutter as he brushes it out of the way so you can see each other better. You bare your soul to him, desperate for him to see how much you love him.
You press a kiss to his hairline, pulling his hair back to press another at the widow’s peak you’re obsessed with, and you murmur your love and affection softly into his scalp, hoping the words can penetrate through. You want to press your lips to his chest, right above his heart, and do the same, but you can already feel your face warming and the day needs to start.
You love him in Japan, when he’s illuminated with the late-night glow of vending machines on the side of the street. He points excitedly at the hot drinks for sale but you’re only focusing on how the blues and purples color his face in affection and it’s all you can do to not pull him in for a long kiss, one that ends with bitten lips and foreheads resting against each other’s.
The rain has cleared and your arms are heavy with Japanese candy from Lawsons and 7-Eleven, but your smile is wide as he takes you into another FamilyMart and tries to speak the little Japanese Sapnap taught you both. You walk through the small streets of Tokyo, the glow from the pavement bouncing off your entwined hands. And even though your arms are heavy, so is your heart, and it’s flawless, and it’s something.
In Kyoto, he wakes you up earlier than he ever has before, poking your shoulder and you grumble a rendition of his name that makes him laugh brightly. Your day has already been made, but you let him make it again by taking you to the thousand Torii Gates, their vermillion almost the same color as his ears when you call him cute. You walk up through the gates together, and you stand at the top overlooking the city, standing so close the hairs on your arms brush against each other.
You love him when he smells like sweat and his hair is stuck to his forehead. You carry bottles of water in your backpack, and when you give him one, his hand lingers on yours for a long second. You want to bring it to your mouth and kiss each knuckle, and you want to kiss his lips after, too.
You love him in London, when you’re meeting his family for the first time and he’s pulling you close to him to serve as another layer of warmth against the cold, snowy winter. You love him when he switches between a long coat that makes him look so handsome and a thick puffer jacket that makes him look so hot. His arms swish as you pull him in close, the desire to touch only satiated when the skin of your cheeks press against each other. Nothing about what you have is platonic, and you love him. He presses his lips against your cheek and grabs your hand, pulling you toward the dining table, smiling and laughing as you trip your way through introductions to your future in-laws.
And you love him.
The amber of his bedroom light illuminates through the window as you’re coming back from a late-night walk, and in the haze of the navy night, the orange feels like home. It’s comforting and you’re fearless, all you want is him, beside you, forever and always.
You can’t dare to dream about him anymore, you can’t take the pining, the crush, the love-addled gazes that lead to nothing. You need to say three words with your full chest, and you need to say it again and again and again until it’s tattooed across his lips.
Back home, in Florida, you slip into his room and shut the door softly behind you. You end this where it started, and you start anew, loving him proudly and openly. You delicately trace his chain, the one that was originally yours. You take his hands and you press warm kisses to his palms, you intertwine your fingers and hold them close to your chest.
He’s there, lying beside you, breathing in the same air as you are.
“Dream,” he says, and it sounds like wedding bells and a string quartet, and most importantly, it sounds like home. It sounds like he’s saying I love you, isn’t that crazy? How you hear Dream but you listen to I love you.
He loves you. He’s holding your hands up to his mouth and kissing your knuckles. He leans in close and it’s about to be your first kiss, and he’s about to close the gap but he stops short, waiting for you to take the final leap.
He’s beautiful like this. Covered in freckles and affection from Florida. His eye bags are finally lighter and his complexion has tanned; he looks happy now that he’s home. You’re in the moment now. With him in front of you, as handsome as he always is. Capture it. Remember it.
You close the gap and you can’t help but gasp. You move your lips like you’re trying to tell him how deeply rooted your affection for him runs, your hands clasp at the back of his neck and you pull him in close, trying to fuse your bodies together. His hands rest on your hips and they feel right there. You kiss him again and again and your face is pink in besotted affection, flushed the same color as the wine he drank when you told his parents your future is with him.
And when you confess, he looks relieved, like he was waiting for you to say it.
“You,” you say, because what else is there to say? The world is made up of things that remind you of him. Blooming begonias in your mother’s garden are the same color of his blush; the pavers out front of your house in L.A. are the color of his favorite shirt; and every corner of the world is tainted delicately with a bit of George. A memory here, an anecdote there, fondness everywhere.
“You,” he replies, and you have to kiss him again because you love him.
You love him.