Mags breaks into laughter. “It is the truth,” he assures Julian, looking far too happy about that than a sane man ever should.

The two of them launch into a conversation about something that happened at a dinner party in Islington once, and I half-listen as I clean my brushes, smiling at the sound of Mags’s voice.

Julian eventually shakes our hands and leaves with promises of being early tomorrow, and when he’s gone, Mags turns to me, drawing me into a hug.

“Alright?” he asks, and I nuzzle into him, inhaling the scent of warm cologne and Mags for a precious second.

“Fine,” I say. “And if I’m not, my human alarm clock partner will make it so.”

He rolls his eyes. “Ack. Such ridiculous words. It is time to put the brushes down, yes? You’ve had long enough. You know what the doctor said.”

“I do, and I’m not overdoing it. Not with you around.”

“You need me,” he says in his highhanded manner. “It is why I’m here.”

I do need him, although I don’t tell him that very often, for fear of stroking his ego. He seems to view our patio declarations two years ago as being a binding contract. We flew back to London, and he’s never left my side since.

In the end, I’d had to have two operations, and many were the times that I lay in a hospital bed, my vision blurred while Mags read to me in that beautiful voice that always manages to push away my fears. He greeted the final operation’s success with joy, but I know he’d have stayed even if the results hadn’t been favourable.

He’s assumed a supervisory role in my recovery, and he’s never far away when my allotted painting time, which was agreed upon by my doctors, is up. Then in he’ll breeze, making himself at home in my studio, ready to whisk me off to dinner or another adventure.

Although he might tease me for displaying my mixtape, he’d shown off his own brand of sentimentality when he framed my London sightseeing list. It’s now in his office at his chambers along with the painting I did for him. He says they’re there to remind him that something is more important than work, and I’m it. He’s also made a new list, and whenever we’re in London, we’ll visit out-of-the-way places. Lately, we’ve visited a three-hundred-year-old tea shop and a roman temple hidden under some city offices. Our sightseeing is less desperate now and more about making shared memories, and the lists have become part of the secret language that only Mags and I share.

I nudge him. “You’re in my way,” I say. “You barristers have no concept of personal space.” I jerk as he cups my groin.