Page 23 of Always Alchemy

That’s the thing with Dex and Darcy. They make leading with one’s heart feel as safe as it is inevitable.

‘I want you to have all the dogs you want,’ I tell him now, and the emotion choking my voice has him looking up sharply from his drink. ‘I want you to have every fucking thing you want, for the rest of your life—as long as I can be a part of it.’

His eyebrows rise. ‘You okay, hon?’

I exhale sharply through my nose and take his free hand. ‘I will be in a second, when I’ve said what I need to say.’ Once he’s holding my gaze and I’m staring into the clear, gold-green wells of his eyes, the words come more easily. Because I’m incapable of looking at this man and not speaking my truth, not knowing it in my heart.

‘I want to spend the rest of my life with you and Darcy,’ I say. ‘I know this relationship is still new and precious, but Iknowyou both with the most ancient part of my soul. You’re already woven into my DNA. You’re part of my verybeingand, being the man I am, I want to make that as official as I possibly can. I want us bound so tightly together, the threeof us, that nobody can ever prise us apart. What do you say?’

His face is open and perfect, but it’s shell-shocked. ‘You’re asking—’ he starts, and I hasten to spell it out for him beyond any doubt, the words tumbling out as I articulate them.

‘I want to marry you. I want to marry Darcy. I want to never let you go, I want you to promise me you’ll never letmego, and—I want you and I to propose to her together in the most glorious, romantic, ridiculous way we can possibly concoct between the two of us.’

I stop, breathing heavily and taking in the angelic, flawless creature who holds the weight of my entire life’s happiness and purpose in those slim hands of his.

The eyes that have captivated me since I very first saw him flutter closed for a second. ‘Oh my God,’ he moans. ‘Oh myGod.Yesplease.’

I’m crouching up on my knees before he even finishes speaking, setting down my plastic champagne flute so I can hook a hand around the back of his neck and pull his face to mine. ‘I want to raise dogs with you,’ I tell him against his lips. ‘I want to raise kids with you, I want you and I to turn poor Darcy into a fucking baby factory. I want—now that we’ve got our dream home, I want to fill it…’

He kisses me then, stroking my lips with his and letting me feed him my dreams so he can take them, devour them. I’m unleashed, the tentative fantasies I’ve been allowing myself to cultivate in the quietest, most hopeful recesses of my heart threatening to overwhelm me. I want them to take seed; I want him to hear and to know just how beautiful it can be between the three of us.

I know, because I’ve seen our future, clear and bright and love-filled, and it takes my breath away.

DEX

I’m lying in long grass, my head in the crook of Max’s arm as he gazes down at me. It’s too early in the year for us to be sprawled on the earth like this, but I’m barely registering my cold arse. How could I, when his head is backlit against the April sun and he’s gazing at me as if I’m almost too precious to be real?

My relationship with Darcy and Max has progressed in a straight line. When the stakes are as high as they were for me, you don’t mess around. Once I pulled my finger out of my arse and accepted my feelings, once I went public to my dad and to the world at large and committed to this love of ours, there was no dallying. No cold feet or question marks.

The three of us have been all in.

I’ve thought about the future, obviously. Fantasised about it, even. We’ve upgraded our living space from Max’s spacious but bland flat to a more meaningful home that fits us better, that feels more permanent. I handed in my notice at Loeb last month to move to Cerulean, the Alchemy founders’ small hedge fund, and free up more time for my relationship. Max and I have funded Darcy’s dance studio. If all of that’s not commitment, I don’t know what is.

Still.

Marriage is an institution I thought I’d walked away from when I set down this path. I’m not naive enough to think for a moment that the three of us can have a legally binding marriage in this country, but I’ve found to my surprise that Max’s proposal carries with it every ounce of the magic and gravitas and innate hope that I’ve alwaysassumed any more traditional marriage proposal would carry.

Far more, to be honest, because marriage has long been something I assumed I’d have to do, just as settling down has.

One doesn’tsettle downwith Max and Darcy. One shows up. One commits. One buckles the fuck up and laughingly, gleefully, surrenders to what will undoubtedly be the ride of a lifetime.

I never thought I’d find a single person on this planet about whom I felt strongly enough to marry.

I certainly never thought I’d find two.

And I can say, without the slightest hesitation, that until five months ago, I never thought I’d be courageous and unapologetic and open-hearted enough to sayyesto a relationship that I know will make my heart sing for decades and decades, throughout this lifetime and into the next.

Max is staring at me as he often does, all sweet intensity and insane longing and hopeless, hopeless adoration. All this man has done since we’ve met is offer one hundred percent of himself to me. All he’s done is give me absolutely everything I’ve wanted and many, many things I never dared to dream of.

Some day soon, probably this year, he will be myhusband, and I will be his, and we will hopefully have a sweet, sexy, lighthearted wife to weave her magic and share our joy and keep us on our toes.

I gaze up at him from the crook of his arm and brush my fingers over his temple. ‘How should we propose, do you think? God knows, she’ll want a fucking enormous diamond.’

7

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DEX

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