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Felicity is punishingly blunt and succinct in her response to Monty’s urgent message. [No. It’s a stupid idea. Don’t.]
Under normal circumstances, Monty would dismiss her opinion and do it anyway, but this matter concerns his future with Percy, and as much as Monty loves his capricious approach to life, Percy deserves better. He deserves consideration and sincerity and security, three of Monty’s weakest skills. (Weak enough, in fact, that to call them “skills” at all is stretching the lie so thin it would make a decent cheesecloth.)
So, armed with uncharacteristic determination, Monty writes back, [Tell me what I should do then, if you’re so knowledgable.] It isn’t nice, but neither was she, and he can only bring himself to be so kind to her in a day. His first message to her was downright neutral, for heaven’s sake. Can’t she see he’s trying?
The sprawl he’s taken up on the suite’s bed has made his back sore, so he turns onto his stomach instead and glowers at his phone’s screen. He could pass the time waiting for his mean-spirited sibling to reply by doing one of a hundred things, but it feels like more effort to simply wait. Patience is one of those virtues he’s been meaning to try recently. Again, for Percy’s sake.
He really doesn’t get enough credit for how quickly and splendidly he’s taken to this new mature lifestyle.
[Felicity, I promise you that if you ignore me any longer, I shall be forced to fly to wherever you are and berate you in person. Perhaps even publicly.]
The tiny “read” notification immediately appears under his text box.
[1) Name the most recent country you think I lived in. 2) I’m not ignoring you, you horrendously spoiled child. I’m at work. 3) Your idea for a proposal is stupid. Your relationship is equally so. Apologize to Percy for subjecting him to you all these years and allow him to find a better partner before he makes the lamentable mistake of thinking you’re the best he can do.]
Monty searches that tangled mess for a way he can win against her. With a smirk, he writes, [You’re in Germany.]
[I’ve never set foot in Germany.]
[Ha! We went when you were a baby. But that isn’t relevant. I’m proposing to Percy on Tuesday, and I wasn’t asking for your opinion on the matter. I only asked you if it’s wiser to rent doves or butterflies since you have experience in zoology, blight upon my life.]
[What…? Because I have a cat…?]
[You’re rather good with it. Feeding it and watering it and such. Wait. It isn’t emaciated or dying, is it? If it is, I rescind my question and whatever tattered vestiges of respect I may have for you that remain. Cruelty to animals is an ominous sign of depravity within, Felicity.]
[Why Tuesday?]
Monty rereads his message to her, then writes, […What…?]
[You said you’re proposing to him on Tuesday. Why? Is Tuesday a special day? Do you ACTUALLY know one of your anniversaries?]
[Because I hate Tuesdays and I thought it’d be a lovely way to improve them if I can know that the next chapter of my life with Percy began on a Tuesday. And what do you mean anniversarIES?]
[Percy truly is a saint.]
[I’m aware. Rather part of why I want to marry him, in fact.]
[Don’t use animals in your proposal, Monty. As I said, it’s stupid. Don’t.]
[It has to be spectacular! I want viral Instagram fame from this proposal. Perhaps even YouTube, if I can film it somehow. Twitter is a given.]
[Just ask him, Monty. No cameras, no animals, no glitter cannons, no spontaneously purchased luxury villas in Santorini. Percy deserves one night of you behaving like a rational human being, and if you really want to make him happy, you already know how to do that.]
Monty licks his lips. He runs the blade of his hand along his hairline and cycles through potential responses. Some are witty. Some are vulnerable. Some are even partway honest. He starts typing before his emotions drag him any lower.
[Surely at least one glitter cannon…?]
•
At twenty-four, Monty has yet to live in a proper flat of his own. Why bother, he’s always reasoned, when his family runs one of the largest hotel chains on the planet? All he needs to do is walk into any lobby of any branch and a room is waiting for him, booked in his name for as long as he pleases. The only drawback to this rootless existence is that when he needs a particular personal possession, he must recall the storage facility he placed it in.
He spends the better part of an hour after his conversation with Felicity trying to remember where he last held the love letter that Percy wrote to him when they were fifteen.
Not London, of course. Nor New York, Paris, or Lucerne. Absolutely not here in Venice.
Santorini, perhaps? Monty spent six months there nursing his wounded pride after he dropped out of university, and he took quite a few sentimental treasures with him for brooding purposes. Whenever Percy visited, he hid them all in a box placed under his bed, and it’s possible that the letter is still there in that box to this day, along with the misshapen mittens Felicity knit for him when she was seven years old and the skipping stones he and Percy found as children and never actually skipped.
But even before he left for university, the letter had been read and reread so often it was already quite delicate. He might not have wanted to risk it in the traveling.
Which would mean it’s probably still in Tokyo, where Monty lived when he first received it. This presents a formidable problem, as Monty owns at least three storage units in Tokyo, and if he tried to search all of them on his own, there’s no way he’d make his proposal deadline.
Fortunately, his nimble mind has already presented him with a solution.
•
“You can’t be serious,” Scipio says once Monty explains his plan. Everything about his expression complements his flat, toneless question.
Monty whines. He didn’t anticipate anything but encouragement. “Scip, please. I’m paying for the flight. Just come with me and help me look. It’s for Percy.”
“Why do you need a letter you’ve probably already memorized?”
“Because I need to show him that I kept it! It’s a momentous part of our past together, and he’ll be so moved that I still have it!”
“But you don’t have it. It’s in a storage unit in another country.”
“I was living there at the time, Scipio, give me some credit. Please, won’t you consider it? It’s one of the sweetest letters anyone on Earth has ever received, and it gives me waves of emotion just remembering its existence, let alone its contents.”
“Look, before you—”
“He started it with Dearest Monty—isn’t that adorable? He’d never written a letter before on paper, so he tried to make it especially formal. It’s so precious I can’t stand it, even now. He even made a little swoop with the ‘y’ and he—”
“If you stop this, I’ll go with you.”
“Really? You will?”
“Only if we leave Friday night and get back before Monday. Because I have a job.”
“Monday’s a public holiday! Once we find the letter we can take some time to explore Shinjuku! There’s a club there I’ve been dying to—”
“I live in the States, Monty. There’s no holiday on Monday here.”
“Oh, for—fine. I’ll have you back by Sunday evening.”
“Thank you. Very magnanimous of you. You’re lucky I’m free this weekend, you know.”
“Oh, psh. Even if you weren’t, who wouldn’t clear their schedule for the opportunity to guide the hand of fate toward two soulmates?”
Scipio raises both eyebrows, his lips parted and forming questions that never quite reach the verbal stage. When he shakes his head and hangs up, Monty grins and opens Percy’s window on his messaging app.
[Good evening, my love. All is bleak without you. Come to Venice and have toast with me.]
Percy’s reply doesn’t arrive until two hours later when Monty is soaking in the suite’s ostentatious marble bath. [Am I to interpret that,] he’s written, [as slices of bread burnt in moderation or a typo caused by an adventure down the neck of a bottle?]
Monty casts a conspiratorial smile at his glass of Amabile del Cere Passito and writes back, [Both, my sweet prince. Always both.]
[You always want toast…?]
[Shh, it’s cleverer after the toast.]
[Tell me you’re not in the bath.]
Monty calls up his camera app with a jubilant giggle.
•
Percy’s modeling career began three years ago in London, where he was scouted on the street, because things like that actually happen to Percy. Of course, it isn’t so unbelievable if one has seen Percy. The surprise is more that Percy hasn’t been fending off modeling contracts since birth.
Monty has been Percy’s most ardent fan and supporter from the beginning, when he boosted the exposure of Percy’s ads and portfolio shots to his humble 69.1k Twitter following until Percy had built his own well deserved, entirely separate base.
Now Monty just retweets everything to remind the public that Percy is very much taken, very much in love, and very much about to be married.
The idea that Percy might turn him down has taken form in Monty’s mind only once, and Monty promptly shoved it into the basement of his subconscious where it hopefully suffocated.
However, to Monty’s extreme distress and displeasure, Percy’s agency has been pressing him to do more filmed advertisements recently, which has removed him from Monty’s loving embrace for ever longer periods of time. When Monty and Scipio meet in Seoul to board the last leg of their trip to Tokyo, it’s been exactly seven days since Monty last woke up in Percy’s arms.
Scipio has taken to first class with his particular brand of enthusiasm. He must have figured out some sort of sorcery on the first leg of his trip, because by the time Monty has unfolded his blanket, the man somehow has two glasses of champagne and a bowl of heated cashews.
“They don’t give those out until the plane is in the air,” Monty says, stupefied.
Scipio smirks, tosses a cashew and catches it effortlessly in his mouth.
Monty pauses, then puts his hand out and smiles winsomely until Scipio lets out a huff of a laugh and drops three into his palm.
“So why now?” Scipio asks. “I know you love him, but I’ve never really seen you as the kind to sprint to the altar like this.”
Monty doesn’t have a glib answer to that. Felicity didn’t ask, and no one else knows what he intends to do. Most, like Scipio, probably couldn’t even imagine this as a scenario.
Scipio’s face is pure curiosity, and it makes Monty’s search for a witty response even more of a challenge. He ends up blurting, “I don’t know,” which horrifies him the moment it’s out of his mouth. “I mean—I didn’t mean it like that. I meant—”
Scipio, the traitor, doesn’t stop him. He waits.
Monty, though, is spared the humiliation of a continued nosedive by the captain’s greetings. He sits back in his seat, his face hot, and feels his phone in his pocket like a brand. He always writes a message to Percy before he flies, and in his distraction, he hasn’t even started one yet.
Putting Scipio’s expectant silence in the back of his mind, Monty brings out his phone and finds a message from Percy already waiting for him.
[Where are you? My next job was rescheduled for next month, so I’m free for most of next week. Let me know in which hemisphere I should begin my search.]
Monty slouches in his seat, weighted down by his love for this man. On impulse, he writes, [Meet me in Tokyo?]
[Instagram tells me you’re in South Korea.]
[Instagram would do no such thing.]
[Well, I’ll be in LA anyway for Helena’s birthday party on Saturday, so I suppose Tokyo is a reasonable distance from there.]
[Have I mentioned how sexy I find your mastery of sarcasm?]
The plane starts to taxi.
Monty hastily types and sends, [Wait, I’m about to take off. Don’t say anything for a minute.]
He glances at Scipio, who’s already immersed in the first class movie selection, then out his window at the line of planes ahead of them on the tarmac. A flight attendant passes his seat and says nothing. With a bracing inhale, Monty buckles down and concentrates on Percy alone.
[I know these messages are a little maudlin, and I know you don’t always like them, but I want you to know, truly, from the bottom of my heart, that you are absolutely everything to me. Also, I love you, and you deserve more than I could ever give you in this life or the next. Also, I slept in your flat while you were away last month and I realize that might have been a tiny invasion of privacy for which I should apologize now in case I die, but you did give me a key, so I interpreted that as tacit permission to use your pillow and bask in your scent when you’re away. ♡]
Percy’s reply is a photo of a long, silken strand of dark hair on a white sheet, followed by, [Stealth isn’t your strong suit, darling. I’ll see you next week. (I took your shirt to sleep in. I’m not giving it back. ♡)]
The other first class flight attendant pauses by his seat and smiles at Monty with the perfect combination of tempered politeness and outright aggression. Monty activates airplane mode and parries with a sweet smile.
When Scipio props his chin in his hand and peers at Monty across the aisle, Monty just says, “I love him, all right? I don’t know any more than that.”
Scipio holds up both hands and says, “Sounds like a decent reason to me.”
Monty nods, petulant, and burrows into his blanket, wishing Percy was waiting for him in Tokyo.
•
Monty’s mother moved them from England to Japan two days before Monty’s fifteenth birthday. She had six hotels in development at various spots across the country and she wanted to be there personally to handle the details. The Montague brand hadn’t ever been able to establish a presence in Asia, and she was determined to change that.
The timing of the move didn’t seem significant to her outside of the impact it had on the meetings she was scheduled to attend. She also forgot to give her children adequate time to prepare for the move. Twelve hours before their flight, she told them to pack.
Eleven hours before their flight, red-eyed and hoarse from bellowing at his mother’s locked office door, Monty spilled off Percy’s windowsill into his bedroom.
Percy wasn’t there. His father, on the other hand, was, and arrived in Percy’s room with a cricket bat hoisted over his head. He lowered it to his side when he saw the blubbering teenager on his son’s floor, and Monty managed to explain the situation after a few false starts.
Percy’s father softened at once and explained the wedding Percy and his mother were out of town to attend. Monty struggled not to burst into fresh, miserable tears at the brutal injustice of it all and left through the front door.
He ended up boarding the plane the next day in mulish silence, ignoring all of Percy’s frantic messages and apologies at the same time as he curled around his phone and held on to it with a grip like a vice, imagining he was holding Percy’s hand instead.
Less than an hour into the trip, Monty’s brain started to torment him with horrible scenarios, mainly of the various ways their plane might crash. He distracted himself from it by writing an emotional novel to Percy divulging every one of his long-held secrets, including his painful and ardent unrequited love. He didn’t send it, of course.
Felicity did.
In his grief-stricken state, Monty had let his guard down and his evil wretch of a sister caught glimpses of his message. When they landed, she took advantage of his sleep deprivation to grab his phone and run off with it to ensure that it would find a satellite.
Felicity claims to this day it was retribution for something Monty did to her, but seeing as Monty has always been a perfect mentor and example to her, this is clearly a slanderous lie.
Whatever her reason, it led to one of the most uncomfortable and agonizing days of Monty’s life, waiting for Percy to wake up and see the message. When he did, he didn’t write back at once.
He didn’t write back for two days.
Monty spent most of that time in his new bedroom. He emerged only for food, and whenever he spoke, it was with scathing, acidic retorts that Felicity and his mother both ignored. On the afternoon of their second day, while their mother interviewed nannies for the Goblin and Felicity blockaded herself in her own room, Monty suffered alone the brutal realization that without Percy to talk to, he had no one.
In the mad rush to leave England, Monty had only ever thought about parting from Percy. Not Catherine, not Julian, not Tobias, and certainly not Richard Peele.
Only Percy mattered.
It was a Tuesday when Percy’s letter arrived by express post.
•
It surfaces in the second storage unit they check, and Monty’s breath turns to ice in his throat as his fingers catch on the raised wrinkles on the envelope. He lets Scipio read the letter over his shoulder and startles when Scipio tells him earnestly, “Marry that man, or I will.”
•
The revised proposal Monty has planned feels inadequate and unworthy of Percy right up until the moment the man himself steps into their suite with a rolling suitcase and a yawn.
Monty wants a thousand things from him at once, but he pushes it all aside. He gathers Percy into his arms instead and kisses his cheek, allowing Percy to use his shoulder as a pillow for a long moment.
“I have earned a nap,” Percy tells him, his words slurred together. “Do you agree?”
“You have,” Monty confirms. He squeezes Percy’s waist. “Would you like to shower before this nap or would you prefer swift delivery to a pillow far more luxurious than my slim but well-shaped shoulder?”
The familiar touch of Percy’s smile warms his neck. “I could fall asleep here,” he says, his tone soft.
Monty rests his cheek on Percy’s hair and sways with him, almost pained by the emotion surging through him. “Be that as it may,” he murmurs, “I wish to spoil you, and—”
“Shh.” Percy kisses his neck. “This is enough for now. I missed you.”
“Perce,” Monty says, letting a tiny bit of the strain into his voice. He doesn’t know what to do with himself in moments like this, when everything feels balanced and perfect but precarious, like the most offhanded comment or gesture could throw it all into chaos.
Luckily, Percy knows this. Knows him. He pulls out of Monty’s arms with a wry smile, stretching and lording the precious few centimeters he has over Monty. “I shall shower, then,” he says. He brings his arms down to rest on Monty’s shoulders and kisses him with just a simple press of his lips to Monty’s. In a surprising twist, he whispers, “Join me?”
Monty is at once amused and irritated with the way of the universe. The first time Percy suggests something adventurous in the shower, and Monty can’t accept.
“I have to make a call,” he says with almost feverish commitment to the lie.
Percy’s eyebrows handle the entirety of his reaction, but Monty sticks to his cover story. The moment he hears the bathroom door shut and the shower spray slap against the glass shower stall, he launches into his preparations with only a twinge of regret. With luck, they’ll have an opportunity to repeat the shower offer again later.
He spreads photos he printed off his phone on the floor, first in the shape of a heart, then changes it on impulse into the shape of an arrow pointing to the spot on the bed where he’ll be sitting when Percy gets out of the shower. Monty spent hours choosing the photos earlier today, making sure he had one from every year they’ve known each other. He got some from Helena, one from Felicity, and the rest from Percy’s well-stocked Instagram page. From age sixteen and onward, photos of the two of them become more overtly romantic until age twenty, when their manic joy warmed and became comfortable and solid.
All in all, it’s a simple setup, unforgivably so in Monty’s mind, but it’s too late to rethink it. He takes a seat on the bed and exhales. He wonders how other people feel in the last moments before a proposal. If they think over the whole course of their relationships, growing ever more certain of the decision they’ve made, of the futures they want with the partners they’ve chosen.
For whatever reason, Monty cannot move out of this moment. Not forward, not back. Just hyperaware of the sensations surrounding him now: the sheets, cold even through his trousers, and the lush carpet soft against the bare soles of his feet. Monty swallows and lets his legs swing a little as he opens and closes the little black box in his left hand. Switches it to his right hand. Back to his left.
When Percy opens the bathroom door, it’s clear he’s already figured it out, even before he looks down at the photos on the floor.
His tiny half smile robs Monty of breath and sense.
“I thought we agreed on this already,” Percy says, leaning on the door frame. He’s wrapped in a plush robe, his hair dripping down his neck.
Monty stares until he manages a faint, “What are you talking about?”
“I asked you to marry me a long time ago,” Percy says. He finally notices the photo arrow and grins as his eyes rove across each one. “You said you’d think about it. Then five minutes later you told me yes, but on the condition that we wait until we both had jobs and a house.”
All of this seems to be leading up to a “yes”, but the unorthodox path to it is giving Monty chills. “I have no memory of this,” he says. “Are you—I mean—”
“Well, I can’t hold it against you,” Percy says, lifting a shoulder. “We were four years old.”
Monty looks down at the box in his hand and exhales, the surreality of the moment gradually dissipating. When he looks up, it’s still his Percy there, unchanged and achingly familiar to him. He tries to swallow, but doesn’t quite get there.
Percy sits next to him on the bed and takes the box, setting it aside. He frames Monty’s face in his hands and touches their foreheads together. “Why now?” he whispers. “Yes, by the way. Of course. But why?”
Monty feels his eyes smart. “Because I don’t want to lose you.” He grimaces. “Well, that sounded terrible.”
Percy’s lips tuck into a wry smile. “Is that the only reason?” he asks. “Because it better not be.”
Monty takes a calming breath and lets his shoulders sag. “No,” he says. “Of course it’s not. I have a lot of reasons. The practical sort, but…the other major reason is stupid.”
Percy thumbs his bottom lip with an absent stroke. “I’ll bet you a joint trip to the shower that it isn’t.”
“Wait, as in, if I win—”
“Focus, darling.”
“Right.” Monty struggles not to jump the track entirely. He says, “I want to call you my husband,” and creases his nose. “That sounds even worse than it sounded in my head, and now you think I’m a right—”
“I win.” Without elaborating, Percy catches Monty’s lips in a soft kiss, nuzzling close for a long moment before he draws back. His eyes fix on Monty’s, satisfied to the point of smug.
“You do not,” Monty says. “Win what?”
Percy ignores him and takes his time with the next kiss. When Monty closes his eyes to focus on it, Percy rewards him by tugging on Monty’s shirt to get at the bare skin of his waist. He leaves his hand there, making a point maybe, his fingertips pressed into the curve of Monty’s lower back. Grounding him.
“I’d like to remind you of the nap I’m owed,” Percy whispers against his cheek. “May I have my ring, darling?”
Monty laughs, wry, and tickles his side. “You’re really making an effort to ruin this, aren’t you?” he asks. His voice is tinged with the tiniest bit of petulance.
Percy delves both hands into Monty’s artfully tousled hair, guiding the longest strands up from the back of his head over his eyes with an impish smile. “Monty,” he says, laughter in his voice, “we’ve been together for eight years. I asked you to marry me when we were children. And, well, there’s no right way to do this, is there?” He kisses Monty’s cheek. “Would you like me to go at it with more of a traditional slant? ‘Oh, Monty! Yes, my love, a thousand times yes!’”
Monty has had quite enough of this. He flattens his mouth into an unimpressed line and pushes Percy onto his back where the ridiculous creature he’s in love with promptly bursts into bright laughter.
Not unexpectedly, Percy redeems himself a moment later when he catches Monty around the neck and thumbs his jawline. “Yes, Monty,” he says, fond. “Obviously.”
“‘Yes’ is all you need to say,” Monty says, adding a sniff just to make Percy grin. He opens the ring box and rolls his eyes when Percy holds out his hand with an expectant face.
He doesn’t know why he expected anything but this. It’s perfect, in its way.
“You didn’t even let me get to the letter,” Monty complains.
Percy tugs Monty down beside him and curls close to him, pushing one of his legs between Monty’s thighs. “What letter?”
“The one you—”
Percy’s eyes go round with horror. “Oh, no.”
Oh, yes, Monty thinks, affecting sweet, cherubic innocence. “Shall I go get it?” He starts to sit up, only to be wrenched back down.
“Only if you’re going to burn it,” Percy says, scowling. “Or flush it.”
“Well, I’m certainly not going to show it to you now.”
“Is that why you came to Japan?”
Monty decides to slide the ring onto his finger instead of answer.
•
They don’t post all of the footage from the proposal online, but the clips they patch together and post on Instagram earn them several thousand likes within the first two hours and then a few articles centered around how adorable they are after that.
It pleases them both.