"What is that? Is that chocolate?" Jean pointed a casual finger at the mixture under Marco's arm, which Marco relentlessly beat into a solid-looking pulp, but found himself still unable to completely immerse the flour into his dark, syrupy mixture. Jean laughed, watching Marco as he was pacing the kitchen and insistently stabbing the batter with a wooden spoon, but the blend was too thick and the treacle had mixed with the caster sugar and created a mass of a sandy yet sticky substance on his fingers, which felt like it was peeling his burning skin with every jab he made with the utensil. He went to wipe it on his pyjama bottoms, but hesitated. The preheated oven hums, but not enough to mask the grunts coming from the baker. "Are you cooking chocolate cake?"

"It's ginger, actually." Marco responds, seeming only more intent on smashing his new bowl or wearing a hole in the floor. Jean, lounging on the sofa on the other side of the room, is allowing the sun to light the page of his magazine for him and glaze him in warmth; firing an inkling of jealousy in Marco that he isn't covered in the Saturday afternoon glow, but is instead covered in an irritating, sickly coating.

"Ginger? That's a bit racy for you."

"I thought I would do something nice for us."

"Marco Bott," Jean says, and Marco can tell he's going to be annoyed with whatever comes out of his partners mouth by the way Jean is smirking, "the pure picture of suburban bliss, baking his husband a cake."

Marco puts his bowl onto the kitchen side, and takes an extra few seconds to calm himself before he outright throws it into the sink. He goes to the fridge and takes out a bottle of milk, and as he winces at the use of his aching hands on the tightly screwed cap, he responds. "Everything in that sentence is inaccurate."

"Ah," Jean drawls, almost mocking, and he throws his magazine onto the coffee table and dramatically throws his hand over his forehead. "Inaccurate is such a pretentious word, just say wrong." His arm slips over his eyes to keep the sun from shining into them.

"Pretentious is a pretentious word."

"Wow," Jean lifts an eyebrow and peers from the crevice of his elbow, watching Marco splash small amounts of milk into his bowl, "You are not having a good time with that cake, are you?"

"I'm simply encountering a learning curve." Marco is smiling at himself, because his ingenious idea of adding moisture has helped his mix to become more manageable, and he can finally begin to line up his tins to fill them with his mix.

"Oh Marco, I love it when you talk about learning." Jean stops looking at Marco in favour of glancing out of the window and dropping his arm lazily next to him, hearing birds chirping outside in the humid air. "But have you ever noticed how we never talk about the weather anymore?"

"Would you like us to?"

Jean noted that Marco's mood had improved now that he was pouring his batter into tins to cook. He absentmindedly scratched his crotch through his pyjama bottoms and stretched his feet out onto the arm of the sofa, which rode up his shirt. He put his hand flat on his stomach and pulled at the small hairs forming a trail.

"We're getting so deep all the time, why don't we talk about the rain?"

"Because it's not raining?"

"I mean when it is raining."

"Well… because there'll always be weather but there's not always ginger cakes."

There was nothing but the tweeting of the birds after that, as Marco looked intently into the oven to see if the cake would rise in front of his very eyes, and Jean was trying to entertain himself with his hands. First, he placed them under his head and tried to close his eyes, but the sun was too bright and the light shone through into his pupils only caused him to see bright orange and white spots, and so he tried to put his arms over his eyes again. He lay like that for a minute, or maybe two, before Marco dropped something in the sink while he was washing up, and Jean jumped from his position to look and see how his boyfriend was doing.

"Need any help? You don't want the thing to burn."

"I'm fine, just washing the bowl, and the cake takes an hour on low heat."

Jean looked to the ceiling, and the longer bits of his hair fell into his eyes. A cloud dusted across the sky, covering the sun for only a second, but the darker light was a nice change. The room was filled with shadows, and the sharp point of Jean's nose was more obvious in the gloom. Jean looked over to Marco again, while the glare was no longer dimming his partner's freckles, and his eye twitched when he turned his head back to the ceiling; possibly from nerves.

"I'm serious you know."

"Jean, I can wash a bowl and spoon."

"No, not about that," he inhaled, and the clouds parted to ignite the room once more. It gave him a surge of confidence.

"About the rain thing?"

"N-no," he closed his eyes with the embarrassment of stuttering, and from the other side of the room Marco was furrowing his eyebrows, turning from what he was doing. He had pink gloves on that he had bought because they were cheaper than yellow, and he had a soapy sponge and a wooden spoon in different hands; his large, pale blue shirt was hanging off of his collar bones.

Jean continued; "Um, that you're perfect for baking your husband a cake," he laughed out loud, and then snorted when Marco clenched his hands and a loud, rubber sound echoed around the room; followed by the sound of water splashing on the floor after being squeezed from the sponge, and colourful cursing from his partner. "Since, we could do that."

Marco ran to the sink and took the towel from next to it, getting onto his knees to collect the spill and save his lino from getting water marks or damp lumps.

"We could get married."

"What?" Marco shouted, flicking his head up from his gaze on the floor. He went to stand, but a surge of anger stopped him half way up, and he was perched awkwardly on his kitchen floor, while Jean still lazed on the sofa, although sweating profusely. "Are you shitting me?"

"Shitting? I've never heard you say that."

"We've been together three years and you're just gonna' say 'hey why not'?"

"I didn't think you would like something big."

"You always bring up our future together like you had it sorted, and this is how you propose?"

"It's a nice day, and we could spend all of tomorrow naked!"

"I can't believe you!" Marco stood tall and proud, his chin high in the air, and he threw the wet towel onto the floor behind him. "Get over here, kiss me like a man, and propose properly."

Marco began to compose himself, maintaining his well-known reputation as a peaceful man, while Jean was grinning like an idiot, too high in the clouds to actually be offended by what his partner was saying. He felt the carpet change to cold floor as he got closer to Marco, and he reached out to grab at the others shirt, and pulled the loose fabric to bring Marco closer. Plastic, wet gloves touched his cheeks and idly fiddled with his ears, and he looked right at Marco, right into his eyes. He kissed him once, and lingered when they moved away from each other to feel the movements of the others lips against his, to feel the texture of the soft skin. He pushed lightly at Marco's waist, and as he backed his fiancé in the kitchen side, he stood on the damp towel.

"You'll be such a good wife, I know it."

"Don't, you'll ruin it," Marco moved in to kiss him again, "The cake has at least forty-five minutes." He pressed his lips on Jean's chin, "I'm not wearing any underwear,"

Jean reached his hands into Marco's trousers to check, and felt the bare skin of his ass as evidence.

"I knew I picked a good day."

Marco laughed as his freckles became less visible under his blush.