It was date night. My favorite night of the week. Always full of surprises and fun, no matter how many times we did it. We’d been together for a year and a half now, and every date night had somehow been better than the last. They weren’t all extravagant nights out on the town either. A lot of them were staying inside my house, eating home-cooked meals and watching some fun movie before devolving into a tangle of limbs and dick.

Tonight was a night out on the town, though. We were going to a place that had a special place in our relationship: the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. They were having an evening light show for their Spring Nights and Lights at the Garden event. The entire place was supposed to be decked out in colorful and coordinated lights, giving the illusion that all the plants and trees and buildings came alive once the sun went down, shifting and dancing with music that played through invisible speakers.

Just walking through the main entrance took us about ten minutes as we watched the tunnel of twinkling lights ahead of us shift like a living rainbow.

It might have been ten minutes, could have been two.

“How strong was that brownie we had?” I asked Jake as we walked through the tunnel, eyes wide like a pair of kids admiring

“Not too strong,” Noah answered with a giggle, which told me that the brownie was indeed very strong. Both our phones buzzed in unison, drawing our attention to the news alert that had just been pushed out.

“Damn,” Noah said, shaking his head before putting the phone back in his pocket. I did the same, not needing to read any more of the CNN article that had appeared.

“Another killing, and it’s another gay guy. What’s going on?” Noah asked, shaking his head. “The Midnight Chemist is apparently what they’re naming the killer.”

“They’ll find them,” I said, wanting to reassure Noah as much as I wanted to reassure myself. We’d already dealt with one lunatic; why did we have to be scared of another one stalking the streets? Robby had left us both with a lot of shit to deal with, and thankfully, after doing some solo and joint therapy sessions, the two of us had found peace with how the situation unraveled. Noah still remained a little jumpy but was getting better by the day, especially last month, after Robby was sentenced to thirty years in prison for attempted murder and aggravated stalking charges with no chance of parole.