It was a cold time. A dark time. The world felt dim and hopeless. And then, there was a game night. A Zoom game night, mind you, but a game night nonetheless! On one coast sat Dan, wracked with Covid, and on the other, Jess, with a stuffed kiwi named Kevin as her only in-person company. Two souls separated by distance yet brought together by mutual friends and horribly inappropriate Quiplash answers. Through the many Friday nights of talking and laughing, Dan and Jess came to realize they had a lot in common; and then one day, Dan didn't sign on, and Jess realized she missed him; like MISSED him missed him. "Oh shit," thought Jess. "What are these? Feelings! No good could possibly come of this." And yet good did come, as Dan missed Jess and her smile and laugh too! But neither of them had any game. What were two hapless people on different coasts to do? Enter their friend, Tyler, who along with his wife Dana, suspecting what might be going on, sneakily looped them both into an offline chat about the new Mars rover before quietly exciting the group chat. Talk of cute space robots led to talk about everything and their relationship grew to more than just game nights. And then there was a vaccine, and Jess came to the east coast. Then Dan flew to the west coast, and Jess flew back east again. At this point, they both knew where this was headed (as do you, dear reader) and after one more flight back west, Jess and Dan shoved everything Jess owned in the back of a giant Suburban and began their life together with a fun (and sometimes harrowing) road trip from LA to NYC! Fast forward through five years of laughter, adventure and love to October 2025 in Edinburgh Scotland when, on the side of Arthur’s Seat, Dan proposed to an unsuspecting but happily surprised Jess, who blurted out “yes of course” before Dan could even finish asking her to marry him. And so gentle reader, with that and some ridiculously good 30-year-old scotch waiting for them at the bottom, they both descended the windswept peak hand and hand and into a life of adventure. (And the scotch was, indeed, excellent.)