All I Know | Bojan Cvjetićanin

Epilogue Two: Six Months Later

Six Months Later: Winter 2023 

The inevitable came around not much later. Fall had been all about scheduling around Joker Out's European tour. Most of the concerts were happening during the workweek, allowing us to spend the weekend together, as well as a few concerts here and there where I decided to show up to support him. Let's just say the last few months haven't been good to either of our global footprints. Unlike the first time we knew how to work around the distance. We called each other every night, no excuses. It was only after the concert in Celje, Slovenia on December 16th when we genuinely had a week to ourselves, during which I finally had the opportunity to take Bojan to Los Angeles for a week. We'd be back in Slovenia just in time to spend Christmas with Bojan's family. It hadn't been much of a discussion where we would spend our first Christmas together as Bojan had a concert the day after Boxing Day in Slovenia as well.

We were only in the United States for a week, including two days of travel, so I had only planned work obligations for one day. All of the other days we spent exploring the city together. We stayed in the house I always rented when I was there, visited the studio I worked at most of the time, we ate at all my favourite restaurants, went sightseeing, and spent a day on the beach. It was so refreshing to spend a week with just the two of us, no one else, and it only left me wanting to do it more. I loved getting the chance to show Bojan this side of my life, and I could see that Bojan loved it too. He asked so many questions about how I spent my time here, and it was obvious that the warm California weather was doing him good after the temperature in Slovenia has been fluctuating around zero degrees Celsius.

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Sundresses and flip flops were exchanged for Christmas jumpers and winter coats when we returned to Slovenia. On Christmas Eve we ended up being fast asleep after we tried to beat jet lag on the plane. I slept for eleven hours straight and ended up being the first out of bed. After our vacation we didn't have any fresh food at home, so I made a light breakfast for the two of us with what I could find in the freezer and the pantry. We were heading to Bojan's parents' place pretty soon and Bojan assured me there'd be plenty of homemade food being served throughout the day so all we needed was something to get us through the first hour of the day.

I just finished making a smoothie out of some frozen fruit when I heard Bojan exit the shower. "Morning." I hummed in Slovene when he entered the living room. "Merry Christmas." I whispered and softly kissed his lips. After learning Slovene for the last six months I was proud to say I was doing pretty well with the language. I could hold a conversation decently if I said so myself. Big groups and people talking simultaneously still were something I struggled with, but the longer I stayed in Slovenia, the easier it was. Then when I returned it basically was like starting from scratch.

"Merry Christmas, love." Bojan's eyes were glowing like he was still six years old waiting to open his gifts. "Can you turn around so I can put your gift under the tree?" Okay, maybe not to open his gifts, but to give the one he picked out.

Picking out a Christmas gift for Bojan had been incredibly stressful. There hadn't been any birthdays yet, so there was nothing to sort of assume the value a gift should have, which mainly was a struggle because I didn't want anyone else to feel pressured into buying me something expensive. Thank god we bought presents for his family together. With Christmas and Bojan's birthday coming up it had been stressful enough. Once Bojan told me to turn back around I saw that he had added two gifts under the tree. I playfully raised an eyebrow at him. The two of us had clearly agreed on one present, but of course Bojan couldn't keep himself to that agreement. "In my defence, you're giving me two gifts too with my birthday coming up."

"You don't need to come up with excuses. I'm sure I'll love both of them." I laughed and took his hand again as we walked closer to the tree and sat down in front of it. "Which one do I take first?" Before I had even finished my sentence, Bojan had already grabbed the smaller of the two and handed it to me. After unwrapping the present and carefully taking off the lid of the small box a beautiful golden necklace revealed itself. "Oh Bojč..." I whispered. "I love it, it's gorgeous..."