Sofia leaned back into the couch, her fingers loosely clutching a half-empty glass of wine. The glow of the evening broadcast still lingered in the air, the adrenaline slowly fading. The office was dim, the only light coming from the streetlamps outside and the soft flicker of the TV they had left on mute. Julián sat next to her, his feet propped up on the coffee table, relaxed in a way she rarely saw when they were at work.

She turned her head to glance at him, a small smile playing on her lips. "You ever think about how people talk about 'perfect relationships'?" she asked, her voice soft, but curious.

He raised an eyebrow, looking at her sideways. "Perfect relationships? Like the ones where everything's easy and no one ever argues?"

"Yeah," she said with a laugh, taking a sip of her wine. "Like the ones in movies where everything magically falls into place and they never seem to have a bad day."

Julián chuckled, shaking his head. "That's definitely overrated," he replied, his voice tinged with amusement. "Who wants that? It's boring."

Sofia leaned her head against the back of the couch, her gaze flickering to the muted TV screen. "I think I used to want that," she admitted quietly. "When I was younger, I thought if a relationship wasn't perfect, it wasn't real. That if you had arguments or hard days, it meant you were doing something wrong."

Julián shifted beside her, his arm brushing hers as he settled more comfortably. "And now?"

"Now?" She smiled to herself, her fingers absentmindedly tracing the rim of her glass. "Now I think real relationships are messy. And that's what makes them worth it."

He nodded, his hand finding hers on the armrest between them, fingers intertwining naturally. "Messy is good. We work late, we get takeout more often than we should, and we have stress from every direction… but we make it work. That's what matters."

Sofia turned to him, her heart swelling at the easy warmth in his gaze. "Yeah," she whispered, "I like that we're not perfect." Julián grinned, leaning in to press a kiss to her forehead. "Good, because I'm definitely not."

She laughed softly, leaning into his touch. "Neither am I." She glanced at the stack of takeout containers on the coffee table and the half-finished script pages still scattered around from earlier. "But I wouldn't trade it for anything.2

In the quiet of their shared space, Sofia realized just how far they had come. This wasn't the perfect love story she might have imagined as a young girl. It was better. It was real

And real, she thought, was more than enough. © tessisamess