Author Note:

This week has been nuts. When my week is nuts, I type. Hope you like the results.

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This shower has literally changed my life.

The water pressure, the space, even the colors of the tile.

I've been standing in here for almost forty-five minutes, mostly because I'm petrified to leave here and risk running into Sharpay. Which is, of course, one of the most cowardly things that I've ever done.

If I had finished that sentence that I had started down by the pool, everything would have changed even more than it already has. Was I ready for that?

I know a few things. One, I really like kissing that woman. Two, I really don't want to not be able to kiss her. Three, I don't believe in basing a relationship on how well someone kisses me.

So where does that leave me?

It was time to get out of the shower. I begrudgingly shut the water off, grabbed a towel and walked out into the room.

"Shit!"

"That was quite a long shower, Bolton."

Sharpay was sitting on my bed, calmly reading a magazine.

"I'm in a towel!"

She lazily turned on eye towards me and smirked, "And you wear it so well."

Okay, the flirting was not going to help the situation.

"Sharpay, seriously, what the hell."

"We need to talk. We were in the middle of an important conversation and you fled the scene. So, I brought the scene to you."

I took a deep, controlled breath. "Give me ten minutes. Let me get dressed and I promise that we will finish the conversation."

She raised an eyebrow in skepticism.

"Sharpay, this is not a conversation that I want to have while I'm wearing a towel."

She sighed. "Ten minutes."

Once she had exited the room through the door that connected our two rooms, I heard her yell, "You owe me the end of that sentence."

Shit.

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I have never stared at a clock more in my entire life.

I unpacked my suitcase and rearranged the drawers that I had put my clothes about four times.

I changed into my pajamas and back into my clothes and back into my pajamas.

That all took seven minutes and forty-two seconds.

I flipped through the channels on the television – four of which were in French – and it was eight minutes and fifty-seven seconds.

I sat on my bed in silence for what seemed like an eternity until the door creaked open.

I think that for as long as I live, I will never forget what he looked like at that moment and what I felt like and every aching detail about that moment. His hair was still wet, which made his eyes stand out even more. I couldn't read the look on his face at all… but if I had to put a word on it, I might lean towards 'scared'.

I had been so angry when I left the table. How could he just leave me hanging like that? How could he say those things and then just walk away? I had maintained my righteous indignation all the way up to that moment.

To be exact, it was the way he was fiddling with the hem of his shirt that was my undoing. Over the past three weeks, I had learned how to read him pretty well. Fiddling with his hem was one of his nervous habits. Whenever he found himself in a situation that he didn't know how to react to and was trying very hard not to physically freak out, he did two things. He tapped his foot and he fiddled with his hem.

I felt a smile creep onto my face. He was nervous. Good, that made two of us.

"Hi," he said, his voice cracking. "Can I … are you…"

"Do you want to do this here or should we take a walk?" I interrupted.

His eyes darted around the room and he finally smiled. "Balcony."

Perfect. The room was just too quiet but the bar would have been too public. The balcony provided background noise and privacy.

I followed him out there and was about to start speaking when I heard him take a deep breath.

"Can I go first?"

I nodded.

He leaned on the railing and stared out onto Kigali. "I'm not sure where to start, so if I do this all in the wrong order, I'm going to need you to forgive me."

"Troy…"

"And let me get it all out before you react."

I quietly agreed and hoped that my stomach would calm down soon.

"I am not especially… gifted at this relationship thing," he began. "Besides Gabi, which we've discussed at length, I've done the long-term thing two other times. I screwed up both royally. About five years ago, I swore to myself that I wasn't going to … you know… do this again unless I really meant it."

He paused for what seemed like an eternity. I could tell that he was weighing his words… but that didn't make me any less anxious.

"I really feel like I only know a few things right now. I think a lot of things and I'm not sure about a lot… but I do know some. One of the known things is that sometime over the past three weeks, you have gotten under my skin in a way that no other woman ever has. It's not that I'm just attracted to you or that I want to sleep with you – although both of those things are true – it's that you have become part of what I understand life to be."

I think that I stopped functioning at that point.

"I need to process my days with you. I need your opinions on what is going on in my world. I need to know what you think about things. Sometimes, it is because I'm on your territory and you know more and I need your wisdom. And I've thought of that. Will this whatever I have for you end when I get back to America?"

Oh gosh… he's planning…

"But a few days ago, I was checking my email. There was this long winded one from Gabi about her doctor's appointment and how joyous the joys of pregnancy are and I realized that I wanted to print it out and read it to you. I wanted you to know that part of my life and I wanted you in it. I wanted …" he trailed off and shifted his gaze to mine. "I realized that I wanted you in my life outside of this continent."

"I want you in my life outside of this continent, too," I assured him softly.

He grinned, "You gotta let me finish or I'll loose my nerve."

"Sorry."

At this point in the conversation, he stopped leaning against the railing and starting stomping all over the balcony. I'm assuming that the adrenaline was just taking over, because his words started to come out completely jumbled and he was pacing like a rabid animal.

"It wasn't like I came over here to fall for someone, Sharpay. I mean, for crying out loud, I didn't want to come at all. When Andrew told me I was coming… I mean… anyway, you know that. And then when it was you that picked me up… it was like this fascinating mystery. Who was this girl who looked like Sharpay? I felt like I had stumbled onto a buried treasure or something. You just kept constantly surprising me. I felt like every time I had you figured out, you completely shocked me."

He went inside the room and grabbed his computer. "I mean, this is the Sharpay that I knew."

He showed me a picture that had been taken right before high school graduation. I had my trademark smirk on my face and I was standing like I was better than everyone else in the picture. Gosh, how did I have friends? Oh, that's right. I didn't.

"And this Sharpay just scared the living shit out of me," he admitted. "So I spent the first… I don't know… week or so just reconciling the two Sharpays in my mind. The one that was and the one that is and realizing…"

He trailed off and put down his computer on the small table on the balcony. "In the midst of your mysteries, and sometimes not knowing what you were going to do next, I slowly began to read you almost perfectly. I knew at times what you were going to say before you said it and how you would react to things. I began to figure out that you only order coffee after you've had a really bad day and that you definitely had smiles that didn't go all the way to your eyes. And I became kind of addicted to those little things."

He noticed my coffee pattern? Seriously?

He sighed deeply and shoved his hands in his pockets for a moment. He looked out to the countryside again and paused. "What I'm trying to say in the midst of all of this is that I'm in love with you. I am sure of it. And it's not just because I love kissing you and I deeply aspire to see you naked someday and that there is palpable chemistry between us. It's because I want to do life with you forever. I want you to know Gabi and Andrew and the rest of the gang at Footprints and I want you to be Aunt Sharpay to Baby Orville."

Through the tears that had started to flow down my cheeks, I giggled a little.

He smiled and reached out for my hand. "I have no idea what it looks like or what your reaction to all of this is going to be but … it's not like you complete me or anything. That would mean that our lives were missing something and that's not right. I mean, I love my life as it is now. But I just know that from this point out? The best journey that I can imagine is with you."

"Troy…" I tried to interrupt.

"I mean, I know that we need plans and we need to figure out logistics. You live in Africa and I live in America and that's kind of a problem…"

That's it. The boy is rambling. Time to take matters into my own hands.

"Troy," I tried again and was ignored once more. So, I grabbed the back of his head and pulled his face down to mine.

The man had just professed his love for me? Like I wasn't going to kiss him?

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I pulled back and looked at her, "I wasn't finished."

"Yes, you were."

She kissed me again.

If this was how she ended discussions, this was going to be a fun relationship.

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"So just to clarify," she began.

"Oh, here it goes."

"Shut up."

"Fine."

"We are…"

"Together," I replied. "Joanie and Chachie, Luke and Lorelai, Troy and Sharpay – we're all in the same category."

"So you'll fly to New York at Christmas," she said.

"And you'll fly to California at New Years'," I finished.

"And we'll just see where it all goes from there."

I wrapped my arm a little closer around … my girlfriend… and she responded by snuggling a little deeper into my chest.

We were lying on her bed in the hotel, watching A Walk to Remember of all things. It's what was on TV. After my intense declaration and her reciprocal one, there was more discussion and more making out and now there was just calm.

I liked calm.

"I have a job offer in the States," she said, a few minutes later, completely out of the blue. "I've had it for a while."

"What?"

"I'd want to go back to school and get my masters, but they'd pay for it."

What?

"I repeat again, Sharpay," I said, shifting positions so that I was facing her. "What?"

"There's a foundation… I think they're based out of somewhere in California… they want to pay me to start an organization that would connect college students with the work that I do over here. Provide pathways for internships is the phrase that they use. I'd kind of be the liaison between a whole bunch of international aid organizations and any American university students that wanted to volunteer overseas."

"Is that kind of like the Peace Corps?"

She made a face, "Sort of. Their point is that it's harder to do discipline-specific trips through the Peace Corps, so college internships are hard."

"What's the foundation? How'd they find out about you?"

My brain was spinning. This was completely… random…

"They're called These Numbers Have Faces and they've worked primarily with South African university students before. They provide funding for university students to go to school anywhere they want. They've been around for about ten years and they started branching out to providing American students with travel opportunities about four years ago," she fiddled with her fingernails. "I met their founder during an Oxfam employee retreat to Johannesburg a few years back."

"When did they offer it?"

She pulled a face, "About six months ago. I told them that I'd think about it."

"Well, what's there to think about?" I asked excitedly. "If they're based out of California, then maybe you could live in San Diego with us and…"

"It's a lot to think about, Troy," she snapped.

I was about to open my mouth again, when I saw her eyes brimming with tears. I chose to remain silent.

"I haven't lived, full time, in the US since I graduated from college," she continued. "I fit pretty well over here. I mean, I get lonely and I miss my family and I certainly miss peanut butter and mac and cheese, but I function pretty well over here. I know that I don't belong here… But, the times that I've gone back to visit Ryan or attend conferences… I've just felt so lost. I don't know if I belong there anymore, either."

I hadn't even thought of that. In my mind, Sharpay was American. Was it possible that she didn't think she was?

"I know that I belong to you," she whispered. "But I belong to you here. What if you're the only one? What if I don't really belong anywhere?"

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