As romance readers (and writers), we’re conditioned to expect the grandiose gesture when we think of love— the big relocation, the proposal on the scoreboard at Fenway Park, the boombox above the head. Last year, I married a wonderful man. He’d become my best friend and biggest cheerleader and to me, love is in the details.
Love is when he kisses me lightly or pats me on the bottom on his way through the kitchen to get a soda. Why? Because when I was growing up—that was my parents. That was one of the ways my dad showed affection to my mom. They’re the little “you’re still the one” moments we have every day.
Love is falling asleep with my head on his chest after he says I love you into my hair.
Love is waking up to him kissing my forehead on his way out to work.
Love is making his lunch every night.
Love is putting sweet or naughty notes in that lunch.
Love is standing beside me while I work full-time, go to school full-time, and write books. It’s doing the dishes and folding laundry and cleaning the bathrooms because we’re a team.
Love is holding me when it gets to be too much.
I’m writing this post from Nassau because my husband and I are on vacation in paradise, celebrating our first anniversary. Yesterday, we were in Port Canaveral. We’d just spent an hour standing in line, getting our bags to the porter, going through security, checking in, and waiting for our “status” to be called so we could get onboard. I was looking through my school assignments and saw that I needed a play, so I thought I’d download it onto my Kindle.
And I couldn’t find it.
It wasn’t in my backpack with the laptop, it wasn’t in my little tote with my notebook and pens. Then it dawned on me. I’d been reading it in the car and had stuck it between my seat and the console. He asked me what was wrong, and I admitted that I’d left my Kindle in the car. I was about to spend seven days on a beach somewhere with nothing to read. It was like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy is now the only one on Earth and has all the time in the world to read, then breaks his glasses.
My husband asked me for his keys and passport. I wanted to tell him not to go, not to worry about it. It wasn’t a big deal. But, it was a big deal, and he knew it. So this man, this wonderful man, left the terminal, left the security area, left the building, went back to the parking garage, found my Kindle and came all the way back through the line that had formed. We were Gold 1. They were calling Gold 7 by the time he got back. But he went anyway. Why? Because there is nothing more important to him on this vacation than getting me to relax—just for a little while. Blog posts can wait (it’s 5:30 am and I’m sneaking this in while he’s sleeping), school can wait, and my new WIP can wait. To paraphrase the great Jack Sparrow – he wants me lying on the beach, drinking rum.
That is love.
Now that I’ve found it, I wish with all of my heart for anyone who wants that to find it too because it has made all the difference in my life.
XOXOXO,
JP Barnaby
JP Barnaby is an award-winning gay romance novelist and the author of over two dozen books. Her heart and soul, the Survivor Series, has been heralded by USA Today as one of their favorites. She recently moved from Chicago to Atlanta to appease her Camaro (Jake) who didn’t like the blustery winters. JP specializes in recovery romance but slips in a few erotic or comedic stories to spice things up. When she’s not working on her latest novel, she binge watches superheroes and crime dramas on Netflix with her husband and Jack Russell Terror, Chase.
A physics geek, she likes the science side of Sci-Fi, and wants to grow up to be Reed Richards.
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