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Valentine's day. The absolute bane of Brooke's existence. She and Vanessa have yet to have a perfect Valentine's day since their first together. Each year, something goes wrong, and each year, Vanessa remains the hopeless romantic.
Valentine's day means one thing for Brooke Lynn: stress. Since she started her own bakery, she's constantly busy around every holiday. For Valentine's day, she made cookies, cakes, and more for her customers. She decorated them with pinks and reds and flowers.
Brooke opened the bakery as the twins were turning 7. The first year was busy as she was establishing customers and growing her business. She was worried when it came close to Valentine's day because she didn't want it to be ruined yet again for Vanessa.
She vowed to her wife that the bakery would be closed on valentine's day, and as much as Vanessa wanted to believe her, she also didn't want to get her hopes up.
"It'll be all about you," Brooke says at breakfast the morning of the 14th.
She still doesn't know what to plan, and obviously she's running out of time. She holds onto the tiny bit of confidence that she can pull it together.
"Heart-shaped pancakes, B?" Vanessa smirked, "hm, maybe she turnin' into a romantic after all."
"No," Brooke's cheeks flush soft pink, "they're for the kids."
Vanessa laughs, "uh huh. The kids."
She rolls her eyes and Brooke raises an eyebrow. Brooke sets the bowl of batter down and scoops the last pancake out of the pan and starts towards her wife who tries to run from her. She finally catches her, wrapping her arms around the smaller girl's waist.
"You're a brat, you know?" Brooke says softly in Vanessa's ear.
The tone of Brooke's voice causes goosebumps to raise on her skin.
"You better behave, Brookie, the little ones are still here."
Brooke just smiles and presses kiss after kiss to Vanessa's face.
"Eeeewww!" They hear simultaneous innocent voices behind them and they turn to find Chloe and Noah at the foot of the stairs.
"Mama, mommy, don't do that." Chloe said, hands on her hips and all of the sass she could muster.
Vanessa wondered how this child could be so much like her without an ounce of her DNA.
Product of her environment, I guess.
Brooke just shook her head, "alright, miss thing, you and your brother get to the table. It's breakfast time."
Both kids rush down the hallways towards the dining room. They dig into their breakfast, Noah almost dumps the entire syrup bottle on his plate while Chloe tries to give a little piece of bacon to the cat, despite Brooke telling her not to.
"Mama," Chloe's sweet voice says in between bites, and Vanessa braces herself. She's always unsure what's going to come out of her daughter's mouth, "Noah and I need valentime cards."
"You do, huh?"
"Yeah and they gotta be homemade 'cause of the 'vironment or something."
"Homemade? And when do you have to have these?"
"Monday." The twins said at the same time.
Brooke and Vanessa just stare at each other. Fuck.
"You mean... tomorrow ?!" Vanessa asks, trying to keep the calm in her voice.
"Uh huh." Noah nodded and ate another bite of bacon.
Brooke and Vanessa just stare at each other. That's easily 60 valentines that they have to make. Damn their teacher and her environmentalist bullshit.
"Well," Brooke sighs, "we can work on them this afternoon?"
Vanessa bites her lip, "I have a, um, thing this afternoon."
Vanessa has an appointment to complete Brooke's present for Valentine's day.
"Oh, right, okay well I'll work on them this afternoon. Nina is picking the kids up in a couple hours. So Noah, Chloe, you guys have to help me as much as you can."
Both kids nod and they finish their breakfast.
Vanessa cleans up after breakfast while Brooke gets stuff ready to help the kids with their valentines. She felt bad that she couldn't help the kids with their valentines but she had this appointment for Brooke's present for weeks. She couldn't cancel and Brooke understood that So she cleaned up, kissed her wife, and left.
Brooke Lynn had a plan of how she wanted the afternoon to go. Helping two 7 year olds with glitter and glue was not it. But they had fun and in the end, had enough valentines for their whole class. As Brooke was cleaning up the supplies, the doorbell rang, signalling that Nina was there to pick up the twins.
"Aunt Nina!" They said in unison. They're really getting good at that.
Chloe goes to run towards Nina, glitter covered hands out in front of her. Brooke quickly grabs her around the waist before she can rub her hands on Nina's clothes.
"I don't think so, gremlin. Go wash your hands."
Chloe giggles and heads towards the hall bathroom.
"Thanks for this, Nina." Brooke gives her friend an appreciative smile.
"Not a problem. Might as well make my valentine's day somewhat eventful." Nina gave a soft smile, "I love your kids."
Brooke's heart is warm as she grabs the twins' bags from the hall closet and hands them to Nina. She then gives them each a hug and kiss and tells them to behave.
Once Nina herds them to her car and buckles them in, Brooke shuts the door and heads back to the kitchen.
"Time to start dinner."
Brooke chops the potatoes and puts the chicken in the fridge to brine. Once everything is prepped, she looks at the clock. Vanessa won't be home for another three-ish hours so she heads to the bedroom to get everything ready. She had hidden everything in her closet and luckily, Vanessa hadn't gone through it. Brooke was proud because her wife was rather nosey.
She had silk rose petals, tea lights, and a bottle of wine that she put in a bucket of ice to chill. The rose petals went on the bed, the tea lights were placed on literally every surface she could imagine, and the wine was placed on the bedside table on Brooke's side of the bed. It looked romantic- just how Vanessa loved it.
Brooke checked the time and had only killed about half an hour, so she decided to have a bath while she waited. As she sank down into the hot water, the exhaustion in her muscles became more apparent, and the stress of owning a bakery during a romance holiday made its way to the surface. She loved her job, she loved her store, but times like this she questioned why she did it.
As the hot water relaxed her, and the scent of her lavender bath bomb surrounded her, Brooke's eyes became heavy and within minutes, she was out like a light.
Vanessa parked on her side of the garage and got the package out of the backseat. She entered the house, stunned by the silence- and confused. Where is Brooke? The lights were on in the kitchen but nothing was in the oven.
That's weird, Vanessa thinks, Brooke said she would cook.
She shrugs it off and heads up the stairs. She spots flower petals on their bed and unlit tea lights all over their room. She smiles at the ice bucket with a bottle of wine.
So Brookie did have something else planned.
Excitement gathered in her stomach at the thought.
"Brooke?" She called.
No answer. She makes her way into the bathroom and her heart melts at the sight. Brooke was fast asleep sitting up in the bathtub. The water had almost completely drained out and Vanessa was surprised that Brooke hadn't woken up from the cold. She walks over and kneels next to the tub.
"Brookie," Vanessa said softly, pushing a stray piece of hair behind Brooke's ear, "baby."
Vanessa leans forward and presses a light kiss to the tip of Brooke's nose. Her eyes pop open and she looks around, disoriented and panicked.
"Hey, baby. It's okay. You fell asleep."
Brooke is quiet for a minute while realization hits her and she starts to cry.
"Fuck," she groans, "I really fucked it up, didn't I?"
"What? What do you mean?"
"Valentine's day. I said I would make dinner and I had this whole romantic evening planned but I fucked up. I understand if you're disappointed."
"Oh, Brooke Lynn, you didn't fuck anything up, and I am not disappointed. You work so hard, baby, you take care of me and our babies, I am so proud of you. I love you so much, I don't need no fancy dinner or nothin." Vanessa reaches over and wipes Brooke's tears, "c'mon, baby, let's get you outta the tub. I bet you're freezing."
It's true, Brooke was chilly. She gets out and reaches for the clothes she brought in with her before Vanessa stops her.
"Just put on your robe, B, I have a feelin you won't stay dressed long." Vanessa winks and it sends chills down Brooke's spine,"come into the bedroom, I got a present for you."
Brooke nods, ties her robe around her, and follows Vanessa into the bedroom. Brooke sits and Vanessa gives her the package that she previously sat on the bed. Brooke can't wait to open it and when she sees what's inside, her mouth goes dry. Vanessa did a boudoir photo shoot. For her. There were color prints, and black and white prints all in various positions.
"Fuck, Ness." Brooke says under her breath.
Suddenly, her lack of gift brought her overwhelming guilt. She didn't think they were doing presents this year.
"Just a little somethin you can hold on to." Vanessa's cheeks are pink.
Brooke flips through the pictures and stops on one in particular. A color shot of Vanessa laying on a bed, her hair spread around like a halo, and Brooke was immediately drawn to her black and white lace lingerie set.
"Beautiful." She says softly.
A wicked smirk crosses Vanessa's face as she reaches for the stack of photos.
"Lucky for you, I'm still wearin it." She murmurs while she starts to unbutton her blouse.
Brooke bites her lip in anticipation.
An hour later, they're cuddled up in bed, pizza is on the way, drinking red wine out of plastic cups and both of them can easily agree- this was the best Valentine's day ever.