Chapter Text
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that Regina Mills is hot. Which is totally fine because she, Emma Swan, has always had hot friends. There were the girls she played sports with in high school - hot - her kickboxing teacher that bought her tequilas every Friday night in the days before Storybrooke - hot - Ruby Lucas, her Storybrooke drinking buddy - hot.
Regina is a hot Mayor, no biggie.
Then it happens. The shift, the capitalisation, the transition from acceptable, passing hotness to stomach pinching, dream visiting chaos.
She’s passing by Henry’s room, and lingers at the door when she hears her name.
“Emma’s cool,” says the voice of fourteen year old Isaac, a school friend, “But when is your other Mom coming home?”
“Dunno,” says the voice of fourteen year old Henry, her son, “Why?”
“Because she’s hot.”
“Isaac! Gross!” Henry yells, and there’s a scuffle and a thump as one pubescent teen is pushed off the bed.
“Hey!? Everyone at school thinks so! Your Mom’s hot,” Isaac squeezes the words out between fits of laughter. It sounds like Henry is thumping him with a pillow.
Hot Mom/Mayor Mills comes home at six pm. Emma is in Henry’s room, trying to figure out the boys pizza order.
“Shit,” she mutters, hearing the door open, “she’s back early.”
“Maybe she’ll want pizza too?” says Isaac. Henry thumps him again.
“Emma, please kindly leave your jacket in the coat closet and not on the stairs!”
She throws Henry a conspiratorial eye roll and shouts, “Sorry, Mom!”
The teens snicker.
But she’s a little helpless when it comes to Regina’s nagging - after all, she did offer to take her in when her flat basically fucking exploded, and her choices included living with her PDA obsessive parents, or, on her ex-boyfriend’s crusty pirate ship - and bounds down the stairs to meet her.
Regina is holding Emma’s red jacket between two manicured fingers. She raises a brow, “Must I have to teach you?”
And Emma’s mouth is suddenly dry because that sounded really, kinda, very, Hot.
“Emma?” Regina waves the garment.
She takes it, face flushed.
Stupid Isaac, she thinks, as she buries the coat in the cupboard, teenage boy hormones are not for a thirty something year old woman to -
“Can you hang this up for me please?”
Regina’s arm is under Emma’s nose, presenting the camel coloured coat that Emma has always been terrified to accidentally stain. The brunette’s scent balloons inside the cramped closet - probably one of the many Chanel perfumes Emma has seen in the bathroom, again, terrified to even touch.
She curses Isaac. Feeling light-headed from the smell of Regina Mills so close behind her is, also, his fault. Elevating Henry’s Mom from casual hot to MILF-mode was very much inappropriate, very much bad timing, considering their current living situation.
In the kitchen, she decides confession is the best absolution. Emma watches the other woman fuss about the kitchen, wiping barely perceptible toast crumbs from the counter top, and says, “Henry’s friend has a crush on you.”
Regina swivels round, amused. “What could possibly make you think that?”
“I heard him. He said, ‘Your Mom’s Hot’. And he meant you, not me. I’m Cool Mom, you’re Hot-”
“Yes, I understand,” she says swiftly, holding a hand up to cut her off.
She’s embarrassed, Emma studies the woman in front of her with barely concealed wonder, I’ve actually managed to embarrass Regina Mills. And then, because fuck it, it’s Friday night, and she’s feeling reckless, she says, “He’s right.”
Several emotions collide together in the Mayor’s eyes: irritation, that’s natural, embarrassment, a delicious new development, and…curiosity. There is something, a feeling perhaps, in Regina’s bewilderment that tilts on a precipice. Emma stares back, hoping she’ll catch it in time.
But the skin between the brunette’s brows folds and her eyes calm to a neutral thought. “And is Isaac eating here?”
“Er, yeah, I said they could order pizza.”
Regina folds her arms across her silk blue blouse. “We had pizza last Friday.”
“Well, that was because I had just moved in,” Emma says brightly, “It was a celebration.”
“Hm. And this Friday?”
Emma offers a hopeful smile, “We are celebrating a week of me moving in?”
Regina’s pursed mouth softens. “You’re so like Henry sometimes,” she says, so gently, that Emma feels made entirely of sunshine.
Isaac gets his wish. To everyone’s shock, Regina glides downstairs, immaculate in her Madame Mayor blouse and dark, fitted pants - immaculate, maybe, if red, fluffy slippers were part of the office attire.
The boy stops shoving pizza in his face; his excited retelling of whatever video game action thingy him and Henry had managed to conquer trails of. His eyes are bright saucers, staring at his friend’s Mom. Particularly when she turns to the cupboards to grab a plate (because eating from the box was heathen behaviour) and exposes the curve of her ass.
Emma assumes all this because, she too, has noticed.
Regina arranges herself at the kitchen table, and delicately plucks a slice of cheese and mushroom pizza (Emma’s preference) from the open box.
“So,” the brunette says, breaking the stifled silence of Isaac’s ogling, “How is school work going, boys?”
“Great thank you, Mrs, er, Miss, um, Madame Mayor. Sorry, I-“
Regina looks at him over her pizza and Emma is just about to jump in and rescue Henry’s closest school mate when the brunette smiles, “Regina is just fine, Isaac.”
Henry chokes on his Sprite; Isaac puffs out his chest.
For the remainder of the meal, Emma and Henry can barely a get word in. Having established first name basis, Isaac shoots his shot. For at least fifteen minutes, he boasts about being Soccer Captain of the Freshman B Team, as if a skinny fourteen year old’s unremarkable sports achievement will leave any lasting impression on the Mayor of Storybrooke. Still, Regina listens, gifts him red lipped smiles and says, “I see,” at all the relevant moments, occasionally glancing at Emma with a surreptitious humour. Henry watches his friend dissolve into a simping mush with disgusted pity. (Emma wonders how Henry would observe her descent into the Regina Mills fan club).
When their bellies are swollen with pizza crusts and Henry tugs on Isaac’s sleeve to return upstairs to their video game, his friend, instead, jumps up and declares that he will clear up. Henry begrudgingly piles pizza boxes into his arms, as Isaac stands at the sink and washes Regina’s china plate like it’s a precious stone. Emma herself stretches and makes to stroll into the kitchen, to assist her hapless son trying to stuff the boxes into the trash can.
As she passes Regina, the other woman smirks and says in a low - has she always sounded this seductive?- murmur, “I see being Hot Mom has its perks.”