An author used his debut novel to propose. His partner responded in his own book

Novelists Steven Rowley and Byron Lane had a meet-cute by way of OKCupid — and a marriage proposal by way of the last page of a debut novel.

Turn to the final page in Lane's 2020 novel "A Star Is Bored," and you'll see the surprise he left for his longtime boyfriend, buried in the acknowledgements.

"I wanted a proposal that would be reflective of us," Lane tells TODAY.com at a cocktail bar in the early afternoon. "I had this book coming out and I thought it would be a bold move — I had not heard of it before."

He adds with a grin, "And, there's a little part of like, he can't top that. That's a winning proposal."

Lane and Rowley, now married for almost three years and together for nearly 10, are both bestselling authors — Rowley of the books "The Guncle" and the June Read With Jenna pick "The Celebrants," among others, and Lane of "A Star is Bored" and "Big Gay Wedding."

While the acknowledgements of a mass produced novel isn't exactly a private proposal, it is a quiet one – sidestepping Rowley's fears of a flash mob.

"I was like, 'Oh, God, please don’t do a flash mob at Home Depot or something.' But this felt just perfect," he says.

Lane says he was feeling awful while undergoing chemo in 2020 for testicular cancer, but he was feeling closer than ever to Rowley. He decided to call his editor to ask to make a last minute addition to the acknowledgements of his debut novel "A Star Is Bored," even though it had already gone to print.

After explaining his proposal idea, Lane says his team raced to make it happen. "It was a stop the presses moment," Rowley emphasizes.

Once Lane received the first copies of his novel, he called Rowley over to take a look. Rowley didn't understand why, since he had read the book "a million times."

"I had read it forwards and backwards. I was like, 'I don’t need to see it,'" Rowley says. But he kept reading, and paused for a second as he read the last lines:

Lane says Rowley paused for a second, before he asked, "Is this in all the copies?"

"That's what I said — I was so shocked! I wish I could go back and edit that now," Rowley says. "Then I said yes."

"It was quick," Lane adds. "And it was really special and really lovely."

While it took about a year for Rowley's next book, "The Guncle," to arrive on bookshelves in 2021, he did publicly accept Lane's proposal in his acknowledgements:

Lane and Rowley met before either was a published author

Lane and Rowley matched on the dating site OKCupid in 2013.

"It was right on the cusp of app-based dating," Rowley says with a laugh. "It was a benefit that you couldn't just swipe, swipe, swipe. You actually had to read and then make a decision."

Lane agrees. "For me, that was a great way to find someone where your interests align, where you were on the same page with worldview. And the opening paragraph where you could ramble about yourself was very valuable to me, and that's that's what I loved so much about Steven's (profile) and that's what led to that first message."

Lane's first message, according to a screenshot, read, "Your profile is awesomely funny! (I hope awesomely is a word.) I can tell you're a writer!"

Rowley described himself as a "writerly type who holds down a day job," adding he was "hoping for the day when I can write full time, but instead of working non-stop toward that goal I'm filling out an internet dating profile because, hey. Life."

The two decided to meet up and get coffee for their first date, but at the last minute switched to frozen yogurt. Lane remembers seeing Rowley turn the corner, wearing bright yellow pants, and thinking, "Well, that's a bold choice."

"Then we got to talking, and it was just so lovely and so great. I remember hardly anything you said," Lane tells Rowley while laughing, adding he loved the yellow pants. "I just was like, 'Oh, I hope this keeps going. I hope he likes me.' At some point during the chat, he reached out and touched my arm to make a point. And I think the point was that he was into me. It was so lovely, and it was such a great confirmation."

Rowley says he felt "a sense of calm" when he first saw Lane, and ended up writing about the moment in his debut novel, "Lily and the Octopus," which he finished at Lane's urging.

"At the end of the book, the narrator meets a character based on Byron. I've written about that moment," he says. "It says in the book, 'There you are.' And I just remember having that feeling."

'The hard part' that made Rowley and Lane want to get married

Their relationship moved quickly after their first date: Spending Christmas together after meeting in August, moving in together about a year after dating.

In 2015, Lane was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which he described as "a sad moment, but it was a great prognosis." He says his medical team caught it early, and it was easily treated.

As the pair's books became more successful, they were able to travel and leave their day jobs behind (Lane as an assistant to stars like Carrie Fisher, Rowley as a paralegal at an entertainment law firm). They also moved in 2019 to Palm Springs, California, the desert town that had once been their weekend getaway.

Then came the summer of 2020, when a regular scan showed Lane's cancer had returned. This time, he would need chemotherapy to treat it.

"The hard part was when it came back," Lane says. "And right at the five years, it came back. It was on the heels of my first book coming out."

But Lane says Rowley was the best caretaker for him during that time — calm, funny and someone he could count on. Essentially, Lane said, marriage material.

"When I look back at my time during that cancer struggle, and the chemo, and the sickness, and all that stuff, it’s such a bright spot," Lane says of his relationship with Rowley. "So it’s hard to look back at that time as painful, or suffering or negative, because there were little moments, beautiful moments, especially with Steven."

"And that’s part of the decision why I called my editor and was like, 'Can we put this proposal in there?' It's another beautiful thing that came out of having to go through cancer — it really did bring us closer," he adds.

Rowley says going through Lane's cancer journey softened his stance on the institution of marriage and made him realize having a defined relationship was important.

"Marriage equality had only been around for a few years. Just because it was legal, it didn't necessarily mean that we were ready to jump in with both feet," Rowley says. "I think particularly for someone like myself who's a little older, there were years where I didn't know how I felt about the institution."

"There was no danger of us parting ways or breaking up, but it was around the idea of marriage," he continues. "It was really going through (Lane's) second recurrence of cancer that really solidified the importance of being able to protect each other and solidifying the relationship."

Having a 'little gay wedding'

After the couple got engaged, they started planning their wedding for the spring of 2021, with a small group of friends due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"We had a little gay wedding," Lane says. "COVID was happening. We didn’t wanna wait for that to let up, and we were a little impatient. Steven found this great little house in Palm Springs that hadn’t been touched since the ‘60s. So it was full of that shag carpet and the crazy decor. We had our small wedding there."

The pair says their vows took about five minutes, while the photos took about five hours. Since their parents and other loved ones couldn't attend, the couple took tons of photos with lots of outfit changes (including two suits for Rowley) so people who couldn't make it could still get the experience.

Lane adds that their small Palm Springs wedding inspired his second book, "Big Gay Wedding."

"I thought, 'Well, what if it was not a little gay wedding? What if it was a big gay wedding?'" he shares. "And you got these guys in love, and they just want to celebrate in the place that's special."

The book, released on May 30 (the same day as Rowley's latest novel "The Celebrants"), follows a mother coming out as accepting of her gay son who decides to get married on her farm in a small Louisiana town.

Lane says hopes that his books will one day make a difference in a reader's life. "Even if that difference is just having a book that has the word gay in the title, or a couple of guys holding hands on the cover — that means something to me now. And I think it would’ve meant a lot to me as a kid," he says.

Rowley's "The Celebrants" also takes inspiration from their lives, with the central couple grappling with a cancer diagnosis, in addition to themes of found family and lifelong friendships.

"Stemming back from the days when people risked losing relationships with their own families by coming out, it is these friendships that have brought real joy and have been a salvation for a lot of queer lives," Rowley says.

Today, their lives inspire their novels

The couple says each other knowing about the creative writing process is central to their relationship, and that they often fight over funny things that happen in their lives to include in their novels. Rowley adds it's important to him to have representations of queer people living fun, full lives in their work.

"As a young gay person, a lot of the literature that was available when I was coming out in the early '90s was about very lonely lives lived in the shadows, and often lives cut short," he says.

"It feels like such a privilege that we both have these books out now that are about celebration, about joy," he continues. "And I hope they’re examples for younger people to see the possibility. Because the truth is, our lives are filled with community, joy and have been comparatively long. And so I want younger people to see that hope as well."

As their books came out on the same day in May 2023, the couple was able to celebrate the milestone at a joint book launch in Los Angeles with all of their friends, where Rowley and Lane were also able to look back at how books have played such a central role in their relationship.

"Writing has been a through-line through all of it," Lane says. "I encouraged Steven to write 'Lily and the Octopus.' And then there’s a character in 'Lily and the Octopus' based on me. In 'A Star Is Bored,' there’s a character based on Steven. 'The Guncle' is informed by our time together in Palm Springs. 'Big Gay Wedding' is inspired by our little gay wedding. All of our books are sort of a blueprint or a map of our time together."

The couple jokes about the scene at the end of "Lily and the Octopus," where the narrator meets a character based on Lane, and how one of the book club questions at the end of the book asks readers to reflect on how they feel about the Lane-inspired character.

"One of the questions that the publisher put out for a reading group discussion guide was, 'Do you think he and the narrator have any future together?' And I was like, 'Oh, no. People in book clubs are gonna be weighing in on whether or not we should or shouldn’t be together," Rowley says with a laugh, adding he thought it was appropriate in his following books there was "a declaration that it’s here to stay."

While writing has remained a central part of their relationship, the couple says the secret to almost 10 years together is letting each other be exactly who they are, a process that has been "effortless," Lane says.

Lane describes his mornings as an example, where he wakes up earlier than Rowley to go on a walk with their rescue dogs, Raindrop and Shirley.

"We have a beautiful day, and when Steven gets up, we have our coffee. And then he goes off to one half of the house and I’m in the other — we're writing," Lane says. "We meet again for lunch. It really is a lovely life. I feel so lucky."

This article was originally published on TODAY.com