“It’s a thing, and it’s the best idea since sliced bread,” he assures me, then falls on the mattress and makes a snow angel on it.

“Just don’t get bummed if I puke publicly when I taste it.” I unzip my suitcase, only to find out that Nora stuffed it with an unholy amount of lingerie that does not belong to me. The tags are still attached. Some of these items have holes in places no one has business touching in the human body. I feel my ears pinking. I quickly zip the suitcase before Dom sees it. Subtlety is definitely not my roommate’s forte.

“You won’t,” Dom reassures me. “We get each other.”

“Do you think we get each other?” I turn to him.

He tilts his head from his position on the bed to look at me. “Of course. Mark my words, lobster ice cream is going to be your favorite thing in the world by the end of tonight.”

The lobster ice cream tastes awful.

Like cookie dough ice cream, but with fishy parts instead of Oreos. It reminds me of football field–frosted cakes. Exactly the kind of dessert debauchery that inspires trust issues between humans and food.

The stuffed quahog wasn’t anything to write home about either. This is more than a simple culinary disappointment. It’s a thumb-in-nose moment for our entire relationship. Dom and I are supposed to get each other. No soulmate of mine can ever accept a travesty such as lobster ice cream as a legitimate dessert. I’m still trying to get over Nickelback.

Listen to yourself, Ever. Does this sound like a sane person to you?

So I focus on the good parts. There is magic. As we walk back to the inn from Main Street, holding hands, I notice that the air is extra crisp. That the ocean twinkles in the dark like tiny black diamonds. That the man nuzzling my neck looks like a Disney prince. And I’m not talking Kristoff or Prince Ferdinand. Dom is Prince Eric or Prince Naveen hot.

I remind myself that Dom is giving me an introduction to his childhood, to his family, to the DNA of his soul. Of course he loves seafood and questionable ice cream flavors and Nickelback. Each of these things has a nostalgic weight attached to it. I try to think what it would feel like if Dom told me he hated the Painted Ladies of San Francisco, or Oasis, or Apple Jacks. I would wrestle him to the floor until he took it back.