I had learned my lesson and wasn’t planning on repeating my error any time soon, so I wisely decided to let Ria set the pace, which she definitely seemed to enjoy. She crossed her arm around mine and hugged up close to me as we just casually scrolled through the street. Occasionally we would switch sides so Ria could look at something in the shopping windows like decoration or a nice set of clothes, but she had not decided yet if she wanted to go inside of one.

“I wouldn’t be against us walking into a store, you know?” I chuckled as we were looking at yet another dress in one of the windows.

“I know, I’m just looking around.” I could see Ria’s smile in the reflection of the window. I could then see her look up at me to give me a kiss on the cheek. I leaned in so she could reach me a bit easier.

“So, nothing has caught your interest yet?”

“Not really.” She shook her head. “They are nice clothes but I don’t think I would wear them any time soon. So it’s better not to buy them if that’s the case. If I want it, I can always come back later or buy it online.”

“Fair enough.”

Ria guided me away from the window and back into the flow of people on the right side of the street. We let us get carried along, still from time to time hopping out to view at a window or two, at least we did, until we reached the one stand to rule them all. The waffle stand. I could smell it from quite far away and something inside of me told me, Ria will want one of those, and my instinct was on freaking point. Ria squeezed my arm as we approached the little stall and looked up at me with kitten eyes. “Rora… can I?”

How could I say no? If I said no, I’d literally lose all of the humanity I still had left in my body, and I’m pretty sure denying Ria would also be considered a war crime and a crime against humanity in multiple nations. And I was not planning on getting trialed in The Hague.

“Yes, yes you can.” But luckily, with one easy answer, I’d avoided all those nasty consequences. At the cost of only a couple of euros.

“Yay!” Ria dragged me along to the front of the stall, there was only one other couple who had fallen for this delicious delight.

Once they had received their waffles, it was already Ria’s turn to choose. She looked expectantly at me.

“Choose whatever you want, Ria.” I smiled back.

She grinned back and looked at the waffle stand guy. “Can I have two Brussels waffles please? One with powdered sugar and whipped cream and the other just with powdered sugar.”

“Immediately, Miss.” The man started pouring some batter into the piping hot waffle irons.

“Two?”

“One’s for you.” Ria bumped into me. “It’s the one without whipped cream.”

“I guess a good warm waffle would be rather nice indeed.” I quickly leaned in to give Ria a kiss on her cheek. It’s been a while since I last had a Brussels waffle like this, at least a couple of years. It was not going to be a bad reunion, that’s for sure.

With a warm waffle in one hand and a soft girlfriend’s hand in the other, we were having a fine and dandy day walking through the shopping street. We had just finished this delicious treat when we got to the end of it, where crowds dispersed and more people entered.

“Want to go back, or have you seen enough for now?” I nodded in the direction of the store we were originally headed to. Not that there was nothing to see on the way to the shop, but it would just be a lot less concentrated.

“I think I have fulfilled my waffley needs for now.” Ria smiled, she had a moustache made of powdered sugar and just a bit of whipped cream.

I chuckled. “Stand still for a second.” And took out one of the paper towels that the waffle guy had given us. Quickly whipping away the sugar from Ria’s puffy cheeks and getting rid of the whipped cream too.

“You should have kissed it off.” Ria grinned.

“I’d pretty much need to lick your entire face for that, I’m not going to do that in public.” Shook my head.

“You would in private?”

“Well, I would definitely mind a lot less.”

Ria stuck out her tongue and giggled.

“C’mon, let’s go and find the store.”

“Alrighty!”

We continued our wintery stroll through streets that became progressively less busy. With the little detour we’d taken, it added at least ten more minutes to our walk, but as it wasn’t raining, both of us didn’t mind.

When we finally got to the store, unlike many others we’d seen today, this one didn’t really have a clear christmassy feel to it. At least from the outside it wasn’t really decorated at all apart from maybe a couple of lights in the little showroom, but those might as well just be there the whole year round. But when we walked inside, it completely changed our perception.

Not that the store looked any different, but the moment we walked in, we just got hit by the smell of pine forest, together with the smell of a cozy fireplace while the store both wasn’t in a forest, nor did it have any kind of fireplace.

“Woah.” Ria and I said at the same time, making us both chuckle.

“I don’t know what’s making the store smell like that, but I want it.”

“That’d be our cozy forest cabin fusion scented candle, made completely in-house.” A lady replied from behind the counter. If I had to describe her aesthetic, I’d describe it as goth witchy, obviously meant in the most respectful manner. The lady, somewhere in her early thirties if I had to guess, was completely dressed in black, had black make-up and her hair was also clearly dyed, the tiniest bit of blonde hair appearing at her hair’s roots again. From her black clothes hung a couple of vials and other kind of trinkets that I couldn’t even put a name on.

Her look really contrasted with the rest of the store’s interior, which had calm reds, browns and greens strewn throughout. But something about the way she carried herself and her pride in the comment she just made, told me that she was, in fact, the store owner.

“Wow!” Ria replied enthusiastically. “How did you make the candles smell like that? It smells exactly like what you named them.”

“That’d be a coven secret, but we do provide workshops together with our homemade essences if you’d want to make these kinds of candles at home.”

“Ooooh!” Ria looked excitedly at me. Yeah, that was definitely going to have to be an activity we were going to do, otherwise Ria would not stop bugging me about it.

“If you have a flyer about that, we’d gladly take one home with us.”

The lady then pointed down at a QR-code on the counter, neatly camouflaged by the rest of the decor. “You can find all the information there. We prefer to not use paper any more than we really need to.”

“Fair enough.” I shrugged and got my phone out to scan the code. When I did so, I got to the website Ria showed me before, but somehow it opened a hidden tab. “Huh.”

“We like to reserve the workshops and other activities for people who visit our store. It might not be the best commercial strategy but most customers appear to like it, and we do too.” She answered any questions before they could even pop into my mind.

“It does give a bit of a secret club kind of vibe. I can see why people like that.” I smiled in return.

The lady nodded. “Could I help you with anything else, apart from telling you about our candles?”

“Yes!” Ria replied fervently. “We are looking for massage oils and other massage essentials for our girlfriend! We want to treat her a bit.”

“Oh! Then you’ve definitely come to the right store.” The lady smiled brightly. “We have everything you need to give the best massages possible.” She then pointed at my phone. “And also some workshops through the handy-dandy-Qr-Code.”

“I doubt we have enough time for a workshop on the handy-dandy-QR-Code-Website, but if you have something with basic instructions, that could definitely not hurt.”

The lady nodded. “I’m sure I can recommend a thing or two.” She then beckoned us along to a section of the store in the far most corner. “These are a couple of sets of accessories that can really enhance the experience of a massage without any training. Just follow the instructions that come with the set, and you’ll give your girlfriend a great first-time experience. There’s a couple more things that you can buy too, but I would reserve that for when you’ve followed one of our workshops. That way you’ll get the utmost out of them.”

-This massage stuff appears to be more of a time-sink the more I learn about it, but then again, I have all the time in the world AND it can give my girlfriends a great experience. Why wouldn’t I? It’s a win-win situation.-