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If Balthazar had to pick one single thing to be his favourite about dating Peter, it would be how at home he felt with him. It didn’t much matter how crappy a day he might have had, the sight of Peter would make it better right away. Which sucked when Balthazar was on tour, because setting up Skype dates with various hours of time difference was never a sure thing, and getting a text was nice, but it didn’t have quite the same effect. When Balthazar was home, though, it was the best thing in the world.
In the months when Balthazar was home, he was supposed to write new music and focus on that while also seeing his family and friends, but it was hard when all he wanted to do sometimes was just curl up on the couch with Peter and watch movies all day. To be frank, Balthazar wasn’t the best at getting out among people when he wasn’t doing it for work, and he usually ended up staying in the flat for way too long at a time.
This was where Peter was especially great to be with. Peter was a very social person, and even though he could tell when Balthazar actually needed a quiet night in, he was also good at getting Balthazar to go out with him and their friends.
Sometimes Balthazar would get a text from Peter asking if Balthazar would meet him at the bar by the theatre for drinks with the cast, sometimes Peter would call and ask if it was okay with Balthazar if he brought a few cast members back to the flat. Sometimes Peter would organize get-togethers with Bea and Ben and their other friends from both Wellington and Auckland.
In short, Peter made sure Balthazar got out of the flat for things beside work, and Balthazar made sure Peter unwound and had a few nights a week where they just stayed in and enjoyed being together.
So it wasn’t unusual when Peter mentioned that he and Ben had organized a minor party at the local bar a few days later.
‘What do you mean by “minor” party?’ Balthazar asked, eyeing Peter suspiciously across the kitchen table. They were having breakfast, Peter’s bed head adorable as ever, and even though they’d been together for years by now, there was something about Peter’s hair that got Balthazar every morning and put a smile on his face.
‘Well, we invited our friends from uni, and John’s in town so he’ll be there, and Rosa too, I think,’ Peter said, stabbing with his spoon at his cereal, not looking at Balthazar. It was evident that something about this party made Peter nervous. ‘It’ll just be people we know, though, so it shouldn’t be too big.’
‘You said that about the leaving party you threw for me when I left for my first tour, remember?’ Balthazar asked with a chuckle.
‘How could I forget when you literally bring it up all the time? So a couple of extra people showed up, how was I to know?’ Peter asked, clearly trying to suppress the smile on his face.
‘You call 70 extra people “a couple”? Did you at least make the Facebook event private this time?’ Balthazar asked, smiling affectionately at Peter, who rolled his eyes.
‘Ben’s in charge of that so you’d have to ask him.’
Balthazar reached across the table and took Peter’s hand – the one that was resting on the table, not the one holding the spoon.
‘So what’s the occasion?’ Balthazar asked, sipping his tea, deciding that it was still a bit too hot to drink. When he turned his attention back to Peter, he had that affectionate look on his face – the one that Balthazar never really got used to, that looked like Balthazar was the only thing worth watching in the world – and Balthazar had to look down for a moment.
‘Does there have to be an occasion?’ Peter asked then, raising an eyebrow.
Balthazar shrugged before he got up to put his bowl in the sink. ‘I guess not.’
‘Babe,’ Peter said, turning in his seat so that he was still facing Balthazar, and Balthazar turned around to face Peter, ‘You’re home, people want to see you. That’s all.’
Balthazar frowned a little at his feet, ‘These things are always for me. I’m really not that special.’
Peter gasped dramatically and put a hand on his chest for effect, ‘Balthazar Jones, you are the most special person in the whole world!’
This made Balthazar chuckle and walk up to where Peter was sitting. ‘To you, maybe. All I’m saying is that maybe next time we should throw Meg something, or maybe Ben.’
‘Hey, I’m not Ben’s boyfriend, okay? Bea can throw Ben all the parties she wants,’ Peter said, standing up and kissing Balthazar on the lips.
‘Really? Here I thought you and Ben had been sneaking around,’ Balthazar joked, trying not to laugh at his own joke.
‘You’re hilarious,’ Peter said with as straight a face as he could.
‘And you’re almost late for your rehearsal,’ Balthazar said, catching the time on the microwave clock.
‘Right, I need to get dressed,’ Peter said and hurried into the bedroom, leaving Balthazar alone in the kitchen.
‘And you might want to look in the mirror!’ Balthazar called after him.
‘Are you saying you don’t like my bed head?’ Peter’s voice called from the bedroom.
‘I love it! Christine might not, though,’ Balthazar called with a laugh as Peter’s phone buzzed on the table. He didn’t want to look, but he was getting his mug of tea, and he accidentally skimmed it.
Zeb:
Are we still on for tonight?
Balthazar felt like he’d just been punched in the gut. It couldn’t be, could it? Surely he was jumping to conclusions if that text made him think that Peter was cheating on him, right? Peter just wasn’t that kind of guy. Surely there was a logical explanation to why Peter was meeting Zeb tonight. Maybe Zeb was giving Peter guitar lessons! But Balthazar could do that – had even offered to do it many times.
Taking a deep breath, Balthazar decided not to read anything into it; he trusted Peter, so that nagging, twisted feeling in his gut just had to suck it up and go away.
-
‘So what’s the dress code for this party tonight?’ Balthazar leaned against the doorframe to the office in their flat, where Peter was replying to emails. The bad feeling in Balthazar’s gut hadn’t gone away, and he found himself over-analyzing everything Peter did and said to him.
‘Just normal nice clothes, I suppose,’ Peter said with a shrug without looking away from the screen. He’d been doing a lot of that; not looking at Balthazar when he talked, always preoccupied by either his phone or his computer. And that was when he was home, which he wasn’t much anymore. Balthazar had found himself more alone in the flat for the past four days than in the four years they’d lived there together.
Balthazar hummed to let Peter know he’d heard and understood him, but lingered in the doorway, chewing on his bottom lip. He wanted to ask Peter about the text he’d seen a few mornings ago, but he was worried Peter would take it as Balthazar snooping and get angry.
After a few moments of Balthazar looking at the back of Peter’s head, trying to decide whether it would be worth it to say anything, Peter turned in his chair, looked at Balthazar and frowned.
‘You okay, babe?’ he asked, making the knot in Balthazar’s gut twist a little. A tiny voice whispered to him, what if I’m not the only person he calls babe?
‘Yeah, just stuck on a song, that’s all,’ Balthazar said, which was only partly a lie; he was stuck on a song, but that was not what worried him. He smiled the best he could at Peter before turning and walking back to his guitar in the living room.
If Peter wanted to see other people, that was okay, but why hadn’t he come and talked to Balthazar about it instead of sneaking around? Didn’t he know that Balthazar wouldn’t make him choose?
A couple of hours later, Balthazar was half-heartedly getting ready for the party, buttoning up his shirt, when he heard Peter say something in the kitchen. Thinking Peter was talking to him, Balthazar made his way toward the kitchen before stopping when he realized that Peter was on the phone.
‘I don’t think I can take it much longer, I’ve been wanting to do it for over a year now… Obviously I’m not going to do it in front of everyone… no, listen, I’ll take him out back, it’s a private thing after all…’
Balthazar went back to the bedroom as fast and quietly as he could, trying to control his breathing. So Peter was going to break up with him tonight at the party. At least he had the decency of planning to do it in private, but why not just do it right here, right now?
He sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands, trying – for the millionth time in the past few days – to figure out when it had gone wrong. Had he just not noticed because he’d been busy with his music? Had the travelling doomed their relationship? They hadn’t fought more than usual, and Peter had seemed as happy as ever. It didn’t make any sense to Balthazar. Peter had better have an explanation for stringing Balthazar along as long as he had if this had been on his mind a while.
‘You okay, babe?’ Peter asked for the second time that day, and Balthazar looked up at him, grateful that he hadn’t started crying.
‘I’m fine,’ Balthazar said with as much of a smile as he could muster.
‘Are you sure? If you’re not feeling well we can stay home tonight.’ The last part, Peter added hesitantly, and Balthazar thought it over for a moment. Did he want this flat to be tainted by the memory of the moment they broke up? Or did he want that to be in a bar that he’d very easily be able to avoid?
‘Yeah, I’m sure,’ Balthazar smiled and got up, bracing himself for the emotional night, ‘Let’s go.’
-
The bar was pretty crowded, but Balthazar found that Peter had been right in saying that only people they knew had been invited. This time, only people who’d been invited had showed up, too. They were greeted by Bea, Ben, and Meg, who Balthazar hadn’t seen since before his last tour, which he felt a stab of guilt for when he hugged each of them hello.
As they made their way through the crowd, saying hello to everyone there, hand in hand, Balthazar couldn’t help but feel that everything was tinged with a bit of sadness. This image that all their friends had of him and Peter – holding hands, happily by each other’s side – was going to be completely changed by the end of the night. He also noticed that Peter’s hand was particularly clammy tonight, though that made a lot of sense, Balthazar supposed.
In one of the corners was a small stage, decorated with fairy lights and equipped with a microphone and an amplifier. By the stage, guitar in hand was Zeb, and Balthazar tried to act natural when they reached him.
The thought of Peter and Zeb together made Balthazar want to vomit from the hypocrisy of it all. When they’d just started dating, Peter hadn’t been Zeb’s biggest fan, all because he thought that Balthazar had slept with Zeb before Peter and Balthazar had started dating. The fight they’d had about it in those first few months of their relationship replayed in Balthazar’s mind and made him so angry that he had to excuse himself before he blurted anything out.
He found Paige and Chelsey and slipped into a conversation they were having with Jacquie, though the whole time, all he could think about was whether he’d get to stay friends with Jacquie after he and Peter broke up, and what Paige and Chelsey would do; they were equally good friends with both of them.
‘Um, excuse me?’ Someone tapped the microphone on the stage, and the room went quiet.
Balthazar turned around to see Peter by the microphone and Zeb perched on a stool a little behind Peter with his guitar plugged into the amplifier. Peter seemed to be looking for something, and his face lit up as he found Balthazar.
‘Right, so I found this song a long time go and knew that it was perfect. Zeb’s been helping me out since I couldn’t ask Balthy for obvious reasons so… Balthy, this is for you,’ Peter said, sounding more nervous than Balthazar had ever heard. Peter kept his eyes locked on Balthazar, and as the music started playing, Balthazar felt spellbound. And then Peter started singing:
‘How do you do that with your eyes?
You know it gets me every time.
I swear I wish I could read your mind
Cause I ask the same question every night
So just breathe
Breathe in, breathe deep, you know that’s all you need
I can’t describe your eyes, but they’re as blue as the sea
Your heart, it beats in perfect time with me
Baby, you know that I won’t mind
If we get no rest ‘till the sunrise
‘Till you make me fall in love again as light shows your face
I can never be the same
I plan to love you all my life
Until you meet your chariot
What would I do without your eyes?
The way they look at me and mine
And when your smile creates that dimple
I tend to be used as your pillow
So just breathe
Breathe in, release, you know that’s all you need
I can’t describe your eyes but when they’re looking at me
My heart, it beats, and I can’t seem to dream
Baby, you know that I won’t mind
If we get no rest ‘till the sunrise
Until you make me fall in love again as light shows your face
I can never be the same
I plan to love you all my life
Until you meet your chariot
Your fingers are mine
As they intertwine
You’re telling me words unspoken
Our fingers align
As they intertwine
You break my heart wide open
Your fingers are mine
As they intertwine
You’re telling me words unspoken
Our fingers align
As they intertwine
You break my heart wide open
Baby, you know that I won’t mind
If we get no rest ‘till the sunrise
Until you make me fall in love again as light shows your face
I can never be the same
I plan to love you all my life
Until you meet your chariot
Until you meet your chariot
Until you meet your chariot’
The applause was distant background noise to Balthazar when it came. Peter had sung him a love song. He’d gotten Zeb to help him – though why he hadn’t asked Paige to help was beyond Balthazar – and he’d gotten up on a stage as himself and sung a vulnerable, open love song to Balthazar. Was this what lay behind the past few days’ worth of worrying that Balthazar had done? Everything seemed to fit, except…
Peter had stepped off the stage and walked through the crowd of their friends, and was now standing in front of Balthazar with that nervous look on his face. Something told Balthazar that it wasn’t quite over yet.
‘Can I talk to you?’ Peter asked, extending his hand for Balthazar to take, which he did. He felt like a lovesick teenager again, like when they were in Year 13, and had almost gotten together before that awful year with the rules that had dominated their first year of university. Surely Peter wasn’t going to follow up such a song – which he’d specifically said was to Balthazar – with breaking up with him, right?
They went out back, into a small courtyard, and Peter closed the door behind them, exhaling loudly as he did so. Then he turned to Balthazar and took both his hands.
‘So did you like the song?’ Peter asked, and Balthazar noticed that Peter’s hands were still clammy, but he didn’t want to let go. Whatever it was Peter was going to do back here, it needed to be done; Balthazar hated having secrets between them.
‘I loved it. Where did you find it?’ Balthazar asked. If the song was a clue to what this was, it could only be good.
‘Remember the day we started dating? At Vegan Fred’s on the deck?’ Peter asked, and Balthazar nodded, not able to keep a smile from his face at the memory. ‘Well, you probably don’t remember this, but that song was playing on the radio while we were driving back to our flat that evening.’
Balthazar stared at Peter, searching his face, but didn’t say anything – he was too stunned by the fact that Peter remembered this.
‘I spent ages trying to find it again, because I remembered feeling like it was perfect for us, and I wanted to use it for something special. Let me tell you, it was a lot of work, finding that song,’ Peter laughed, and Balthazar smiled at him, shaking his head a little; he knew Peter was a giant sap – it would have been impossible to date him for almost seven years and not discover that at some point – but this was a new level, and Balthazar actually didn’t mind much.
‘So what’s this “something special” that you’re finally using it for?’ Balthazar asked with a teasing grin; Peter still looked immensely nervous, wetting his lips a lot.
‘This,’ Peter said, drew a deep breath, and got down on one knee, still holding Balthazar’s hands in his. Balthazar’s breath caught in his throat. ‘Stanley Balthazar Jones, will you do me the honour of marrying me?’
Balthazar’s mind went blank. He’d dreamed of this moment, both while he’d been asleep and awake, and he’d contemplated doing it the other way around, but he hadn’t expected it already.
He thought back to about two months before when Peter had offhandedly asked whether Balthazar would be interested in getting married someday, while they’d been Skyping because Balthazar had been on tour (the question wasn’t out of the blue as they’d been talking about how one of Balthazar’s cousins had gotten married and Balthazar had missed the wedding).
Then the lyrics of the song Peter had sung started to hit home, and Balthazar properly melted inside; this was more or less the opposite of what he’d expected from the evening, and-
It dawned on him that Peter was still waiting for an answer.
‘Yes! Of course I’ll marry you, Pete!’ Balthazar said, beaming at Peter whose face broke into the biggest, most relieved grin Balthazar had ever seen him wear. He stood up and kissed Balthazar on the lips, although they had a hard time actually kissing, because they were both smiling so hard.
‘I love you,’ Peter mumbled against Balthazar’s lips, and Balthazar pulled back, looking into Peter’s eyes.
‘I love you too.’ He leaned in for another kiss, but cut it short as something dawned on him, ‘So there was an occasion for the party after all!’
Peter laughed and squeezed Balthazar’s hands, ‘Well, I was hoping you’d say yes so this could be our engagement party.’
Balthazar shook his head at Peter’s nerve, but couldn’t wipe the huge smile off his face, ‘What would you have done if I’d said no?’
‘I don’t know, cried?’ Peter offered, before his face became painted with fear, ‘Why, do you want to change your answer?’
Balthazar laughed, ‘No, I was just curious about the whole party situation.’
‘Oh, phew!’ Peter said, pretending to wipe sweat off his forehead. Then his features softened and he kissed Balthazar again, and Balthazar melted into it. When Peter gently pulled away, he didn’t go far as he asked, ‘Do you want to go back inside and brave the masses?’
‘I think we’d better. I mean, if this is supposed to be our engagement party, we’d better go tell them that we’re engaged,’ Balthazar said, his stomach flipping each time he said the word ‘engaged’.
Peter stepped back and gave Balthazar’s hand a squeeze before opening the door that led back into the bar.
The crowd quietened when they stepped into the front room, everyone looking at the two of them with tentative, questioning smiles. Then Peter gave them a thumbs-up, and the room erupted into cheers, the people closest to where they were standing, coming over to give them congratulatory hugs. At some point Balthazar had a glass of champagne thrust into his hand.
-
Balthazar’s mind was buzzing that night when he was crawling into bed. He was exhausted from all the people he’d interacted with at the party, but the smile couldn’t quite leave his face.
‘Hey,’ Peter said gently as he climbed into his side of the bed and pecked Balthazar’s lips, his breath minty fresh. They were lying on their sides, facing each other. ‘So did you have a good time tonight?’
‘Yes, I had a very good night,’ Balthazar said, beaming at Peter, taking his hand and intertwining their fingers. Then a thought struck him, ‘Why Zeb?’
‘Hmm?’ Peter said, having seemingly been lost in his own thoughts.
‘Why’d you ask Zeb to help you with the song? You two haven’t exactly been best friends in the past.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ Peter said, looking into Balthazar’s eyes, ‘I did ask Paige first, but she’s too busy at the moment, and Zeb was around when I talked to her about it, and he offered to help. He’s a nice guy.’
‘Yeah, he is. I tried to tell you that years ago,’ Balthazar teased and scooted closer to Peter, gently pushing him over so he was lying on his back, and Balthazar put his head on Peter’s chest, ‘You’re a good pillow, you know.’
‘Yeah, I figured,’ Peter said softly, his chest vibrating as he talked, and wrapped his arms around Balthazar.
Before he drifted off to sleep, Balthazar thought about his worries earlier in the day and was extremely happy that the day hadn’t ended the way he’d thought it would.