Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 51003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 255(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“I can understand that.” We’d just need to make sure he had lots of shelves and maybe a way to rotate through his stock once he realized there were limits on how big of an apartment we could get.
We’d also talk about the benefits of owning ebooks at some point…we’d just make it a slow introduction to the topic.
Dead trees were definitely more fun, though.
But physically decorating his place seemed like a safer topic, so I went back to my original thoughts as he slowly worked his way around my living room and over to my smaller bookshelf. “I’ve got some extra Christmas lights and a few things like that we can bring over to your place. How does that sound?”
His ability to multitask was amazing because he seemed to be cataloging every book I owned even as he responded. “I was informed by an authority figure called a salesperson that I should be careful not to offend.”
“You guys never offend. What happened?” It had to have been something weird.
“I added assorted holiday items to my carrying device, but I was told that some were religious specific. He did not know if I could have them.” Saint shrugged like he wasn’t offended, just confused. “Research was conflicting.”
I was going to have more questions about what went wrong, but we’d come back to that later. “Well, I’m a human who celebrates Christmas and I say you can do it too.”
I’d get him stuff from any other religion he wanted to explore too, but Christmas was a good start.
“Thank you, my Colby.” Snuggling me closer, Saint made a happy hum and his body wiggled. “Decorating shared living spaces is a human bonding activity as well.”
He was so cute but so stubborn.
I was just as good at it, though.
“We’re going to have fun.” Giving him a quick peck, I settled back against him since it didn’t look like he was going to put me down anytime soon. “And if we need more, we can just go shopping. There are all kinds of decorations.”
“I have visited the store called Home Depot. They have decorative trees that span colors and styles.” He was back to his humans are fun but strange voice, but since he was right, I wasn’t offended. “Part of relationship bonding is the merging of styles. We shall research our options so that next year we know how we are Christmas merged.”
Sounded reasonable to me.
“I grew up doing the brightly colored red and green kind of trees, but I like this one too.” It was only about four feet and had come prewired with white lights, so that’d been the direction I’d gone with the rest of the space. “I’m flexible, though. We’ll pick something out we both like. You’re right. It’s a good way to bond.”
Most of the decorations I had now were silver and red, but I wasn’t passionate about the combination. “I have a cousin who does three different trees because so many people in her immediate family are kind of insane and all have very strong tastes.”
Her social media posts around the holidays were so stressful they nearly gave me ulcers.
“Many humans find variety appealing.” Walking us a few feet past my bookshelf to study the pictures I’d actually managed to finally get hung up on my walls, Saint shrugged. “I will endeavor to form an opinion on the subject so that we may compromise.”
For bonding.
“That sounds like a great plan.” One only a Dom would come up with. “We can go tomorrow if you want to.”
Once Monday hit, it’d be harder to find the time to wander around looking for tree ideas to compromise on, but we still had a lot of the weekend left.
“Establishing merged schedules is also a form of human bonding.” Satisfied with his examination of my pictures, he stepped back and made another sweeping study of the living room before taking us to the kitchen. “Female humans on social media platforms have explained why having a family calendar is highly important.”
We were going to keep an eye on his social media consumption.
“Making sure we know what’s happening during the week is a great idea.” It’d probably help keep him settled too. The books I’d read on the subject of keeping one’s alien Dom happy said they functioned best when they could stalk their human partners without much effort.
Effort meant stress and stress meant worrying.
“We’ll work on that this afternoon or tomorrow.” The last thing I wanted was for him to worry before we were…comfortable with each other. “Are you hungry yet?”
It wasn’t a smooth conversational transition but it made sense with the way he was studying the contents of my small pantry.
He was analyzing it so carefully it looked like he was planning for the apocalypse.
“No, my Colby.” Carefully examining each item, including picking up a jar of pasta sauce to read the ingredients, Saint was wearing a serious expression. “You have a variety of food objects. Ingredients. You have a variety of ingredients. I am pleased with your nutritional consumption.”