Chapter Text
Epilogue, 2016
“Joan, did you get the cake?” Brenda asked as she rushed into the kitchen.
Joan looked up from where she was cutting ribbon at the kitchen table to see her wife rushing through the front door. “It’s in the fridge. Slow down. The children aren’t due to arrive for another hour,” Joan tutted. To her left, an excitable forty pounds of fur leapt up from its floor pillow to greet its other mother.
“Fucking traffic,” Brenda grumbled as she rolled her sleeves up and threw the bag of balloons onto the kitchen table. “Sorry, love..fuck! Bloody dog,” she scowled as their puppy jumped up and nearly knocked Brenda over.
“Ah, down, Athena,” Joan instructed. And the standard poodle obediently sat down on its four paws to stare intently at Brenda.
“Okay, okay, I missed you too,” Brenda relented. She patted the dog and Athena immediately rolled over onto her back, whimpering for a proper hello.
“Go on,” Joan said, clearly amused.
“Dunno why she acts like this,” Brenda said.
Joan opened the bag of balloons and began arranging them by colour. “Because when our daughter and I aren’t looking, you spoil her rotten with attention and table scraps,” Joan drawled.
Brenda leaned over to peck Joan’s forehead. “Rubbish,” she insisted, but then she pointed to Athena and grumbled, “you keep exposing me, I’m gonna be forced to withhold all treats from you.”
Athena didn’t seem to care. She merely rolled back onto her four paws and nudged her fluffy little head against Brenda’s thigh. Brenda bent at the waist to kiss her snoot. “Awww, you little bugger. You know that I can’t resist those puppy eyes of yours,” she cooed.
Joan snickered as she lined the balloons up to their respective ribbons. “Is Linda on schedule?” she asked.
“Yep. They went in to see the movie an hour ago. By the time that they’re done and Linda brings her back, her schoolmates should all be here,” Brenda said. She looked at the balloons that her wife had laid out for their daughter’s eleventh birthday party. “Right, so are we blowing these up manually?”
“Orally, I should think. Unless your hands are capable of producing air,” Joan drawled.
Brenda sat in the chair next to her wife and wrapped her arms around her waist. At their feet, Athena was rolling around, licking their toes and softly barking at them as Brenda kissed her way up Joan’s neck.
“Orally, ay? You sure we need the full hour to do this?” she asked while wiggling her eyebrows suggestively.
Joan dropped the balloon she was holding and laughed, “Brenda, we are not risking a gaggle of children ringing our doorbell while we are mid-copulation!”
“You sure? I can be quick,” Brenda teased as she ran her hands over Joan’s hips.
Joan grasped Brenda’s smirking face and kissed her irresistibly full pout. “You are insatiable,” she tutted as they parted.
“That’s why you married me,” Brenda argued.
“Indeed. But I made a promise to Mila for her birthday this year. Balloons and a barbecue. So,” Joan pointed to the balloons, “I suggest that you grab one and start blowing.”
“Do I get to blow you later?” Brenda snickered. She rested her pointed chin on Joan’s shoulder and winked at her wife.
Joan arched her brow and whispered, “perhaps. If you’re good.”
“And if I’m bad?”
“I’m sure that there are ways for me to correct you,” Joan purred.
Brenda sealed their naughty evening plans with a peck to Joan’s lips, then she picked up a balloon. “Righto. A kid. Marriage. House. A dog,” she looked down at Athena who was now curled up around her feet, “and…balloons?”
“In three wildly contrasting shades of purple. Because our daughter cannot possibly pick a single favourite shade of her favourite colour,” Joan said in equal parts exasperation and adoration for their child.
“Well, I reckon we won the lottery in that case.”
Joan regarded her wife as she brought her full lips to the end of the deflated balloon and began blowing into it.
“Yes, I daresay that we did,” she softly agreed as she picked up a balloon of her own.
***
“Gamble everything for love, if you are a true human being. If not, leave this gathering. Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.”
- Rumi