Basically your typical "boy-meets-girl". Boy-swipes-right-on-girl-girl-initiates-coversation-with-how-she-wonders-what-it-would-feel-like-to-be-John-Malcovich. You know, classic. Pretty soon, we we're arranging to meet for a first date. Location: The Gelateria on Grand. It was February so it was still pretty cold out, in fact it had just snowed a few days before. Casey remembers stepping into the cafe, cheeks burning, and seeing Jake for the first time. "Red hair?" she thought, "His profile definitely didn't make it clear that his hair was red". But yes, Jake's hair was definitely red and though it surprised her at first, it would soon become one of her favorite things about him. That and his easy and kind nature. We ordered our coffees and sat at a tiny table just across from the cash register. We sat and talked for hours, not feeling a minute of it.

There was the day that it happened, but there was also the day that it began. That day was New Year's 2023. We'd just stepped out of the car, tired but buzzing after attending a friends party, and were starting to head up the steps to the house. The steps to our house. We'd been living together for around eight months by then and every day, with every amazon delivery, it felt more and more like home. So, that day, or night rather, as we were walking into the home we were building together, Jake turns to Casey and says, like it was obvious, "You know by this time next year you'll be engaged." So, the following June, when Jake told Casey he was taking her for "dinner" at an undisclosed location, she knew what was happening. However, she didn't know that "knowing it was happening" was completely different from "it was happening". So, when Jake sat down at a piano, Casey was sure he didn't know how to play, and sang her a song, she was sure he didn't know the words to, she cried like a baby. She cried, as he got down on his knee and told her what she thought she already knew. And when he asked, the question she knew he would ask, she cried and she said yes.