She's With Me

At Home

The following few days were spent decorating their new living space. Evie felt like they were never going to get the boxes down to a manageable amount, and even more unpacking came in when Evie's stuff from her old apartment arrived. But finally, things started to feel like home. It made time pass a lot quicker. The pandemic was sweeping through Michigan a lot faster here, it seemed which only worried Josh even more.

It was a quiet Thursday morning. The couple had just woken up, and were getting prepared for the day. Josh was quite excited, "I've got a bunch of empty boxes," he said from the kitchen, "And you know what you do when you've got empty boxes?"

"What do you do?"

"You burn them!"

Evie rolled her eyes, "So you're going to make a bonfire in the dead of winter?" Josh turns back to look at her, a grin on his face with spatula in hand, "Yes. I am. And I'm going to enjoy every second of it." Currently, it was around 9:30 am. Outside remained below freezing and it had snowed some more overnight. Evie snaps a quick photo of Josh with his back turned to her and goes to open her Instagram again. The little heart at the top corner of the app let her know she had at least 99 notifications. A lot of them were comments. But she'd gained a decent amount of followers just from her one photo of Jake.

gretavanfan: omggggg you are so lucky girrrrrrl

joopyvanfleet: i can't you literally got to meet jake im crying 😢

Joshstamborine: jake out here looking like a whole snack

It seemed like the majority of the girls were just excited to see the "crumbs" (as Josh had called it) of Jake being posted since he didn't share much on his social media. None of them did. She had posted the photo just a couple of days ago and it was still pulling attention. But what she thought was funny was they still thought Evie was just a fan who had a chance to meet them, despite the caption. Of course she'd never say outright that she was dating Josh. But she sure wanted people to know that she definitely was more than just friends with one of the boys. Evie posts the photo of Josh with his back turned. Today, he was sporting a tie-dyed blue and white sweater with his signature khaki pants. The caption read, "today, he's a chef!"

As she's posting the photo, a plate of breakfast is slid down in front of her. And for just a brief moment, the newness of the food distracted her enough to look away from the plate. Clumps of what she thought to be tofu were intermixed with chopped tomatoes and leaves of an herb she was unfamiliar with. Evie suddenly wondered if she was fully committed to the whole vegan thing her boyfriend was on. "It's a tofu scramble with peppers and tomatoes," Josh said, almost like he could see through the disgust she was trying to hide, "It tastes better than it looks." Which was true. More often than not, his dishes did taste a lot better than they looked, "I guess I just wasn't expecting something so vibrant this early in the morning," Evie admitted quietly, "I'm still so used to catching an Eggo waffle out of the toaster on the way out the door."

Josh wrinkled his nose, taking a seat across from her with his food, "I can't stand that processed nonsense anymore. Swear on my life, you don't have to eat those ever again. I'll get you some whole grain ones or something."

"But what if I'm craving chocolate waffles like, instantaneously?" Evie asked, taking a bite of her food, "What'll you do?"

"Guess I'll be making you chocolate chip waffles," Josh chuckled, "I am committed to making sure you eat healthy from now on. Especially now since you've got a little one– or two baking in there. Oh– that reminds me. I need to do our order for the grocery before my meeting starts today." Josh gets up from the table, followed by quiet thumps that signal he'd gone upstairs to retrieve his laptop. Evie turns her attention to Instagram once more, finding she'd gained another 15 followers during that conversation. Comments were flooding in on her new photo.