Alex had learned to expect it, the same way he expected Henry to look like a damn Disney prince even when he’d just rolled out of bed.
There was a rhythm to it now, a certainty, a ritual that threaded itself through the blur of their lives.

Dinner meant Henry across the table.....always across, never anywhere else.....like the world made more sense when they were arranged that way, opposite but orbiting. Henry with his maddeningly straight spine, shoulders squared in that way only someone raised on centuries of etiquette could manage. His napkin folded perfectly, his knife and fork placed just so. He was polished restraint in every movement.

And yet his eyes… his eyes were never restrained. Soft, warm, a blue that glowed like it had its own gravity. They didn’t just look at Alex. They held him, like Alex was the whole center of the universe, like Henry couldn’t quite believe Alex was real and was terrified he might vanish if he looked away for too long.

Alex pretended it didn’t make his heart stutter.

Somewhere between the main course and dessert.....always then, never sooner, never later.....Henry would lean, almost casually, into that space across the table. No fanfare. No announcement. Just a steady hand, slipping something small into Alex’s waiting fingers.

A ring. A folded one. Paper, always paper.