Moving in with Skye was one of the best decisions I’ve made. Within a few weeks, I noticed that I was significantly happier than before the move. Waking up to my babe cuddling me every day was a dream, but spending the whole day at home with them was completely something I never expected I needed in my life. 

Nothing was completely smooth sailing of course. With another person living with me, it meant that we had to make a lot of compromises. I needed the house to be relatively spotless, but that didn’t mean I should have expected Skye to be the same as I did, so as long as the general area was clean enough, some mess was to be expected. I also realised that Skye didn’t enjoy that I dog-eared their books, so instead I started using bookmarks that they gave to me. Skye, on the other hand, realised that I was not a fan of washing dishes, so they took it upon themselves to wash the dishes, while I was the one who cooked instead.

All of these compromises came with arguments, but thankfully we weren’t mad with each other for long. We couldn’t, not when we knew that we wanted the best for one another. The longest argument we had was only about half an hour before one of us gave in and apologised. After all, I wasn’t expecting us to be argument-free all the time. To me, that wasn’t a healthy relationship, and I knew Skye and I had a stronger relationship after each argument. 

What made my day though every time was after an argument, my babe would magically appear with mint chocolate chip ice cream on their hand. When I wanted to cheer them up, I would buy them chocolates instead. It was as if we thrived on bribing our partner with food to get them to feel better.

The music sessions we had before we started dating also evolved from a weekend-only thing to every other day whenever we were available. This was our way to decompress and relieve our stress from work. As with the usual sessions, we tended to play more than talk, and left the discussions after we wrapped up with our sessions. Somehow, doing an activity with your partner didn't necessarily mean you had to communicate to know that you both were enjoying the activity. In our case, we knew we were having fun through our playing. 

Our friendship with Jess and Matt also became closer, with us having multiple double dates since we had our first when I moved to Skye’s home, which was now our home. After the initial chilly reaction from Matt when he found out that Skye was my ex-bully, he seemed to get along really well with Skye. Matt knew that Skye wouldn’t ever hurt me again, and he felt that Skye can be trusted, to my immense relief. Our favorite double date was laser tag where both couples teamed up against one another. Surprisingly, Skye was quite bad at it, but I wasn’t too competitive anyway, so I didn’t mind losing to Jess and Matt.

My work relationship with Rob took a turn for the better as well, because instead of seeing him only at work, I could now see him gardening in his backyard, which was next to mine. As I could work from home on some days, if Rob needed anything and he was at home, he would just send me a text asking if he could come over for work-related purposes. Of course, he valued work-life balance so he would only text when it was working hours.

I was really content in my life, and I wondered what would be next. Skye had the same question, so instead of directly answering my question like they wanted to, they asked if I could take a Friday off for a long weekend trip out of the city. 

“I know you’ve been working hard, so I thought we could get away from the busy city life for a while and spend some time together, my love.”

I noticed that they were relatively nervous, but I didn’t press further since I knew Skye had nothing but good intentions for me. I nodded and considered taking Monday off on top of Friday so that we had extra time to recuperate from the trip.

“Sure, babe. That sounds fun. I’ll take Friday and Monday off so that we have extra time to rest after the trip. I’m not sure what your plans are but I know I would be exhausted after a trip.”

Skye gave me their signature smile.

“Don’t worry my love, it won’t be anything physically demanding, unless you want it to be.”

They had the audacity to wink after that statement. I gave them a playful shove in response. 

“You’re naughty, babe, but I love it. Okay, I’ll still take Monday off though so that I have some more time with you.”

Skye nodded and gave me a big hug, which was expected at this point. I had a weakness for hugs and cuddles, but particularly from a person named Skye Long.