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Tina was unsteady as her boot stepped onto the curb after Bette had parallel parked in front of Fosters Freeze. Bette rushed around the front of her SUV to help her, knowing she was still zipping with adrenaline after her argument with Angie. Bette offered her hand and another sincere apology for missing their reservation at Providence, but Tina didn’t really mind since she wasn’t sure if she was even hungry. The churn of her stomach was from the hurtful words cast by their daughter, truth thrown on the pit of a dredged memory.
She let go of a disappointed Bette and put both hands in her pockets, bracing an attempt to swallow the raw emotion gurgling from her chest. But even pinching her hips through her coat would not deter her from the urge to ring the professor’s neck.
Bette stayed close to her, walking in an even pace as she looked towards the familiar sign, trying not only to ease Tina’s distress but to also calm her own vibrating nerves with honest conversation and a reward of fries.
There was something ironic about them being at the burger stand, somewhere they had only been with Angie, sometime that always reminded them of when she was a little girl. Somehow it seemed apropos waiting in a slow moving line, tethering themselves to a place of Angie’s childhood.
The revelation that their daughter had been in a relationship with her professor was not something Bette had anticipated on the night she so elegantly planned to propose to her wife again. But it was more the confrontation, the residual anger that rattled Tina. Bette could read her unspoken thoughts, silhouettes of secrets shaping in the dilated pupils of her not so hazel eyes.
Bette rocked on her heels, taking Tina’s hand again and squeezing it, trying to balance the weight of the question at the bottom of her bag. Tina exhaled a choked sigh, a groan of acceptance since what Bette had said was true. Their daughter was old enough to make her own decisions and smart enough to learn from her mistakes.
But Bette knew the love of her life well enough to know that the tilt of Tina’s head meant a hesitant forfeit, a change of subject get-to-the-end-of-this-night gesture. She dropped her arm around her waist, rubbing the center of her back where she could feel her thumb creeping along the top of the high-waisted leather skirt. The slight height difference let Bette rest her head against the blonde’s. The scent of Tina’s shampoo still lingering in the silky strands, overpowering the smells of the sidewalk, giving Bette just enough of a boost to try to salvage what was left of their evening.
Tina squinted looking up at the menu, her voice exposing a hint of her southern drawl. “I think I want a number three. That’s what you usually get. I’m going to get that.”
Bette let her lips brush along the tip of her ear, slyly pressing her chest into Tina’s shoulder before a murmur slipped from her mouth, a seductive admission.
“You know what I meant to tell you…" Her fingers played with the fringe of the blonde hair. "It was so sexy watching you stand up for her.”
Bette angled her hips so her leg fit between Tina’s, her jaw rounding Tina’s cheek to see the chin dimples form with her smile.
“Really?” Tina leaned back into the pressure of Bette’s pelvis against her bum.
“Yeah…” Bette’s voice flitted in frisky.
Tina licked her lips before turning to face Bette with the bottom one half-bitten back. “Are you flirting with me?“
Bette’s eyes traveled from the wrinkle of Tina’s mouth to the crease of her breasts, the gold shirt giving her just enough of a sight to pucker her lips in anticipation.
“Maybe,” Bette crooned as she nodded her head in turn.
Tina rolled her hip toward the brunette, each responding stance like a choreographed dance. “I think you are flirting with me.”
Their lips barely touched but a kiss brewed between them, Tina teasing, Bette chasing her ex-wife’s inviting tongue before she stepped backward and turned to place their order.
Already craving the missing closeness of the blonde, her arms wrapped around Tina’s shoulders, her eyes fluttering shut with the warm embrace. The gesture took Tina by surprise, her fingers tracing the outlines of the clasped wrists, securing the comfort she didn’t know she needed in that moment.
“And a large coke,” she finished the order before both of them added, “two straws.”
They both giggled, their simultaneous thought like two pieces of one heart, two hearts with one home.
Bette kissed Tina’s temple as they moved aside to wait for their food. She leaned her elbow on the ledge of the take out window, chuckling at her smirking companion.
“What, my love?”
Tina grabbed the lapels of Bette’s jacket and pulled her closer, swaying until she momentarily forgot Angie’s reading and they canceled out the crowd of people around them. Her fingers clung to the fabric, her thumbs traced the black bodice underneath as she leaned her forehead to Bette’s chin and silently watched the rise and fall of Bette’s chest.
“I love you, Tina Kennard,” Bette said, a whisper of breath tickling Tina’s nose.
“I love you, too, baby.”
Bette took Tina’s left hand and interlaced their fingers, imagining the ridge of the ring that would soon adorn her hand. She encircled the blonde’s waist with their joined arms and kissed her spritely on her lips.
“And I love flirting with you.” Bette smiled into another kiss.
Tina blushed, a familiar spark in her eyes changing the irises of a burnt umber to a fiery amber under the heat of Bette’s gaze. The rasp in her next words matched the promise in Bette’s ebon eyes.
“Please never stop flirting with me, Bette Porter."