Tattoos Together | An Original

20

Dominic
Two Days Later

Reese fit in perfectly with my friends. It was as if she'd been there with us since we all became friends, such a long time ago. It felt so good to know that the person I love is someone my friends now adore as well. I obviously knew they'd love her, but I'm happy in general about the way it all went this week.

Today we're having what we call an "all day date". It's when we go somewhere and spend the day together, just the two of us. Kind of like when we went down to Portland, and then spent half of the next day at the beach. We're not taking our time spent together for granted. When Reese is here, she's got my full focus.

Right now we're at the Pike Place Market, which is Seattle's oldest and biggest farmer's market. They have the best specialty foods, so Reese and I are shopping around today. She wants us to make dinner together for my family tonight, so I brought her here to shop for groceries with me.

There's a couple retail stores and craft shops we stop by too. I used to come to Pike Place every weekend with my grandparents, but they're too old to really leave the house now-a-days. They get their groceries delivered now. Still, I like to pick up a box of their favorite cookies on the way out of the market every time I'm here. Their house is on the way back to my parents' place.

"Do you mind if we stop by my grandparents' house?" I ask Reese. "I always get cookies for them when I'm here."

"Of course," she says, smiling at me. "I'd love to meet them."

I smile. "Perfect. They've been asking me when I'm bringing my girlfriend over to meet them."

"Awww. They sound so sweet."

"They are," I say. "They'll probably try to pay me back for the cookies. I won't let them. They always try to though."

"My dad does shit like that," Reese says. "He gives me twenty bucks sometimes and tells me to do something fun with it. Even though I make more than enough money on my own."

"He's given me twenty bucks before," I say. "He said it was because he missed my birthday this year, and he felt bad."

Reese laughs. "But he didn't know you on your birthday this year. I didn't even know you on your birthday this year."

Reese and I met the month after my birthday, in April of this year. I think that really goes to show how quickly things can happen when you find a person whom you easily click with. We met in April, fell in love somewhere between then and the end of June, and we officially started dating in July. When you know you like someone, you know.

"I know. I think he still felt bad about missing my birthday anyway," I say.

"I want us to at least spend our birthdays together next year. I think my spring break lines up with yours, and my birthday will be in the summer." Reese says.

"We can definitely do that," I say. "What do you think about Christmas this year? How should we go about celebrating with our families?"

"My family always does Christmas Eve at my parents', and then Christmas Day at my grandparents' house. I think Tenley and Josh wanna host Christmas Eve this year though, so they'll have Christmas Eve. We can figure it out together, what does your family usually do?"

"We kind of just do whatever. Since the majority of our family lives on the other side of the country, we kind of just do whatever works for my parents, Sage, and I. My grandparents usually just come over for dinner. It's really casual. I'm sure my parents would be okay with celebrating closer to New Year's if we stay in Chicago during actual Christmas."

Reese nods. "We can figure it out with them. Or we could just alternate who's house we go to every year."

"We could also do Christmas in one city, New Year's in the other?"