It's just after 11 am on a Friday when Gregory "Gee" Smalls walks into Virgil's Gullah Kitchen & Bar – West Midtown.

As members of the staff mull around prepping for the day, he stops at a table to talk to a familiar face. They strike up a quick conversation.

Eventually, he stands and greets us – me and Johnnie "Jay Ray" Kornegay III, creative director of the Counter Narrative Project. We are there to capture a few images of Smalls and his husband of 13 years, Juan. It's 12 days after their anniversary.

Smalls hugs us and says, "Juan is up the street. He's on his way." But actually, Juan is already here. He appears at the top of the establishment's stairs. As we take notice, he slowly saunters down the stairs – making an entrance – and pulls his shades from his face.

They are dressed in seemingly coordinated outfits—Gee in a long sleeve, black sweatshirt, camouflage pants, yellow, high-top sneakers, and a Black beanie. Juan is wearing blue jeans, sneakers, and a black asymmetrical button-down, long-sleeved shirt. If their wardrobe choices indicate their relationship dynamic, it shows how their unique personalities and styles complement each other.

Often already experienced with outright discrimination or bigoted slights because of their skin color, for a number of Black gay men, the biggest concern when coming out of the closet is not whether they’ll be able to withstand homophobia in the workplace or on the streets. Instead, many worry about the family cookout: Will they be invited? Will they be treated differently? Will their spirits be fed?

Juan Smalls says he simply wanted to be liberated. As one half of the highly visible married couple known by many as Juan & Gee and the owners of Virgil’s Gullah Kitchen and Bar in College Park, along with the non-profit The Gentlemen's Foundation—this Atlanta Black, gay power couple raised more than a few eyebrows after revealing that they’re in a non-monogamous marriage in the pages of Gee Smalls’ memoir “Black Enough Man Enough.” The spiritual and emotional capacity for the life partners of over a decade to define their relationship on their terms required both men to release themselves from the expectations projected onto their relationship from those within the Black LGBTQ+ community who often refer to their union on social media as #couplegoals. For Juan Smalls, the process was not overnight, and the lightbulb went off when he least expected it—during a six-hour flight delay at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport en route back home to Atlanta.