Not all love stories begin with grand gestures—some start with childhood memories. Ours began in eighth grade at Atlanta Preparatory School, where Marcus once told his friends he couldn’t understand why I had chosen another boy over him. But in middle school, crushes were fleeting and innocent. Life moved on, and so did we.

Thirty years passed. We lived separate lives, built careers, and followed our own paths. Then, fate intervened. A mutual friend from our school decided to organize an Atlanta Preparatory class reunion, bringing old classmates together. Marcus attended, even choosing the restaurant—Eclipse de Luna—and in a gesture of generosity, paid for everyone’s dinner. I wasn’t there that night, but I heard about his generosity from Naysa, the same friend who had reconnected so many of us.

At the time, I was fully immersed in producing a film and searching for investors. I decided to call Marcus and left a message, unaware that the number I had wasn’t his primary line. Instead, it was an old phone he rarely checked, as he wasn’t fond of talking on the phone.

A month later, he called me back. I mentioned I was seeking investors for my film, and our conversation began—first brief, then hours long, then every single day. What was meant to be a business meeting soon became something more—a date, and the start of something neither of us had expected.

For someone who never liked talking on the phone, Marcus suddenly couldn’t get enough of our conversations. A childhood connection had come full circle, proving that love always finds its way in perfect timing.