This is a true story, an epic tale of passion and devotion, of love and sky rockets, and with an ending so amazing, well…

I can’t resist. Shall we start there?

She brought him coffee in bed this morning. Black coffee, with a splash of water to cool it down. (All great love stories should include coffee in bed…sweet domesticity at it’s finest.)

She loves how he looks in the morning, all sleepy and scruffy as a gypsy. And he always tells her how beautiful she is without makeup when she first wakes up.

They’ve been married almost a year, and are so happy together you might even call it disgusting. Last New Year’s Day, they promised in front of 50 of their friends and family to love and respect each other for life. The bride wore a little black dress that was tight as snakeskin; he looked devastatingly handsome in his black suit and her father’s vintage Omega watch from 1953.

The night before, New Year’s Eve—they were working together in a Hollywood bar. She was slingin’ cocktails, and he was working the sound booth. At midnight they kissed, one of those long, lost-in-the-rapture, I-can’t-believe-I’m-marrying-you-today ass grabbing kind of kisses.

Trust me, even the gods were jealous.

Three months earlier, they had gotten engaged. Or maybe that’s the wrong word…in reality, it was more like, “Hey baby, let’s get married.”

He couldn’t believe those words actually came out of her mouth, considering how not jazzed she had been about marriage. But she knew he was her one and only, the man who was there for her when her mother was very ill, and the time when she threw her back out and couldn’t walk, and the time she said “Wanna eat chocolate cake off me?” (His resounding response was yes! A no-brainer.) As her friend Anthony says, he was her person.

That same September, her mom passed away. He was there with her family, on the boat in the murky bay, spreading her ashes.

A year earlier, she had moved in with him. And she was very clear: she never wanted to get married again, like, ever. She thought marriage was a bunch of silly, bullshitty nonsense.

“I love you.” They both said it over pad thai at Toi on Sunset. And ever since they’re confession, they sit at the same table when they go there, which they call the “love table.”

Months earlier, it was the middle of the night outside his house. She was in her car, pulling away, and all he wanted was for her to stay…

Him: “I’ll drop my pants and start dancing in the street if you don’t say you’ll stay!”

Her: “I dare you!”

Never dare an Australian. She ended up writing a dirty poem about it.

Their first kiss was the fiercest, most wicked-cool, heart stopping kiss in the history of lips. She could feel the whiskers of his three-day-old beard (her weakness—she loved a little scratchiness), and he tasted like Camels, and peppermint gum.

It had all started so innocently one warm July night. “Wanna make out in the DJ booth?” All she wanted was a little fun. In a bar full of dark corners, it was an irresistible situation.

She was on the prowl that night, a free spirit, looking for whatever was the opposite of love and all that crap that had gotten her in so much trouble in the first place. It had all sucked so bad in the past (cue Pearl Jam’s “Black”). Her heart had been stomped on, more than once; haven’t we all been through it, many times? She couldn’t help but feel like everything written in books and every passionate whisper of sweet, undying devotion in movies were just wordplay for some writer, just like her, typing away, trying to be clever.

No wonder the artists and the poets drink.

“You okay? You seem a little down,” he had asked her one night. They had been friends at work for over six years. And no, she wasn’t really okay. She was sad, broke and alone. She didn’t want to talk about it.

There was a difference, she had learned the hard way, between dreams and just plain old delusions. Dreams are prettier, and they last longer. Delusions smell like a dirty ashtray, and will eat you alive. Dreams are soulful and deep; delusion watches Deep Throat. Exactly how long had she deluded herself about love? Wasn’t it supposed to be funner?

When she was young, she knew what was worth believing in…long, sticky sweet, honey soaked kisses that you feel in your toes. Holding hands in public. Eating brownies for breakfast. Everlasting Gobstoppers. It’s okay to love The Carpenters. She believed the typical guy was either an ass man or a boob man, but usually not both. Bass players are hotter than guitar players, but not as hot as drummers. Men look great in pink. Someone is thinking of you, right now. And there’s absolutely nothing more sexy than a man who can laugh like a maniac, and kiss like a devil, and love like a fool.

Most importantly, she wanted to believe deep down that never ending love, above all else, was unshakable and undiluted. And it was for you, for her, for all of us. It was all around, even in the deep.

Do you believe in kindred spirits? She just knew they would find each other one day, probably when she was 23 (it seemed a good age). They would marry, and have two kids, and she would spend her time writing in a house in the Hollywood hills with a fantastic pool and a view for miles, all the way to the ocean. That was the dream.

On the opposite side of the earth, there was a drummer from an exotic land down under, who dreamed of making it to L.A. to make albums and party with The Sex Pistols. He eventually made it here, where he lived it up like a rockstar and countless chicks threw themselves at him every night.

I can tell you this:

Settling down and getting married was not on his mind. Not at all.

Shagging was on his mind. And music. And shagging.

When they got together, 21 years later, shagging and music were still on his mind.

And before they knew it, in somewhat of a brilliant third act twist, true, undaunted love made a very unexpected appearance in the lives of two friends when they weren’t paying attention…really, if love itself looked like a 10 foot tall man dressed in drag and was throwing flaming daggers at them, they probably still wouldn’t have noticed. It was just so unlikely, to say the least.

Then she remembered: it was for you, for her, for all of us. It was all around, even in the deep.

Be like rain, and fall without caution. Be open and kind. Be humble, like water in an effort to find it’s own level. Be like liquid light, and saturate each other with trust and honesty. Let it be a boisterous show of love and devotion. Keep it jazzy. Let the neighbors call the cops. Let the sky fall down.

And above all else, keep an open heart.

Because true love, it ain’t going nowhere, baby.

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Editor: Bryonie Wise