IR Day 19 - Part 9

Even your lack of game can’t ruin a good day and a good plan. Hastily showering off the sand and saltwater in a wooden booth at the public beach, pressed in with Ingrid is an intensely erotic experience, but you are not about to try anything lewd in a place like this.

You spent a long time on the beach enjoying the perfect day and each other’s company, even if there was not much talking. That gave you plenty of time to make sure that the evening was perfect by getting a reservation at a very fancy restaurant and a nice hotel room. You also impulsively downloaded an app to learn some Swedish.

You and Ingrid are a bit underdressed at the restaurant, but you have enough on your mind that it doesn’t bother you very much. Luck is on your side for once: you picked the right restaurant. It’s quiet and romantic, and not so fancy that you feel completely out of place. Ingrid seems to like it, and she’s as fascinated by American menus as she is by everything else. You get to feel useful when you try to help her understand what different foods are.

You have paid close attention to her likes and dislikes during your time together. She likes bread, jam, and chocolate. After you try to explain menu items to her, which includes Googling several of them, she orders a South African Lobster. This is stressful for you, because you hope that she knows how to like… eat a lobster. Because you don’t. You had a lobster tail once, but what do you do with the whole thing? She looks super excited. She lit up when you showed her the picture of a lobster.

“Do you not have lobsters in Sweden?” you ask her after you relay her order, then order Norwegian salmon for yourself. Norway is somewhere around Sweden. You think.

“It looks not the same,” Ingrid tells you.

You aren’t sure what that means, but it’s probably not important.

“Did you speak to your sister?” she asks.

“Huh? Oh.” You got a lot of texts at the beach that you didn’t bother with. Your sister was spilling some Gurlberg tea. She found out some stuff about Mom’s past and her friends and got real curious, so you’ve been hearing all about it. “Oh, this one’s from my dad,” you say. She notices how surprised you look. “Some stuff happened. We haven’t talked much lately,” you explain.

“Do you have more family?” she asks. You’ve told her about Mom and Kayla.

“More?” you repeat. It’s pretty much just you, Kayla, and Mom these days. Dad exists, but… “Well,” you say after a second.