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Brittany looked around the apartment while Santana stood next to the door cursing life.
“Bushwick…back to fucking Bushwick. If we live here we can never have kids. I’m not letting my kids live somewhere where I was already robbed.” Santana did like that this one had walls at least. “Plus you’ll be on the subway for an hour each way. If we’re going to be this far, we might as well just get a place in Jersey.”
“I know it’s not ideal, but there is no way we can afford a place in walking distance to the agency for you or near the studio for me. So, can you keep that in mind as we look at places we can afford?” Brittany tried to reassure her wife. “So long as we have four walls and a roof we’ll be fine. All we need is each other.”
“You’re right Britt. This can be a maybe.”
“Great! We have a maybe. Let’s go look at the next one.” Brittany linked their arms and started to lead Santana to their next prospect.
“Is the next one still in Bushwick?”
“Mhmm.”
“Yay…” Santana muttered sarcastically.
…
Santana looked at a stain on the wall.
“Do you think this is blood, brains, shit, or black mold?”
Before Brittany could answer she was interrupted by her phone going off.
“I am so sick of Columbia calling me. They really can’t take a hint.”
“Here, I’ll tell them where to shove it.” Santana held out her hand for the phone. Brittany handed it over and got ready to watch her wife do her thing. “Brittany S. Lopez-Pierce’s phone, how can I help you? She already told you her answer…you’re increasing the salary to 150 thousand yearly? She can work from home as many days as she wants?” Santana looked at Brittany to see if this was changing her mind. Brittany just shook her head again.
“Sorry, her answer is still no…I’m not at liberty to disclose what other universities she is in contact with. You have a good day as well.” Santana hung up. “They really want you, how do you understand complicated math and not the word no?”
“I dunno. You mad that I’m not taking it? That is a lot of money.”
“No, of course not Britt. I want you happy. Math doesn’t make you happy.” Santana reassured her with a kiss. “Besides if we need like 100 grand a year, I’ll go back to cage dancing. The tips I get could cover all our needs.”
Brittany just laughed. “As hot as that is, and I know you could easily make a million, I really don’t want anyone but me seeing you all sexy and cage dancing.”
“Well if you insist.”
“So this is a no?”
“It’s a no.”
“Okay. On to number three.”
…
They came upon the building that the third prospect was in and frowned.
A couple were on the stoop fucking.
“Skip?” Brittany asked looking at Santana.
“Yeah, skip.”
…
Brittany laid down on the floor with the biggest grin on her face.
“This is it.”
Santana laid down next to her.
“Yeah. This is home…”
“We get the great smell of freshly baked goods. Never too far from some bagels or muffins…”
“There’s a 24 hour gym right across the street.”
“And a police station not too far so if someone breaks in we can call them and they can come quickly.”
“Or we’ll have a short run back here after joining the next protest against them.”
“True. Plus wood burning fireplace that we can put a rug in front of and have awesome sex on.”
Santana looked around. “I don’t see a single square inch, I don’t want to make love to you on.”
Brittany looked over at the listing agent.
“We’ll take it Sandra.”
“Okay, like I said already, you need to apply, we’ll run a credit check, check your references, go over the deposits. Two cats right? That’s an extra thousand-dollar deposit. Fill this out. The fact that you’re married is a plus the manager is a bit old-fashioned.”
…
Brittany was sat in the middle of a deconstructed Fjoullgis, their mattress was laid out in the main room waiting for her to finish putting the bed frame together.
“The booklet says it only takes a half hour. You’ve been at it for over two hours.” Santana pointed out from her spot on the floor by the door watching her.
“The booklet says it’s a two person job. You could pick up an alan wrench and help.”
“I just got this manicure, do you want that money to just go to waste?” Santana scoffed.
“Lady Fabray has nothing on you when it comes to prissiness.” Brittany huffed blowing the hair out of her face.
“I could help other ways…” Santana offered as she started to undo buttons on her shirt.
“No, San come on, not fair. We talked about this, no sweet lady kisses until the bedframe is put together.”
“Fine.” Santana looked around the room until she spotted a box. Silently she walked over to the box and started to go through it. “There you are Dolly.” She picked up the vibrator.
“San…?” Brittany groaned. “What are you planning?”
“Oh, well since we can’t have sweet lady kisses, Dolly and I are gonna have some quality time.” Santana teased undoing her jeans and letting them fall to the floor of the bedroom.
“I’m cashing in an anal day. Tomorrow I am taking that bratty ass.” Brittany threatened.
“Fine.”
“And after this bed is put together, I’m putting together the table and then I’m bending you over that table and tanning that bratty ass.”
“Well at the rate you’re going I’m not concerned. If you want to join me and Dolly, we’ll be on our mattress, watching Underworld, having fun with Kate Beckinsale in that tight outfit.” Santana winked before leaving the room.
“Oh tomorrow is going to be so fun.” Brittany smirked at the images in her head.
…
Brittany looked over the apartment.
There wasn’t room for their family to grow. They couldn’t even really afford all the extra costs of trying to make a baby. She read somewhere that it’s not uncommon for it to take 5 tries. Santana had no room to work there so she was spending more and more time in studios working with other artists who wanted her amazing songwriting skills. When she wasn’t in studios she was busy at the office managing ten different people’s PR and setting up events for them. Though it was easier doing 10 clients than one Rachel Berry.
It wasn’t like she was spending more time at home either, between working as a dance instructor at two different studios and running Queso Por Dos and appearing on a few other Univision talk shows she was always working.
They needed to have fewer jobs.
She opened her email on her phone and re-read it.
She typed out her reply of I accept this offer and hit send.
This was one way to fix it.
…
Santana looked at their home as they packed up their belongings.
“You got us a brownstone. You got us an Upper West Side brownstone with nothing but your genius mind and a promise not to do any work for another school for years. I don’t really care if I haven’t seen the inside of it, the pictures are amazing. Britt, this is amazing. You got us a Brownstone and we can move in right away.”
“That and I have to work for Columbia’s math department.” Brittany had kept that bit a secret because she knew Santana wouldn’t want her to agree to a job she didn’t love. But it didn’t matter. If Brittany had to pick between working 20-40 hours a week doing math in exchange for getting an amazing house and salary for her wife, and their future kids, she’d do it. Plus she was still the only choreographer that Mercedes would work with, so she still had a good excuse to dance for a job.
Santana’s face fell and she halted her packing. “Britt, you don’t want to work with math.”
“I can do this kind of work if it means we have room to grow our family and we don’t need to be working 80-hour weeks to try and save up enough to have a baby that we no room for.”
“It isn’t just your job to get that. If we have to wait a few years to save up we can do that. We’re partners remember?”
“We are partners which is why I want us both working less. You’ll have a home office, you won’t need to spend two hours on the trains. We can have breakfast together in the mornings. Supper at night together. Remember what that was like? When we used to be able to do that. The house isn’t completely free. We need to pay property taxes on it, and utilities but that’s it and the property taxes are once a year. I already talked with my boss and he agreed that my salary will not change and it's based on how many projects I complete and not hours. So as long as I complete three projects a month we’re golden. Next year we can increase my salary and ya da ya da I could keep getting a raise.”
“But you hate being a math monkey changed to a desk.”
“No chains this time. I’ll spend four hours a day during the weekday, the rest of the time I’ll be doing all the house stuff like cleaning and fixing stuff. I’ll make sure supper is ready for you when you come home. Doesn’t that sound great?”
“Britt…”
“No, it’s okay. It’s all okay. Really. I want to do this. I’m still working with Mercedes. Please San, please let me take care of you. Let me provide us with a house big enough for our family that we’re going to have. 12 kids remember? We can’t fit 12 kids here in Bushwick. We can’t fit one.”
“Okay, but if you start to feel like a robot or you hear them getting the chain ready…”
“I will tell you.”
“Then, Thank you Britt. Thank you so much for the house. For taking care of me. Of us. I can’t wait to have your lady babies.” Santana grinned pulling Brittany in for a kiss and getting up on her tiptoes for it.
“Thank you for letting me take care of you.”
…
Santana looked around the main floor.
“Holy fuck. We can look down at people as they come in. We have a mezzanine. Do you know how much I’ve wanted a mezzanine?” Santana turned to Brittany.
“It’s fancy like you.” She shrugged in response.
“We can throw an amazing Halloween party and have like bodies hanging from it…at Christmas we can dangle those dangling twinkle lights, those ones that look like falling snow.” Santana looked around as if she could see how they would decorate their home for all the holidays. “We could have a two-story tree!”
“You haven’t even seen our bedroom…”
“How many floors?”
“Four and a subbasement apartment. But I am hoping to turn that basement into a studio for Queso Por Dos.”
“That’s going to be a lot to heat, all that space…and it’s an old building…”
“Yes and no. See the university was paying for the utilities when it this place was for professors or whatever, so they updated it for insulation and everything. It’s as cost-effective as it could possibly be. We’re ten minutes from a hospital. There’s a school just down the street. It’s a great place for kids. There’s a park so close too.”
“It does sound great.” Santana nodded. “This is the perfect place for us to start our family. I love you so much Britt.”
“I’m glad you like it. We can change anything we want.” Brittany grinned pulling Santana to her. “Now, we have a lot of rooms to christen.”