John Price hadn’t thought moving in together would change that much. He figured more groceries, maybe the telly a little louder when you got comfortable in the living room. That was it.

He hadn’t accounted for throw pillows.

At first, he didn’t mind looked nice enough on the sofa, matched the curtains you’d insisted he “absolutely needed.” But apparently, he wasn’t supposed to throw them. He found that out the hard way when he lobbed one at you across the couch and got the look.

Then there was the bathroom. Once upon a time it was him, a toothbrush, a razor, and a bottle of hand soap. Now? The counter looked like a bloody storefront. Serums, moisturizers, hair ties, little jars he didn’t dare touch. And the shower. Christ. The first time he spotted strands of your wet hair clinging to the wall tiles, he thought the drain had exploded.

The house itself started looking like it belonged to someone civilized. Plants. He’d gone from zero to six in less than a month, and every one of them had names, apparently. Candles, too “different moods,” you’d explained. One smelled like vanilla, another like fresh linen, another like… pine needles? He didn’t know, he just lit whichever you handed him.

He started finding your tiny ankle socks in odd places. Under the coffee table, tangled in the sheets, one even turned up in his coat pocket. And somehow, he now had a laundry basket, one that was actually used. His days of leaving a trail of clothes from the front door to the bedroom were over.

The kitchen was worse. You’d “organized” it. Which meant reorganized completely. His seasonings had tripled, there were three different kinds of oil he couldn’t pronounce, and he didn’t know where half of his own mugs were anymore.

And then came the coasters. Coasters, in his own house. If he so much as put his beer on the coffee table without one, you’d swoop in like a hawk.

Price would grumble, sure. Call it unnecessary. Claim he liked things the way they were. But every night, when he smelled one of your candles flickering low, heard the soft shuffle of your socks down the hall, and noticed his clothes folded neatly in a basket instead of strewn across the floor, he knew he wouldn’t trade it back for the world.