The lights from the street below didn't seem as intrusive as they did some other nights, or maybe it was just that the moon hung full and low, its glow dimming his awareness of the small bits of neon below.

It was more than a beautiful night, he decided. It was the perfect night. Romantic and blurred at the edges in just the right ways. It felt unreal, actually. Like a fairy tale. He was sure Alex would think so, too, which made it even better.

He glanced around the roof of the building, eyes growing soft and even more pleased than previously. Yes. Everything was in place. The little table he'd bought for a song at the Goodwill that had cleaned up so very nicely. The white tablecloth covering it at the moment. The newly upholstered chairs, and thank God for the lesbians on the third floor, because while it was definitely a stereotype, in this case they actually had known how to do that sort of project.

The covered plates were on loan from a friend's restaurant, the silver domes hiding Alex's favorite pasta carbonara. The wine was breathing between the glasses, and the red candles in hurricane lamps were flickering merrily as a soft breeze floated over Wentworth, blowing gently toward the vague shadow of Chicago on the distant horizon.

Yes, indeed. It was the perfect night to tell his lover of six months about the apartment that had opened up on the tenth floor. The perfect night to tell Alex that the landlord was holding it for them.

It was exactly the right time to step up and announce that he was ready to take things to the next level. To live with Alex, to share a lease. To share a bed every night, rather than just the three nights a week their current schedules allowed. That he loved Alex, fully and completely, beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It was what Alex had always wanted, after all. They'd talked about it at least twenty times. It was what Michael had always wanted, too. To be loved deeply and truly, just for himself. And Alex loved him; Michael knew that much. There was no other reason for the guy to have stayed around. And Alex would know, would understand, that it was real. That they were solid enough together to have actual real sex.

Not that hand jobs and blow jobs and rubbing and fingering weren't 'real', but ... Oh, Michael truly loved Alex, and that would make all the difference. They would go to bed and there would be condoms on cocks that were going somewhere other than mouths, and it would be perfect. Maybe a bit awkward at first, but perfect, nonetheless. Because they were in love.

So Michael was going to tell Alex. About the apartment and how he felt.

He could hardly wait to see the look on Alex's face when the man realized Michael was serious. It was going to be sublime. He could feel it.