Springs Preserve is only a few miles from the Strip but it feels like another world, almost two hundred acres of a nature preserve and nature walks. It's the perfect place to wind down our trip, for real this time: we both have several alarms set for tomorrow morning, starting four hours before our flight, and we're packed. Almost. Mostly. Okay, we still have a bit to do, but it's only two o'clock and we're going straight back to finish it off once we're done here.

We wander through the botanical garden down Cactus Alley, filled with cacti from North and South America; we check out the collection of succulents from the Mojave desert and the exhibit featuring cacti from five of the world's major deserts; I take Kitty's hand as we walk through the Desert Gem Garden and we take photos of the bright colors and the rare plants. There aren't many other people around. It feels like we have the place to ourselves.

"This is exactly what I wanted to do today," Kitty says when we get to the Rose Garden, where we take a seat on a shaded bench. Vegas's weather system doesn't seem to have gotten the memo that it's almost November because it's still over eighty degrees even though it's Halloween tomorrow. I should be in thick tights and a brown corduroy dress and my boots, really feeling my fall girl vibes, and instead I'm in sandals and a flimsy dress that rides up to the tops of my thighs when I sit down.

"It's so peaceful here." I lean back on the bench, my arm along the back behind Kitty. She scoots away from me to lie down with her head on my lap, her hands laced over her stomach.

"I can't believe we'll be back in Boston tomorrow."

"Boston's not gonna recognize us," I say, playing with one of her curls. They're back to their normal glossy sheen after a bit of pampering yesterday. "I am not the same woman who left two weeks ago."

I don't want to think of the admin facing me when we get home. Officially changing my name; updating all my documents; getting out of my lease agreement; moving my life into Kitty's apartment. I need to make a list else it'll overwhelm me, but nothing can be too scary with her by my side.

"Let's get down to business: how are we going to tell our parents?" she asks, looking up at me. The sun is behind a tree so she takes off her sunglasses, those chocolate eyes imploring me. I know she's more nervous than me, and I know she has reason to be. My parents already know I'm queer; my mom already knows I'm in love with Kitty; I haven't spent the last year engaged to a guy. Sarah and Aaron Cohen are about to be in for a big shock.

"Okay, the way I see it, we have three options," I say. When Kitty wants to talk business, there's no space for joking. "Number one: we go together to both sets and we tell them as a couple, so we have each other as support. Number two: we divide and conquer. I tell mine, you tell yours. Or, I guess, if you want to shake it up, you tell mine and I'll tell yours."

Kitty chuckles and says, "I like the sound of that. Something tells me your parents aren't gonna be so surprised."

"Nah. Mom's probably been planning our wedding since I told her I love you. Little does she know..." I grin and graze Kitty's cheek with my thumb as I wind her curl around my finger. "Option three: we throw a dinner party. Get everyone to come over to your apartment and we rip off the bandaid."

Kitty sits up and says, "Ooh, a party? I like that. If everyone's there at once, we only have to say it once."

"Which will make it less emotionally draining," I add. "Although it could be socially draining, if we gather up four parents and your brothers, and we could invite Levi too."

"He already knows." She called him last night to keep him in the loop. He thought it was hilarious. He was so nice, which made me feel even worse about every time I've thought of him as boring and dull.

"I know, but it would be nice to have him there, right?"

Kitty nods.

"A bit of emotional support," I say. "Someone who can confirm that you guys definitely ended on a good note and you definitely didn't cheat on him with me."

"Mmm. Yeah. Plus, we could get him to make his matzo ball soup." She pulls her ankle onto her knee, hands around her foot, her eyes brightening. "We could invite everyone over for Shabbat dinner on Friday. My parents are guaranteed to be around in the evening. We can win them over with good food and then tell them."

"Okay. If you're sure."

"Let's do it."

*

After Sunday's fuck-up, we make it to the airport nearly three hours before our flight and after sailing through security (despite Kitty's last-minute panic about whether a vibrator should go in her checked bag or her carry-on), we waft around the airport for two hours. We get pretzels from Auntie Anne's and we share a sticky cinnamon bun from Cinnabon and we grab a couple iced lattes from one of about five Starbucks, and I forget to be nervous about flying until we're boarding the plane and we get to our row and there's a guy in the aisle.

"You go in the window," Kitty says. "I don't mind the middle seat."

"Something's wrong with you," I joke as I stow my bag overhead and wait for the guy to move so I can squeeze into the window seat.

"Yeah, I've got this condition, it's got a funny name," Kitty says. "Something like, I love my wife and I know she hates the middle seat so I will take that bullet for her."

"What a strange name for a medical condition. Very specific."

"There aren't many of us who suffer from it. Most cases go unreported." She waits for me to do up my seatbelt (with a bit of effort) before she slides in next to me and glues her thigh to mine. "We're about to be very close for the next six hours."

"There's no such thing as too close," I say, reaching up to adjust the angle of the air vents so it hits my face instead of the top of my head. "If the dude in the aisle manspreads, just sit on my lap."

"I think we could get kicked off the plane for that."

"We'll just wait until we're in the air. What're they gonna do, divert the flight to land in Denver because my wife's on my lap."

She laughs as she makes herself comfortable with her head on my shoulder. "Probably. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, now that we're on a plane at last, I'm ready to get back to Boston so let's not do anything that could affect that, m'kay?"

"Okey dokey." I kiss her forehead and check I have my phone, earphones, and something to drink. Of all the things we have overspent on in the last couple weeks, I'm beginning to wish the flight was one of them. I could really do with one of those wide, squishy business class seats.

When it comes to take-off, I suck on one of Kitty's butterscotch candies and stare out of the window as we leave Las Vegas behind. I thought two weeks would be too long in the city but now that we're leaving, I'm sad to say goodbye. It's stupid, I know, but I feel like I owe this city something for what it has given me. The love of my life.

"You okay?" Kitty asks once we're high in the air and all I can see below us is desert, until we break through the clouds and we're surrounded by blue and white. I nod. She moves the armrest between us out of the way and, once the seatbelt light goes out, she takes hers off so she can snuggle closer.

"Are you gonna sleep?" I ask as I put my arm around her to anchor her to me.

"Not yet, but I will in a bit. I know that'll mess up my sleep schedule but if I put a movie on, I'll only drift off anyway. Not much else to do on planes."

"Mind if I watch a movie?"

"You can do whatever you want, as long as I can sleep on you."

"On me, with me, whatever takes your fancy."

The chill of the plane is welcome after the heat of the city, and Kitty's body is a welcome warmth and pressure against me as I find something to watch and she closes her eyes. I'm not even twenty minutes into a romcom I've seen before when her breathing changes and she goes boneless with sleep.

After my movie ends, I reach for my phone where I stashed it in the seat pocket in front of me without disturbing Kitty and I switch over to music, filling my head with Taylor Swift as I go back to the start of the trip in my photo album. There are a lot of pictures to go through. I haven't taken as much time as I thought I would on this trip to pick out the best photos, the ones to be edited to be posted on Instagram. A few sessions by the pool until my phone got too hot; that one afternoon in the hotel room before I spilled my guts to Kitty.

I spend a full hour scrolling more than two weeks' worth of pictures, favoriting the ones I want to edit and deleting duplicates or ones that came out blurry. Any romantic ones of Kitty and me, even from before we were romantic, I save to a separate folder. There are enough to fill an entire photo album. Maybe I'll go old school, get them printed out – a memento of our honeymoon, before we got married.

Kitty wakes up somewhere between Chicago and Detroit. Not far from home now. She rubs her eyes and yawns and massages her cricked neck and glances at my phone screen. It's open to the picture Imogen took of us, when we went to Death Valley. Kitty and me sitting on the painted hills of Artists Palette, me with my eyes closed, Kitty gazing up at me.

"That's such a good picture," she says, her voice scratchy. She clears it and zooms in on our faces, tapping hers with her nail. "I look so in love here. I'm looking at you like you're the only person in the world." She laughs and looks up at me. "How did you not know?"

"I remember, when Imogen showed me this photo, it stirred up all these feelings I didn't know what to do with and I had this voice in my head that said I wish Kitty was as in love as she looks."

"She was. She is." I glance down. Kitty's making the same face now as she is in the picture. Starry-eyed, her lips slightly parted, utterly adoring. Utterly adorable. I can't believe she's mine.

*

It's fifty-three degrees in Boston, and it's pouring. The minute we get out of the terminal, we're slapped in the face by sharp wind and chilly rain, the black sky dotted with clouds that hang heavy over the city.

"Home sweet home," I say as we haul our bags over to a waiting taxi.

"This is fucking disgusting," Kitty grumbles, dragging her suitcase through a shallow puddle. The driver comes over to give her a hand, swinging our cases into the trunk with ease, and even though we've just sat on a plane for six hours, it's a relief to get into a taxi for the four mile drive to Kitty's place in Beacon Hill. It's almost seven in Boston, not quite four according to our body clocks, but I'm tired. Traveling does that to me, all the stress that comes with airports and security and timing. It's going to be an early night tonight, even if that means I fall into Kitty's bed alone at nine p.m. while she's bouncing off the walls, full of energy from her four-hour plane nap.

Fifteen minutes later, we're inside Kitty's bright and airy apartment. It's the opposite of my cramped little one bed. She has big windows and the place oozes warmth and color, stuffed with her personality, her favorite art on the walls because she doesn't rent. This place is hers, thanks to her parents' help, and her mortgage isn't much more than I pay in rent.

"I always forget how fucking nice your place is."

"Our place," she corrects.

Right.

I live here too, now. This is my home.

Oh my god.

Okay, maybe this is the moment it feels real. I stand in the middle of the living room and turn in a circle, taking in the space through new eyes. No longer my friend's jealous-inducing apartment. My home.

"Now this," Kitty says, "is home sweet home." She leaves all our stuff by the door and, after a quick check of all the rooms to make sure nothing's happened while we've been away, she takes my hand and pulls me onto her deep sofa. The cushions welcome us with open arms, sinking into their softness.

Many a movie night has been spent on this sofa, when we get takeout and we make ridiculous milkshakes and we cover ourselves in blankets from the overflowing basket under the TV, acting out the highschool friendship we missed out on.

"I'm thinking, for our first night in our home as a newly married couple..." Kitty says, tapping her chin in thought. "Pizza and Gilmore Girls?"

"You read my mind," I say, sprawling out across one half of the L-shaped sofa. "Start as you mean to go on, after all, and I foresee a lot of pizza and Gilmore Girls in our marriage."

Kitty calls up to place the order. I find the episode I'm up to, somewhere in season three, but then I go back to season one. Episode one. It feels wrong to jump into the middle of the show when I watched a lot of it alone in the weeks before Vegas.

"How about we start from the start?" I say when she ends the call.

"Ooh, yes please. I can't remember the last time I watched the first episode." She waits until the pizza's here before she gets comfortable next to me, the box open on the coffee table and both of us under blankets because now it's forty-seven degrees outside. Unlike Nevada, Massachusetts is well aware that it's fall.

It's the perfect weather for returning to Stars Hollow. The perfect way to kick off our life together. The perfect mix of comfort and coziness that washes over me until, at some point during the second episode, I fall asleep in my wife's arms.

*

i love boston but i spent four days there earlier this year and it rained so hard for three of them