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”M’a! M’a come!”
Tiny hands wrapped around the blonde’s legs and big brown eyes looked up at her expectantly. Emma laughed and hoisted the small boy up in her arms for a hug.
“Come where little man?” she asked the boy, just as his mother walked into the living room, a smile gracing her lips at the scene.
“We’re going grocery shopping. I take it Henry wants you to come with, Emma,” the dark haired woman explained, stepping towards them and tickling Henry’s tummy.
“Mama!” the boy squealed and squirmed in Emma’s arms. As the brunette stopped, the boy yet again turned his attention to the woman holding him, placing his hand on her cheeks and looking at her with a serious face. “M’a come?”
The blonde glanced over at the other woman, not having the heart to refuse the child but uncertain nonetheless. “Would it be okay Regina? I don’t have to if…”
“Of course. We like having you around, don’t we my love?” Regina smiled and asked Henry, who nodded enthusiastically. Emma chuckled. “Okay, looks like we’re going grocery shopping kid!”
As the little boy was placed back on the floor and his short legs took him running to get ready, the blonde turned to Regina.
“Are you sure this is okay? I mean I don’t mind going with you, but I don’t want to overstep or anything.”
The brunette placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “Emma, it is quite alright. Henry enjoys your company, and you know you have basically become one of my closest friends,” she admitted with a slight tinge of pink to her cheeks.
Emma had been employed as the two-year-old’s nanny for almost a year and it was true that she got along pretty well with his mother, having spent quite a few evenings with the small family. If she was completely honest with herself, the big house felt like a second home, even though it was her workplace.
She knew Regina was pretty lonely. Except for going to work or the occasional work-related dinner, she spent all her free time at home with her son. It bothered her a little that this woman, not only sweet but also funny and, hello, gorgeous, didn’t have many friends around to talk to. Henry was a great kid, but every adult needs to vent sometimes and preferably not to a two-year-old.
So Emma had been treading lightly, but made sure Regina knew that she was always willing to lend an ear if she needed some girl talk. This, somewhat timid offer, had after a while turned into weekly dinners, followed by conversations over a glass of wine as the boy had been put to bed.
It was relaxed and casual, the topics of conversation varied from childhoods to the latest restaurant to open in Boston and Emma knew that she had never before felt so comfortable talking about her past as she did with Regina.
There was this one night, a couple of weeks earlier, where they had stayed up way past midnight, too engulfed in conversation to notice the time ticking away. When Regina had realized, she had insisted that Emma stayed in the guest room for the night and not taken no for an answer. She could be a hard ass when she wanted to, Emma found out that night.
The morning after, Emma was up bright and early, thinking that the least she could do to thank Regina for letting her stay was to fix her breakfast before work. As the brunette came downstairs, wearing a robe and with her son nuzzled into her neck, Emma had already had a cup of coffee waiting for her.
Regina had flashed her a big smile, one of the rare ones, and sat down at the kitchen island. As she had nursed her coffee and tried to wake up the half-sleeping toddler on her lap, Emma had continued to fry pancakes and chop fresh fruit and moved around the kitchen comfortably. The blonde hadn’t been able to stop the thoughts of how familial it all felt and how in that very moment she was the happiest she could remember ever being.
That was also the morning she realized she had a crush on her employer. And now they were all going grocery shopping together.
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At the store Regina grabbed a cart and tried to get Henry to sit in it. The boy had other plans though, and wailed until Emma picked him up and carried him.
“You’re a little rascal, you know that kid?” Emma said and blew a raspberry on a chubby cheek. Henry only giggled and Regina rolled her eyes with a smile at their antics.
They moved through the aisles, placing the things Regina read from the shopping list in the cart. Emma had never experienced such an organized trip to the store; she usually just went and grabbed whatever looked good at the moment, often forgetting at least one thing she actually needed to buy. But this was like being part of a well-oiled shopping machine, efficient and precise. Regina was so focused the blonde didn’t even dare to make fun of her.
Instead she hoisted Henry up to rest a bit higher on her hip and followed Regina through the produce aisle and watched her go about picking the perfect vegetables, caressing and gently squeezing to judge their quality. Emma got a bit distracted watching those slender fingers run over the various greens. Those were very, very nice fingers.
She snapped out of her daydream when she heard someone call her name. With a light blush and a guilty look she lifted her eyes to stare at Regina, but she just looked over the blonde’s shoulder.
“Emma?” A hand brushed her upper arm and Henry hid his face in her hair. Emma turned around and saw a familiar face, albeit older than when she last saw it.
“Oh my god, Lily?!” Emma couldn’t believe her eyes. “What are you doing here? I mean in Boston?”
The woman laughed. “I moved here last year. It’s good to see you Emma, how have you been?” Her eyes glanced over to Regina and then paused on the toddler clinging to Emma like a koala bear.
The brunette felt like she was intruding on a special moment, no doubt this Lily was someone Emma was glad to see, so she moved over to the blonde and scooped up her shy son. “We’ll be over by the dairy,” she stage-whispered to Emma and started to walk away. Henry wasn’t too happy about being separated from his favorite blonde and let out a whine as he stretched his arms out towards her.
“M’aaa.”
“Emma is going to talk to her friend my love, and then she’ll be back, okay?” his mom soothed. It seemed to work, as the last Emma saw before the duo turned a corner was Henry reaching for a pack of Oreos.
Turning back to Lily, she answered the woman’s question with a smile.
“I’ve been good, great actually. Managed to get a little apartment and I’ve been studying to get my GED so I can apply to college. What about you? What brought you up here? Last time I saw you was in Phoenix.”
“That’s really great Emma, I’m glad to hear it. Well, I moved up here for work really, I’m a bail bondsman. Uh… bail bonds person, I guess.” Lily shrugged and then looked over to where Regina and Henry had disappeared.
“Look, Em, I really need to get going, but let’s get a drink sometime yeah?”
“Sure! That’d be fun.”
The women exchanged phone numbers and gave each other an awkward hug. Emma watched as Lily walked away, but just before she turned a corner she turned around and smiled. “Your family is really beautiful Emma. You’re very lucky!” And then she was gone.
The comment just sort of hung in the air for a while, Emma too shocked to really process it. She started to move through the store, towards the dairy section, in a trance.
When the blonde joined Regina and Henry again, her cheeks were sporting a blush and she couldn’t bring herself to look the brunette in the eye. Instead she held on to Henry for dear life, hoping that Regina wouldn’t notice her weird behavior. Her thoughts were racing, why did she feel guilty for not correcting Lily? And why did she feel all warm and fuzzy inside at the thought of the shaggy haired boy and his beautiful mother being her family? Hers.
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When the trio got back to the Mills house, Henry had passed out in his car seat so Emma offered to carry the groceries as Regina scooped the little boy up and gently kissed his hair before whispering “Time for a nap sweetheart.”
Emma carried the bags inside and started to put some of it away, being fairly sure of where to put everything and how Regina wanted her kitchen organized. She was almost finished when she heard the light footfalls of her employer come down the hall to the kitchen. She took a deep breath and tried to relax. Regina didn’t have any idea what Lily had said and she couldn’t read Emma’s mind, so she was going to just pretend like nothing happened. At least until she got home and could freak the fuck out in peace.
“So.” Regina’s voice was smooth, but her tone demanding. “What happened back there?”
“Huh? What do you mean?” Emma tilted her head slightly as she turned towards the other woman and leaned back against the countertop.
The brunette crossed her arms and just kept looking at the blonde, who squirmed uncomfortably. Neither woman spoke for a while, but then Regina decided to not let Emma get away with her evasion.
“Emma… You seemed, I don’t know, flustered, when you got back from talking to your friend. What happened?” She paused but Emma could tell there was something else on her mind. The brunette’s eyes skated around the kitchen as she cleared her throat and added: “Is she an ex-girlfriend or something?”
“Oh god no! No, that was Lily. We were in the same group home down in Phoenix for a while. Became really good friends. I haven’t seen her or heard from her in years though.”
“Okay… Look I don’t want to pry, but you looked like you had seen a ghost or something when you rejoined us, so I just wanted to know if you’re alright.” Regina fussed and stared down at her hands. “I really enjoyed your company.” The last part was barely a whisper, but Emma heard it nonetheless and it made her heart beat just a bit faster.
With a shy smile, she said “I really liked going to the store with you. And I’m sorry for being weird, it was just something she said when she left is all. No biggie.”
“No biggie? Emma, you refused to look at me afterwards, until now actually. What did she say?” Regina was more insistent now and she moved around the kitchen island to stand right in front of Emma, who closed her eyes for an instant when she caught the scent of Regina’s perfume. It was light and elegant and completely perfect. With a deep breath, the blonde decided to speak.
“She uh…” Green eyes were flitting around the room, anywhere but Regina. “She said that I was lucky to have such a beautiful family.” Her eyes landed on Regina’s feet and she couldn’t bring herself to look up, not when her cheeks were burning yet again.
After what felt like an eternity of tense silence Emma felt soft fingertips lifting her chin up and she had no choice but to meet Regina’s gaze. Her eyes were intense, something flashing just beneath the surface of those dark pools.
“Regina, I’m s-“
“Emma,” the brunette interrupted. “Don’t apologize. But I would like to know why her assumption made you uncomfortable.” She moved closer to the blonde, just an inch, but that move had Emma’s eyes trailing down her face and stopping on full lips before she swallowed hard and looked away yet again.
“Is it because the thought of two women together makes you uncomfortable?” Regina asked with a slight tremor to her voice.
“What? No, no not at all!”
“Good.” It was barely a whisper, but due to the close proximity Emma could hear the relief in the statement and it sent a similar feeling through her as she caught the brunette’s eyes. Her whole body thrummed with nerves and pent up feelings as she reached for Regina’s hands to hold in her own.
“Okay, listen. I really love being Henry’s nanny. He’s the best kid ever and spending time with him is awesome.” She took a deep breath. It was now or never. “But the thing is, I really, really enjoy spending time with you too.”
Regina’s face lit up with a radiant smile. “You do?”
“Well yeah. You’re an interesting woman Regina, not to mention beautiful,” Emma said softly with a crooked smile. It was Regina’s turn to blush at that compliment while she moved even closer to Emma, extracting her hands to place them on the countertop on either side of the blonde.
“So… Emma. Can you stay for dinner?” The compliment had definitely boosted the brunette’s confidence and she was not afraid to go after what she wanted.
“Uhhhh…” was the blonde’s very eloquent reply, as she was totally fixated on the supple lips very close to her own. Regina seemed to realize she wasn’t going to get a proper answer, so instead she raised a hand to Emma’s cheek, caressing it gently.
“Emma?”
“Huh? Uh, wha-“
“Kiss me.”
The kiss was everything Emma had ever hoped for, starting out carefully with their lips just grazing before it deepened. The blonde sprung into action at the feeling of Regina’s lips pressed hard against her own and moved her previously unengaged hands to the brunette’s hips and slid them around to her lower back to pull their bodies flush against each other.
As Regina’s hand traveled up Emma’s back into blonde tresses, Emma tentatively parted her lips and let her tongue run over Regina’s lipstick smudged lips. That earned her a quiet moan and a further deepening of the kiss. It became frantic; like both women needed the other more than air as hands continued exploring and breaths came in pants.
Seeing as how they were completely caught up in each other, neither of them heard the patter of tiny feet draw closer to the kitchen. It wasn’t until Henry spoke that they released their lip lock.
“Mama, why you lick M’a? S’wet.” The little boy stood in the doorway clutching his stuffed giraffe, hair standing on end after his nap.
Regina chuckled and walked over to her son, crouching down in front of him.
“Well sweetheart, I kissed Emma because I like her a lot,” the brunette explained with a smile and picked Henry up. “Did you have a good nap baby?”
“Am not baby, mama,” Henry grumbled as the duo approached Emma.
“Oh that’s right, I’m sorry Henry. You are mama’s big boy aren’t you?”
“Yeah!”
“Hey kid, I’m staying for dinner tonight, is that alright with you?” the blonde asked.
“Yay M’a!” The smile on the boy’s face could’ve lit up half of Boston Emma thought. “We play befoa?” Both women laughed at that. Henry did love his playtime with Emma.
“Sure squirt, let’s go play.”
Regina handed Henry over to Emma and gave them both a big hug. Henry babbled happily about what toys they should play with while the two women shared a quick peck and then Emma and Henry were on their way to the playroom.