We Are NOT Alone
Chapter 2

The next morning, Peter awoke to replace Josh gone again.

Normally, they would wake up in each other’s arms or close to it and have a morning kiss if not more.

For many years, unbeknownst to Josh, Peter had been getting up earlier and brushing his teeth so he would not have morning breath. He didn’t mind Josh’s morning breath but was certain his own would be lethal. This morning, however, he had not awakened as usual — not that it mattered because there was no Josh to kiss.

He got up out of bed and put on a fresh pair of long, thin-cotton flannel pajama pants. He thought they were overly ‘middle school boy’; but, for some reason, Josh loved him in them, especially when he wore no shirt and was barefoot — something about the way the fabric covered part of his foot drove Josh wild.

It was Saturday, so no work today. Peter walked down the hall of the spartan two-bedroom apartment they had lived in for five years after leaving the valley for a spot closer to the beach. If you wanted to live near the beach, you could not be too picky about the apartments. You took what you could get in exchange for being able to avoid two-hour, bumper-to-bumper traffic for a five-minute stroll down palm-tree-lined short streets that all dead-ended at bumper guards meant to be hopped over by people seeking their first look at the Pacific Ocean. As he entered the kitchen, he smelled an unfamiliar odor — that of bacon frying. “Um, Babe, um, bacon?” Peter asked.

“Yep!” Josh said, standing there in his birthday suit and a kitchen apron with the top part folded down and tied around his waist.

“Mintaka, I love the get-up, very sexy, but...”, Josh cut him off.

“Thanks, I like yours too even though you are over-dressed, but I do love me some long, cotton flannel pajama pants — your feet — OMG.”

“Yeah, I know, thanks! But, no, I meant, but you don’t eat pork? Remember? I don’t even know where you found that, we haven’t had any pork in the house in like, four years, not since your sister visited and her brat kid wouldn’t eat anything but bacon, banana, and peanut butter sandwiches.”

“Yeah, I woke up and smelled that package buried deep in the freezer, took it out, smelled it, it seemed no worse for the wear and decided to fry us up some for breakfast. Coffee’s on and ready. Help yourself. I’m also making peach empanadas.”

“From scratch?”

“Yep, I know they’re your favorite thing I make, right?” Josh poked Peter in the stomach.

“Wow, Mintaka, you have outdone yourself, but the bacon? Are you sure?”

“As sure as I was the moment I decided to ask you to Sadie Hawkins.”

“Ok, consider me a believer,” Peter said as he sat down at the breakfast nook table they had acquired from a yard sale a few years back. The breakfast nook surprisingly had a picture-perfect view of the ocean. They had been pretty certain when they rented the place that the kindly woman who owned the apartment was unaware that an ocean view commanded an even higher rent than she was charging them. On their budget at the time, though, they decided that they would keep that information to themselves even though they both felt a bit guilty about it.

A year or so later, they confessed to her their guilt, and she said she had taken that into account when she set the rent but reduced it when she got a vibe from them that they would treat her rental home like their own and not some frat house. From that moment on, they had become fast friends, and she had invited them from time to time to stay in her guest house in Laguna beach and her other house in Palm Dessert. One time she even invited them to stay in her condo in Aspen, but they had not found a mutually agreeable vacation moment to make that happen.

Josh set a plate, silverware, glass, and napkin out for each of them, while Peter stared out at the ocean. “Mintaka, I should be doing that, let me help.” Josh pushed him back into his chair.

“Not on your life. This is my plan.” Josh then delivered a pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice and a plate of peach empanadas to the table. “I’ll let you pour the juice though,” he said.

Peter poured them each a tall glass of orange juice taking care to use the filter to avoid giving Josh too much pulp which he detested. Then, Josh delivered a plate of freshly fried bacon and a plate of over-easy fried eggs.

“Salt and pepper?” Peter asked innocently. Before Peter could get up, Josh reached around to the counter and delivered the two shakers to the table along with a bottle of hot sauce which he knew Peter would want for his eggs. “Wow, the service. You will get a five-star rating and a few thousand likes for all this!”

“Thank you!”

“No, thank you, Babe, this is amazing.”

“No, you’re amazing,” Josh said. “You know, I love you right?”

“Of course, I love you too, Mintaka!”

“Pete, there’s something I want to ask you, though.” Josh suddenly looked a bit serious. Peter thought, for a second, Josh was not exactly smiling — something of which he thought him incapable. “This is the exact moment. The perfect everything. The view of the ocean, the smell of Palisade peach empanadas, you sitting there bare-chested with the most perfectly gorgeous face I’ve ever seen.”

“Josh, you’re scaring me a little, what’s up?” Peter did not know what to make of this serious tone and side of Josh. He rarely saw it. Josh was a second-grade teacher for special education children. Even as a young boy, Josh always showed a tendency to put the needs of others first. He longed to help other people, and it gave him a meaningful and purposeful career.

Peter, on the other hand, who had taken the tech start-up route and dreamed of making his first million by thirty and giving the couple their dream house in Malibu and allowing them to start a family which both envisioned would have at least six kids like the “Brady Bunch” and a live-in housekeeper to help them raise them, always wondered if Josh felt their economic power differential in their relationship untenable for the long-term.

He wondered for an instant if this was all a very, very nice way of saying finally, ‘it’s over’?

Josh stood up, opened the knife drawer further scaring Peter, but pulled out a small, black, hinged box. He then knelt alongside Peter’s outstretched knees and handed over the box.

Josh looked suddenly even more amazing. It was as if all of the light of the universe was illuminating his face.

“No, Mintaka, it can’t be.” Peter took the box from Josh’s hand and placed it into the palm of his hand. He squeezed the bottom of the box tightly and then opened the strongly-hinged top to reveal a beautiful medium-thick band ring with a single blue gemstone. “A sapphire?” At that exact moment, Josh took the ring from the box and put it onto Peter’s ring finger. Then he took both of Peter’s hands into his own.

“Peter Sven Palisade, will you do me the honor of becoming my forever partner?” Josh’s face still of seriousness though beamed with excitement.

Peter was overwhelmed. A tear rolled out of his eye unexpectedly and rushed down his cheek. All of his previous concerns washed away in an instant. His hands were engulfed in Josh’s, and that was where he wanted them to stay. He opened his legs and pulled Josh in.

In their relationship, Peter was usually the small spoon when they cuddled on the couch or in bed because Josh was bigger physically. Also, Josh preferred to be the big spoon whereas Peter liked both and did not mind Josh in that role for he loved the feeling of protection and safety that came from being blanketed by a strong and beautiful person.

Despite their cuddling preferences, Peter now wrapped his body around Josh. With their hands still intertwined, Peter then leaned in to kiss him. As their lips touched sweetly and gently blended together millimeter by millimeter, Peter increased the tension and pressure on his lips forming a kiss for the ages.

It was the kind of kiss everyone dreams of but rarely achieves for any number of reasons but mostly because the rationale behind the kiss is not as pure as is required to achieve the truly perfect, most-memorable, life-changing, world-rocking kiss.

Feeling the moment, Josh reversed his role from their first-ever kiss that morning at what they called their ‘Sunrise Point’ and gently but forcefully steered his tongue into Peter’s awaiting and hungry mouth. Their tongues intertwined like their fingers below causing their hearts to race.

While this kiss could have lasted a lifetime the doorbell ringing out of the blue caused it to come to a rapid end. Peter pulled back not severing his gaze from Josh’s face for even a millisecond.

“Joshua Anthony Harbour, I will. You bet your gorgeous arse, I want to become your forever partner FOREVER.”

“Oh, sorry, dudes, I didn’t realize,” the voice of Angelique, their semi-nosey, next-door neighbor whose frequent, ill-timed entries into their house were over-looked because she graciously agreed to look after their home when they were out of town, rang through their kitchen. Josh and Peter stood up immediately, but Peter could not help but show off his ring to Angelique. “Oh my gosh, Peter! Josh, you finally did it?”

Peter snarked, “We’ve been doing it for years, Angel.”

“You dog, Peter, I mean, you finally got engaged? You two have been dating and living together in sin since the ice age.”

“I assume you mean since the last time the ice circus came to the boardwalk,” Josh teased.

“Let me look at that. Josh, I guess you popped the question because Peter has a ring and it looks like you have nothing,” Angelique teased.

“First of all, you are right, I popped the question. I’ve been planning it for months now, but, second, you are wrong that I didn’t get anything.”

“Dude, what did you get? Because, I don’t see anything on your finger, at least not compared to this beautiful platinum-bathed sapphire.”

“I got a ‘yes’!” Josh said causing Peter to squeeze him very hard around the waist nearly causing a major wardrobe malfunction in his barely-being-held-up apron.

“Josh, I take it then that that apron’s all you have on there?”

“Not that that’s your business, but yes,” Josh giggled.

“As long as it stays up, it’s not my business,” Angelique said laughing right back. “Wow, I’m so happy for you two. Either of you got a brother for me?”

Peter had to take this one. “First of all, as you well know, I am an only-child. As for Josh, his older siblings are all taken.”

“Yes, I think I knew that already. You two have been no help at all. Come on, seriously, hook a sister up.”

“After our honeymoon, I promise, that will be our new mission in life,” Josh teased back.

“I’m serious, you two owe me.”

“Yeah, for what?” Peter asked curiously.

“For what? For looking after you two all these years. That’s what brings me in today. Didn’t you notice something?”

“What?” Josh asked intrigued.

“Well, how did you two think I arrived here in your kitchen?” They had not thought about it having been caught up in the moment. “Your front door was sitting wide open. Now, this time of day, you’ve got your beach nuts, your dog walkers, your muscle beach strong men, and nosy neighbors, etc. you can’t be too careful about leaving your front door wide open with the smell of bacon on the griddle wafting down the street, you don’t know who will wander in expecting service.”

Josh and Peter laughed at first, and then realized as funny as the situation was, it was also unnerving to have left the door open and unlocked in this neighborhood. Angelique was right, while you might not get robbed, you might replace yourself with much unwelcome company.

“Oops,” Josh said, “that’s my fault. I went out this morning shopping for bacon, eggs, and stuff to make empanadas since they’re Peter’s favorite, and I must have left it open.”

“Bacon? Babe, you said you found it in the freezer,” Peter interrupted.

“Oh, yeah, right, I mean just the eggs and stuff to make the peach empanadas. Oh, and oranges for juice, but who’s counting,” Josh said momentarily frustrated at having to have his words questioned.

“It’s ok, I was just...well...nothing. It doesn’t matter,” Peter said. “Nothing else matters, we are becoming forever partners, we are all safe, and I am the luckiest guy in the world.”

“No, I’m the luckiest,” Josh rebutted.

“Ok, love birds, on that note, I’m out. I know when two people are about to get lucky, and for that, you need your privacy. I will shut the door on my way out.” Angelique spun and exited nearly as rapidly as she had entered.

Josh ran after her with an empanada wrapped in a napkin.

Angelique accepted it with a nod and departed licking her lips anticipating this reward for having done her weekly good neighborly deed.

Josh returned to Peter’s embrace. They stood there a long time staring out into the beautiful blue ocean as the sounds of the waves crashing and retreating stirred their hearts.

“It’s all ours,” Josh said to Peter.

“All of it,” Peter responded. They then sat down to engorge themselves on fresh empanadas and eggs. Peter soaked it all in under the spell of the engagement for which he had wondered for many years now, which one of them would be the first to pop the question and under what circumstances. Finally, he had decided rightly or wrongly that Josh started this relationship, he should be the one to decide when to take the next step. Now that day was finally here, and he could not have been happier.