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THE SUNNYSIDE

Tyler

“So you’re what exactly? Partners? That word is so boring,” Luna says as she sorts through Lego pieces on the living room table after school on Monday.

Parker furrows his brow as he plucks a tawny piece and slides it on top of another, finishing off a goat.

Asher gave him a farm animal sanctuary Lego set recently, and Luna’s helping him—it’s a rare moment when she likes to do the same things he does.

Well, they like to make presentations, I suppose.

He looks up from the goat. “It sounds like you run a bank together,” Parker says.

I snort. “We definitely don’t run a bank together.”

“Partners,” Luna says again, with a heavy sigh. She really doesn’t like this word. “You don’t like boyfriend or girlfriend?”

“I’m not a boy,” I point out. “I’m an adult.”

“And I’m not a girl,” Sabrina adds. “I’m an adult too.”

Parker looks up, arching a brow. “Adult friend? Man friend? ”

Sabrina cracks up. “We’re definitely not doing man friend, woman friend, or adult friend.”

“Yeah, those are even weirder, Parker,” Luna says, thumping him playfully on the head with a chicken.

He backs off. “Hey, watch it. You’re no sister friend.”

“Sometimes you’re not a brother friend,” she points out.

Out of nowhere, a tiny calico jumps onto the table and skids across the pile of Lego bricks, sending pieces scattering across the metal, some tumbling to the floor.

“Olive!” Parker shouts, but then he cracks up when the kitten, in a most cat-like fashion, stops abruptly and proceeds to wash Lego dust off her paw in the middle of the animal sanctuary.

“She understood the assignment,” Luna says. Then she looks at the two of us again, holding hands on the couch, telling them we’re together and that we’re serious about each other. She studies us thoughtfully, then gives a happy shrug. “I guess I approve. It’s good enough. Parker?”

He looks up from sorting the pieces. “Yeah. Works for me too.”

“Good,” Sabrina says with a smile, then leans forward. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you.”

“We’re keeping Olive?” Parker asks hopefully.

“That’s not it.”

“Fine,” he harrumphs.

“Don’t you want to save more cats, dodo?” Luna says to him.

“Obviously.”

Sabrina waits for them to return their focus to her, then says, “I love you two.”

They both snap up their gazes. “You do?” Luna’s voice pitches up.

“Really?” Parker’s rises too.

“I really do,” she says .

And they launch themselves at her on the couch, knocking me toward the arm so they can cuddle up to my...partner. Maybe it is a little dry.

“I love you too,” Parker says, hugging Sabrina.

“I love you,” Luna seconds, resting her head on Sabrina’s shoulder.

When they let go, I’m still noodling on the word. Maybe significant other?

“Are you going to live up here now?” Luna asks as she returns to building a small barn. “Are we getting a new nanny? Who’s taking us to school? Will you still coach?”

And I couldn’t have asked for a better response—the quick shift from gooey love to practical matters.

We answer the questions, then I circle back to the house one. I glance around the living room. “I was thinking…since this is a rental, why don’t we all go home shopping after my next road trip? We can all pick out a house together—for the four of us?”

They all say yes. Then I turn to the brilliant woman by my side. “What about…my better half?”

Sabrina laughs, then shakes her head and kisses my nose. “Call me whatever you want—it’s all the same. We’re together.”

And really, that’s all that matters.

A few weeks later, we venture into our 529th home viewing. Or something like that. Balancing the opinions of four people is no joke.

Parker wants room for a science lab and a foster kitten room.

Luna keeps upping the ante, asking not only for a room big enough for a couple of disco balls, but also for a bigger yard to foster dogs too.

I wouldn’t mind a weight room, to be honest. A big living room is a must for everyone.

We have a huge couch, and we need the space for it and our movie nights, face mask parties, and, well, the mornings when I wake up with cardboard signs on my chest or raccoon eyes on my face.

I’d like a big primary bedroom suite, with a huge shower and plenty of room for the emperor bed and the tiny sex diary with our brand-new list. Spoiler alert: I gave her the thing she told me she wanted that day on my couch.

She gives it to me too. Our list keeps growing, and that’s the way we like it.

Sabrina’s the easiest, though, when it comes to houses. She likes, well, almost everything.

But that’s her. She’s not picky or particular about things. She learned how to make do with her own resilience, her notebooks, and her skates.

That’s why I want to find a place where she can do yoga—or where we can do it together—and where she has room for a desk and computer so she can edit her skating videos and run her skyrocketing coaching business.

The video of her at Cozy Valley? It took off and word spread.

Her business has picked up even more at the perfect time since she’s expanding it to include girls’ nights out, couples’ lessons, and lessons for adults of any age who want to learn to skate for the first time.

Skate With Joy is her new tagline, and it’s perfect.

When we walk into this home with a sky-blue door in Hayes Valley, in the heart of the city, not far from the Sea Dogs arena, she shoots me a sly smile.

“Your favorite color,” she says.

“Your eyes,” I say, then drop a kiss on her cheek.

And my shoulders relax. No more hiding—no more jerking apart. We’re free to kiss and hold hands, and that is its own type of lightning.

Once inside, Sabrina takes in the wide-open space like she’s drinking it in—the light filtering through, the gleaming surfaces, the blond hardwood floors. Her smile spreads like the morning sun.

Yes, I want everyone to be happy, but most of all, I want this woman to be happy. Because that’s what she’s done for me.

I hold my breath as the kids race through, then Parker declares it perfect, and Luna, never to be outdone, says it’s more than perfect. “There’s enough room for our new foster kittens,” she says, since we just picked up a pair of tabbies named Frick and Frack.

“Sabrina?”

“I love it,” she says, then clasps my hand. “It feels like ours.”

“It will be then,” I say, and I turn to the realtor and add, “we’ll take it.”

“I don’t have much for a down payment,” Sabrina says to me that night after the kids are in bed. “But I saved most of the money from the ring I sold. I never had to use it to live on. And I invested it—accounting degree and all. So I can contribute.”

I tug her close and drop a kiss on her forehead. “I love that you want to.”

“I do. I mean it,” she insists.

And part of being a good partner, significant other, or what-have-you, is knowing when it’s important to say yes.

“Okay then.”

But I have a plan too.

A month or so later, Sabrina and I head into the closing for our new home. Yes, we used her down payment, but I told her I’d paid cash for the rest of it. After all, a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.

When the escrow officer sets down the paperwork, Sabrina’s eyes shine, and she whispers, “It’s our home now.”

“It is,” I say, loving that word, so I say it again. “Ours.”

But then the escrow officer hands her another set of papers, this one with just her name on it.

“Is this for the same home?” Sabrina asks, confused.

The officer shakes her head, barely able to hold in the secret. “It’s not.”

Sabrina frowns, turning to me. “What’s this for, then?”

“I’ll show you,” I say.

Twenty minutes later, I lead a blindfolded Sabrina across the parking lot and to the entrance of Sunnyside Rink, the place where she holds all her skating lessons.

When we reach the door, I lift a hand and undo the blindfold. Sabrina looks up with curious eyes.

“Tyler?” she asks, blinking in confusion. “What’s going on?”

I don’t bother fighting off a smile. “Hank and Marla were ready to retire, so I bought their rink. For you. It’s yours, baby. All yours.”

Her jaw drops. Her hand flies to her mouth, then falls just as quickly. “Are you serious?” Her voice is so high-pitched she sounds like Minnie Mouse.

“Sure am,” I say, then take out a key from my back pocket—a bright, shiny one with the words Skate With Joy engraved on it.

She’s always had a key to this rink. But she’s never had one with her name on it as the owner.

“Try the key. It’s a brand-new one. Just for you.”

She looks at the key, then at the paperwork with this address and her name across the top.

She rolls her lips together, her shoulders trembling, but she steadies herself. She opens the door and steps inside, her eyes wide, glassy with emotion.

“It’s really mine.”

“It’s really yours,” I say.

And then she throws her arms around me and whispers, “Thank you so much. I love you so, so much.”

A beat later, she pulls back, grinning. “Do you want to have that skills competition now?”

“It’s a date.”

And I take her there that weekend—and many, many more.