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It’s their one-year anniversary and neither one can believe it’s here, it feels like no time has passed at all and yet also a decade has passed. They got lucky that it was two days before Carina’s flight to Boston and both women are forever grateful they get this time.
They don’t do anything fancy, with Carina packing and Maya having her first overnight shift neither of them felt like getting dressed and going out. Maya gets home and throws her backpack down and takes her shoes and jacket off. All she wants is to sleep, she knows she can’t and she is a little disappointed.
Both her and Carina are very stressed to say the least but they are very excited to have each other in their lives and that’s what tonight is about.
“Car?” Maya call’s out into the apartment wondering where her amazing girlfriend is.
“Sono qui!”[in here] Carina calls out from the living room sitting on the couch already with a glass of wine.
“Hey you how’s your day been?” She comes over to the couch and takes the glass of wine from her taking a sip not wanting to get her own glass. Maya collapses onto the couch taking another gulp from the glass before Carina steals it back.
“Better than yours it looks like.” She chuckles and looks at her girlfriends who’s eyes are closed as she seems to relax from her shift. If Carina was being honest she spent the day wrapped up in nerves. She knows it’s going to take some time before she can calm down when Maya is on shift but she has yet to get there.
Carina sets the wine glass down on the coffee table and moves over to Maya laying her head down in her lap making Maya smile and she looks down at her girlfriend.
Maya runs her fingertips along Carina’s forehead and she closes her eyes soaking up the moment and the intimacy. She hates that in two days she has to give this up, she is so excited for the new chapter in her life but she hates how she has to give this up in order to start it.
“I missed you today.” Carina says opening her eyes again as Maya starts to play with her hair.
“I missed you too but I had a good day, it was a good shift with only a few calls.” Maya says looking down at her beautiful girlfriend.
“You look exhausted for only having a few calls.” Carina teases reaching up and smoothing out the furrow in her brow.
“It was my first day working a full 24-hour shift plus I know it was our anniversary and it made me sad I wasn’t with you all day. Although Gibson, Warren, and Miller all made sure I remembered the events of that night for the entire day. Sometimes I forget how crazy the whole night was, and I never got back my Air force one’s.” Maya pouts remembering the night everything changed for them the night of the party where Maya finally got up the nerve to kiss Carina without knowing Carina had been in love with her for years.
“That was some night that’s for sure. I still don’t remember half of the things that happened.” Carina says trying to remember anything beyond what she already did but couldn’t.
“Yeah but I wouldn’t take back anything about it because it meant I got you.” Maya says leaning down and placing a light kiss to Carina’s nose making her scrunch it up as she giggles.
“Neither would I, but it still was a crazy night. I’m still shocked just the two of us ended up at that rave and somehow made it home.” Carina says still in shock.
“Well we have Warren to thank for that. I bet we would have ended up passed out in the north quad and security would have found us and we would have been thrown in jail.” Maya laughs as she continues to run her hand through Carina’s hair.
“Wouldn’t have been a first for you though.” Carina says through another giggle making Maya roll her eyes.
“Are you ever going to let that go? It was one time and I said I was sorry, we all did.” Maya says chuckling
“You can say you’re sorry all you want I am never going to forget that you woke me up at like one in the morning.” Carina laughs as she starts to play with Maya’s hand that isn’t running through her hair.
Maya looks down at the beautiful Italian and she doesn’t think she can love this woman any more than she does right now. She is the love of her life and she knows she is her last, no one will be able to beat her. No one can ever compare to Carina Deluca the woman she has known since she was 16, the woman she has been in love with since high school.
“I love you.” Maya says running her fingertips over her face making Carina giggle at the feather light touch on her skin.
“I love you too bambina.” Carina says the smile on her face radiating through the room.
“So what do you want to do tonight? We could order from that Chinese place we like and watch trashy TV like we always do.” Maya says laughing
“We are very boring people, this in our one-year anniversary and we are going to stay in with take-out and trashy reality TV.” Carina says laughing content in this moment with Maya. She doesn’t need to go out and get dressed up all she needs is to be with Maya because that’s where she feels safest.
“Who cares about what we do, as long as we are together that’s all that matters. But if you want to get dressed up and go somewhere fancy we can.” Maya says looking down hoping Carina can’t tell how tired she is and how she really doesn’t want to go out.
“I would much rather stay in with you bella and watch trashy TV. You look like you might pass out from exhaustion.” Carina teases through a giggle and Maya rolls her eyes.
“Well sit up so I can change into comfy clothes while you call the Chinese place.” Maya says as Carina sits up and grabs her wine glass taking another sip as she watches Maya leave admiring her body as she does.
Carina gets up and orders the Chinese food while Maya is changing, Carina remembers the day a year ago and remembers how happy she was and how in love she was. She didn’t know it was possible to love someone 10x more than she did the day she fell in love with her. She loves Maya with every fiber in her being and she doesn’t think that will ever change. She loves Maya so much her chest aches and her breath hitches, this woman is her whole world.
Maya walks out of their room changed into a pair of leggings and one of Carina’s t-shirts that she has claimed as her own. Carina thinks she has never seen her look so beautiful.
“Chinese will be here in 20.” Carina says and Maya smiles walking over to her and wrapping her arms around her waist and smiles looking into her eyes.
“Hi.” Maya says
“Ciao, bella.” Carina says an equally radiant smile on her face.
“I missed you today, I wish I didn’t have to work today especially since you leave in two days.” Maya pouts and Carina kisses it away a lazy smile replaces it as Carina wraps her arms around Maya’s neck.
“I missed you too, but I got everything done so I am ready to spend the next two days together uninterrupted.” Carina says happy she got everything done.
They sit in silence for a few moments as Maya lays her head on Carina’s shoulder and they begin swaying back and forth. Carina lays her head against Maya as she starts to hum an Italian love song. Maya smiles recognizing it from the playlist she plays while she cooks or just in general. They stay like this for what feels like hours just spending a moment together just being them.
“Happy anniversary I didn’t think I would ever get to have a love like this. I don’t know what I did right in another life to have a love like this.” Maya says lifting her head and looking into Carina’s eyes where she is met with a watery smile.
“Felice anniversario bambina.” Carina kisses Maya’s temple before meeting her eyes once more letting the tears freely fall down her face. “I love you with everything in me Maya, I’m so lucky I get to spend my life with you. I can’t wait to experience everything together. I never knew a love like this existed until I got to call you mine. I am forever grateful we got drunk that night because it brought you to me. Not in the way I wanted but it all worked out in the end.” Carina says, she never thought she would be grateful for that night and how things work out but it brought her the love of her life and that’s not something she is going to complain about.
“Yeah that was some night, I wish things could have happened differently but it makes for a good story to tell our kids one day.” Maya says laughing.
“Kids huh? How many are we talking?” Carina asks in a joking way but also being serious.
“Oh three at least, maybe four.” Maya says meaning it 100% which makes Carina smile that she has actually thought about this.
“I don’t know about four, that’s 2-to-1 odds I don’t know if I am a fan of that. We will most definitely be outnumbered. Besides I don’t know if I want to have four babies physically.” Carina says only wanting two, three at most.
“Who’s to say you’ll be the one carrying all of them?” Maya asks offended but laughs through it.
“Let’s be real here bambina, with your job it would make the most sense for me to carry.” Carina says chuckling and running her hands through Maya’s hair absent mindedly. “Would you want to carry?”
Maya thinks about it, thinks about whether or not she wants to go through the process of being pregnant. She thinks she would but she doesn’t know if she wants to sit on desk duty for nine months. “I don’t know maybe. Depends on where we are in our life when we decide to have kids. There’s a lot of factors to it is all.”
Maya isn’t really sure if she wants to carry, she has always thought about having kids but it all felt like a hypothetical that might happen in the future. Until she met Carina then she actually started thinking about stuff like that. Having kids and getting married and living a whole life with someone she thinks about this often. Even though she has only had one shift every time she entered a burning building in the past 24 hours Carina was in the forefront of her mind. She was thinking about how she needed to make it home to Carina. She thought about how she has someone else to think about.
“We don’t have to worry about any of that right now, we should definitely talk about marriage first before babies.” Carina makes the comment as there’s a knock on the door and she goes to answer it.
Maya blanches thinking about marriage, how is it the babies don’t scare her but marriage does? Maybe it’s because marriage can happen soon and babies are far off? She isn’t really sure but the thought of proposing sounds terrifying but also completely right.
“Dinner is served” Carina says coming into the kitchen with the food and a smile on her face.
Maya looks at her in her leggings and an old track t-shirt of Maya’s with her hair thrown up into a bun and she thinks that she hasn’t ever looked more beautiful.
“What?” Carina asks seeing the heart eyes Maya is sporting.
“Nothing, I was just thinking how beautiful you are.” Maya says being honest.
“Oh please bambina, I have been packing all day and studying I do not look anywhere near beautiful.” Carina says getting down plates as Maya gets out some forks and silverware.
“You could be wearing a potato sack and you would still be beautiful.” Maya says kissing Carina’s cheek and moving over to set the table.
Carina knows she must have been a saint in a past life to get to love a woman like Maya Bishop. “I still can’t believe it’s only been a year; it feels like so much longer.”
“I know, so much has happened in the past year that it feels like ten.” Maya chuckles as Carina sets down the plates and refills Carina glass of wine and pouring herself one.
“I wouldn’t want to do life with anyone besides you bambina.” Carina says taking a sip of her wine and winking at her.
“Us against the world” Maya raises her glass in cheers and Carina mimics her clinking her glass with Maya’s
“Us against the world. Happy anniversary amore.” Carina says taking another sip.
“Happy anniversary babe. To the first year of the rest of our lives” Maya says leaning over the table and Carina does the same giving her a quick chaste kiss before pulling back to dig into the food.
Maya might be scared of the thought of marriage but for some reason the thought of spending the rest or her life with Carina brings her a feeling of joy and safety. Carina is her safe space and the place that she can rest and relax, she is her home. So maybe the thought of marriage isn’t so out of the realm of possibility, maybe marriage is just a way to show her love for Carina.
Yeah, the thought of marriage isn’t so bad when she thinks about getting to spend the rest of her life with the amazing, kind and compassionate woman before her. Forever doesn’t sound so bad when you get to spend it with Carina Deluca.