Chapter Text
Baby’s First Tack Shop
Fluorescent lights beamed down from a domed ceiling, illuminating the polished tan and brown pommels of saddle horns and seats alike. The smell of freshly cured leather lingered in the air with little to no help from the large industrial fans above. Camila, Beatrice, Ava, and Lilith walked in a careful line with cart and youngest in tow— a breath held with every step.
“So?” Ava piped up at last, hardly able to contain her excitement.
Camila turned towards the sound of her sister’s voice, “So… what?”
“Do you know where you are?”
“I mean—” Camila whipped her head around left and right, still almost completely blind due to her makeshift bandana blindfold, “You thought you could surprise me with Teskey’s, and I wouldn’t recognize it just by smell alone?”
To be fair, Teskey’s Saddle Company was a staple stable scent at the Cat’s Cradle Ranch. Apart from the manure, and the straw, and the rain whenever it did fall on occasion…
Ava balked silently, flummoxed by her younger sister’s apt recollection of their most favorite haunt, “…Happy birthday?”
Camila tugged the bandana from her eyes and blinked towards the tall-ceilinged brightness of the saddle room that was Teskey’s, which was wall-to-wall leather with tack for as far as the eye could see. Simply put: It was Heaven on earth.
She turned to her sister with a wide grin, “You know there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
“I know.” Ava smiled.
A tiny sneeze from the cart at their backs drew their attention, followed by a happy giggle. Sneezes, apparently, were still very funny. At least to a toddler.
“Bless your tiny little soul.” Ava said with a turn.
An excited squeal came next, and then another sneeze, this time producing many toddler-sized boogers.
“Oh,” A ready hand shot forward with a disposable wipe, “Blow—”
The boy turned away instantly, urgently pressed to do anything but heed his other mother’s instruction. Such was a toddler’s business, after all; to test or to have contempt for that which is “new”. Enjoy having his nose wiped, he did not.
“No!”
“Just wipe then—”
“No!”
Camila chuckled and quickly took up the wet cloth from Lilith’s hand, hushing the small boy with another patient hand. “We say ‘bless you’, so you can say…?” She leaned further towards the four-castered cart that held her nephew, raising a dark and gloriously bushy eyebrow with an expectant “hmm?”
“…T’ank’yew.”
With that, the child let his nose be wiped.
It was then that an audible guffaw rose concurrently out from the slacked jaws of both Ava and Lilith. Beatrice merely hummed a short note of approval. One laced with pride, no doubt.
The boy laughed with his small hands gripped around the handlebar of the cart, bouncing gaily upon his behind in his seat. A sack of flour might not have had enough room in said seat, but the child was just shy of two years old, and was long boned and slender in build, much like the woman whom he’d been birthed from— his dashing smile, mannerisms, and charm in abundance, however, were all gifts from the tribe of women that frequented regular appearances in his life. Three of whom he called “mother” in some form or another. Apart from his aunt Camila and abuela Suzanne, he was the luckiest boy west of the Mississippi. With plenty of paddock at home and horses to roam within them, he would want for nothing.
A happy shrug of Camila’s shoulders donned an explanation, “If you make it seem like it’s his idea, then he’s kind of all for it…”
The tallest among them shifted uncomfortably in her boots. Lilith’s mouth turned down with a frown.
Ava could hear the “don’t you think I’ve tried that” in the other woman’s voice even before she opened her mouth, but as it turned out, she chose to remain silent. Perhaps it was a “can of worms” that she was not very keen to open at the moment. Ava squared herself away immediately with a toss of her head as a distraction, knowing her second partner’s more sensitive nature as of late, “Let’s walk along the wall over here where he can tug on all the leather…” She suggested.
Lilith was already nodding her head in the affirmative, “Yeah, alright.”
There was a small pinch upon Ava’s behind as Beatrice walked past, giving her the “okay”. Ava shot her a smile over her shoulder and then leaned to take up Lilith’s hand, guiding her towards the long-ended wall of the saddle room. Camila followed Beatrice in the opposite direction, excited just to have the “run of the mill” for an afternoon. As the Birthday Girl, it was anything she wanted, and she would undoubtedly take full advantage.
Teskey’s was spectacular with its tall arena-like ceiling and dozens of light fixtures, and bountiful in the way of rope and halter leads to tug and pull to one’s heart’s content— Which, in the case of a toddler enamored with anything horse related, was absolute tactile bliss. Not that anyone would care about a nearly-two-year-old tugging haphazardly at their overpriced tack in the first place… It was the name and the ambiance they shopped for, after all, and the smell of leather that seeped deeply into their lifeblood. Baby’s first tack shop was a rite of passage, and a welcome and happy birthday spot to boot. Two birds with one stone was as good an excuse as any.
“You okay?” Ava asked as she and Lilith-with-cart ambled down a narrow aisle of child-sized lariats.
Lilith gave a quick tuck of her chin with a sure nod, “Of course.”
“Everything’s fine, you know…” Ava said before taking a deep and ready breath, knowing by now just how to place her words whenever it came to the former rodeo champion and her once upon a time rival, “Remember, you’ve got me—” She gave a quick toss of her brow then towards the pair of women drawing away from them across the store, “…and then some.”
Lilith tucked the snot-addled wet wipe back into the bag hanging at her hip, “I know.” She looked around then with wary eyes for the maybe the fifth time since they’d entered the place, “I just—”
“Mommy!” The boy in the cart chimed in happily, flapping his hands freely in Beatrice’s direction as she rounded a far aisle with Camila.
Lilith sighed and then slowed to a snail’s pace with the sad shuffling of her feet, “It’s that.”
Ava’s heart sank.
“What do you mean?” Ava asked.
“That—” Lilith emphasized again as she dejectedly cast her eyes down towards her boots. She took a moment to remove herself from the way she felt by tucking some of her son’s longish hair behind his ear. Admittedly, the boy wasn’t fond of anyone beyond his three mothers touching his hair in the first place —adjacent family aside— so a barber of all things was still completely out of the question. His hair was thick and black just like Lilith’s, which shone just as beautifully. Beatrice had taken to mentioning recently that his long, dark hair was fitting, but Lilith had found that their son’s refusal to go anywhere near a pair of shears to be more of a failing on her part. Such was just another perceived shortcoming. To her, it seemed that there wasn’t a goddamned thing she could do right lately… Not when everyone else was leaping at every available opportunity.
Ava went to bring the front of their cart to a standstill, secreting them behind a wall of halters and many other aisles of saddle stirrups. She looked up, forlorn and aghast that Lilith would still dare to feel this way— why did everything they do feel so impossible?
“It’s just because he’s so used to you.” Ava tried.
“That’s horrible though, no?”
Ava squinted a moment in response, “I—” Then she puzzled further, “What do you mean?”
Lilith sighed. “I know it only feels bad, but it’s like he loves me less just because he’s with me the most. Somehow, I’m lackluster now…” Lilith turned her back then with just a shade of guilt, “I can’t help it.” She admitted, “I’m jealous, and I don’t know why.”
“Maybe because you’re only human? Give yourself a break, please. He loves you so much…” Ava insisted, drawing herself closer to speak a bit more affectionately. Close enough to kiss her; she wanted to, anyway. One of Lilith’s unsatisfied breaths fell from her nose to skirt across Ava’s cheekbone and she paused, gripping Ava’s elbow in the process. Ava went on to explain, “I promise he does. I see the way he looks at you whenever you come home from work- his whole world is you.” Ava looked up then, witnessing the dewy signs of tears in Lilith’s eyes, “You also can’t blame him for new fascinations whenever his inner machination is always you.”
Lilith balked quietly, dropping her jaw just a measure before speaking again, “Since when did you become so wise, Ava Silva?”
Ava smiled. “Since Bea started speaking in more than just two full sentences at a time.”
Lilith shook her head, her hesitance to break out into a smile lingering ever still, “It still hurts. I wish it didn’t.”
She did seem that way, at least: Hurt. It broke Ava’s heart in half. To anyone else, something so small wouldn’t weight so heavily, but to Lilith—
Something as simple as a look was everything.
“I can only imagine…” Ava said, reaching down to tug at Lilith’s hand. She took the opportunity to steal a quick kiss from the point of Lilith’s chin before there was even the chance of protest, and she smiled again, “But I’m sorry that it hurts you. You can trust me when I say you’re not doing anything wrong.”
Lilith, for all her stateliness and slightly intimidating tallness, looked down with another sad frown upon her face, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Ava affirmed with a squeeze of Lilith’s hand. “I just don’t think you need to beat yourself up so much about it… Easier said than done, I know, but you did push him out of you after all—”
Lilith laughed.
“I’m serious,” Ava smiled again, full of tooth and mirth, “Kid doesn’t know how good he’s got it. I mean, even I didn’t until I was—" She quirked her head in thought, “Well, older than I’d like to admit. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to torture yourself anymore- especially not about Gabe.”
Gabriel looked up at the sound of his name, forgoing his destructive nature against the once known enemy known as the cart’s “handlebar”. He smiled, first looking at Ava and then at Lilith. Such a toothy grin seemed to settle an unrest within the taller woman, who eventually drooped her shoulders into a more relaxed position.
“Mama—” He muttered mid-blink, a full sense of admiration in his eyes like always.
“…See?” Ava whispered, leaning closer just to steal another peck of a kiss within full view of their son. Gabriel giggled audibly again and kicked his legs. Ava leaned once more to speak breathily just beneath the soft lobe of Lilith’s ear, tipping herself up onto her toes, “You will always be a true north for him.”
“And if I’m not around, then it’s you- right?” Lilith asked without skipping a beat.
Ava thought it a peculiar question, but answered nonetheless, “Of course. Or Bea…”
Lilith dropped her eyes towards the pointed toes of her boots then, shuffling them one after the other in indecision, “But if something were to happen—”
“What are you trying to say right now?” Ava asked, sticking her arm out to grip the opposite shelf— effectively blocking Lilith’s path. She would hear no more of these vague and unsettling questions.
“It’s—” Lilith caught Ava’s gaze again finally, stopping her right in her tracks. She’d had difficulty making eye contact all day, and Ava had wondered why. There was just something about Lilith’s countenance that didn’t sit right with her. Birthday celebrations aside, Lilith was on the “tips-of-her-toes” nervous like Ava had never seen before. Lilith shook her head, “…there’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“Okay…” Ava replied, “Is it somethin’ that you can tell me now? Or is it somethin’ that you need to tell both me and Bea?”
“Both of you.”
Ava sighed. “Lord…”
Lilith dropped her head again, her right hand now clutched happily within the soggy mitts of their cheery nearly-two-year-old.
It was these sorts of conversations that tended to twist knots inside of Ava’s stomach. Despite her freedom from the lingering, ever-constant state of fear that was her younger and more naïve self, she’d found that adulthood and the responsibilities therein were just as burdensome. Not that she was one to complain, of course. Herself and Beatrice had made a home for Lilith— and had even shared their bed with her from time to time. The learning curve thereafter came with its fair share of boundaries; Romantic attraction being vastly different from sexual attraction, it was quite the tailwind for Ava to follow at first without whipping her head around in the wrong direction. Everyone eventually came to grips. Lilith didn’t want a “happily ever after”. She wanted safety, assurance, and the rare affection, of course, but above all she wanted a happy life for her son, where he could at least be free to live just as a child should: With skinned knees and absolutely nothing to fear.
Ava only wished to give it to him.
Beatrice did too.
Lilith cupped the soft line of Ava’s jaw, tucking her fingertips ever so slightly as if to pull her forward, “I should have told you sooner.”
“…What?”
Their foreheads came to rest, and Gabriel cheered gleefully in the background. He loved love.
“My mother called…”
Ava reared her head back, immediately on the defensive. “What—” She sputtered, “How- when—” Then her head turned on a swivel again to look directly at Gabriel, “Wait, does she know…?”
Lilith nodded, her eyes sullen and pulling towards the child still pawing at the thumb and palm of her hand. The wooden heel of familiar bootsteps rounded a corner then, and Lilith’s free hand went to swipe at the trace of tears in her eyes.
Beatrice wheeled to a sure stop in front of them, tucking her hands flat into her back pockets. She was a sight to behold just as she was on any other day— Button down shirt, bolo tie, straight leg jeans with a boot cut and square toed Justins to match. The sleeves of her shirt fit well around her biceps without being too tight as she leaned further back, pointing her curiosity in the direction of Lilith’s none-too-subtle dithering.
“What is it…?” She asked, knowing damn well each expression upon the faces of the women she loved.
Lilith shrugged, turning shyly towards the more dominant figure in their triad, “Gabriel’s an heir.”
“Oh—” Beatrice shook her head as she took her hands from her pockets, “I already don’t like where this is going.”
“Bea—” Ava chimed in quietly.
“My mother’s in town.” Lilith blurted, making Ava thusly clap her mouth shut. “She wants to meet him.”
Beatrice blinked, finding not a single word to say on the matter. Silence, it would seem, was an easy fallback in this case.
“No.” Ava said finally, cutting into the sudden quiet. Her voice was firm and as clear as day, almost as though she were rooted to the earth with the very word.
Beatrice and Lilith both snapped their eyes towards Ava in an instant, who continued shaking her head with a vigorous insistence. She spoke again past a displeased frown…
“…No.”
Camila was busily occupying the grabbing hands of their family’s youngest while Ava, Beatrice, and Lilith loaded the back of their truck. Shopping bags traded hands from one to the other in the middle of their quiet, albeit slightly conspicuous arguing. Not so frequently did Camila find the need to quickly step out of the way and let her sister hash things out with her partners in full view of others, but whenever she did, she found that it was best just to keep Gabriel distracted. Some things just couldn’t wait, apparently.
“Did you tell her where we are?”
“No—”
“So, do you think she’ll just show up, or what…?”
“I mean, I sort of did… didn’t I?”
“That’s different. You’re welcome. She makes me nervous.” Ava paused, “Are you sure she doesn’t know where we are?”
“I mean, it’s not like the Cat’s Cradle is hard to find, Ava…”
Beatrice’s jaw clenched with that, still verging on the side of silence for the time being. Ava’s brow furrowed in lieu of an answer.
“…No.” Lilith clarified with a grumble.
Ava shook her head again, throwing the tailgate of their truck shut a bit harder than she intended, “Well. Regardless of wherever she’s lurking right now… I don’t want her here.”
Lilith huffed a quiet scoff beneath her breath, “Well, I don’t either, but you can’t just go and decide that on behalf of everyone else.”
“But what does it matter if we’re agreed?”
“It takes away my sense of agency, I don’t know… I would at least like to have a say to begin with, and yes—” Lilith held her hand up to stop Ava, “Even if we’re agreeing.”
“Wait, what are we even talking about right now?”
“Ava.” Lilith tried, more of her patience waning by the second.
“What’s the problem? It’s not like it’s just your life—” Ava gestured then towards Gabriel who was still just out of earshot, “…or his life that hangs in the balance, it’s ours too.” She waved between herself and Beatrice then to emphasize her meaning.
“Really, you make it sound like we’re in danger.” Lilith squared her hands away upon her hips, “…And you know I don’t like it when you exclude me like that.”
“I don’t mean to exclude you—”
“But when you pyramid all of us with you and Bea at the top, that’s what you’re doing.”
“I—” Ava twisted around to beckon a word or two from Beatrice finally, “A little help here?”
Beatrice tossed her eyebrows as if she were entertained. “Sorry. She’s right.” She replied, crossing her arms over her chest. Ava guffawed in response.
“You can’t be serious right now…”
“Do you know me to be an unserious person?” Beatrice asked, a smile playing at the corner of her lips.
“Stop that.” Ava warned. Oh, how it irked her to no end whenever Beatrice charmed her way out of a discussion.
“Ava—” Lilith tried again, “Listen to me. I didn’t tell her anything. She just knew somehow- About Gabe, and about you, and the ranch… She won’t be stopped either. It’s best if we just go along and—”
“No.” Ava insisted again. “I don’t like it.”
Beatrice sighed heavily through her nose and then stepped between them, her eyes both dark and piercing with that familiarly patient gaze. “Look, we can all talk about this later. Let’s just get home first…?”
“Mamá—!"
Ava spun around and felt her heart lift at the sight of their son. His hands flapped open and closed in her direction, wanting badly to climb out from his seat and into her arms. Camila caught him as he went to struggle his legs out one at a time—
“Woah, kid. Slow down.” She said, her dark and bouncy curls buffeting beautifully in the wind.
Gabriel jutted his bottom lip outward and began to cry. “Mommy…” He tried for Beatrice that time, more than likely just wanting to escape from his seat by now. Staying still was certainly not an enjoyable pastime for a toddler.
“Alright.” Beatrice cooed, pulling him up and out from the cart. He whimpered tiredly, bottom lip still on full display. “Nap?” She asked.
Gabriel nodded, both of his eyes misty and red.
“Oh—” A voice came from beside them in the parking lot just then, a squeaky wheel from a cart following right behind. “So handsome, your little boy.”
Beatrice smiled. “Thank you.”
The woman who had politely pushed her cart towards them folded her hands there and smiled, offering yet another compliment, “He must take after his father with that strong chin of his.”
“He does.” Beatrice replied happily, so much so that she nearly bounced on her heels.
Lilith snickered from where she stood near the bed of their truck still, hiding herself behind Ava with a twinge of embarrassment. A silly thing to do; Ava being nearly five inches shorter than herself, even in boots. It was an inside joke of sorts between them: Beatrice taking on the role of “daddy” what with her more masculine disposition and quieter demeanor. Stereotyped as hell, but still humorous in the right atmosphere— All in good fun, of course. Ava rolled her lips into her mouth to keep from laughing.
Gabriel lurched the top half of his small body forward then and away from Beatrice’s arms, reaching out for Lilith and Ava. “Mama, Mamá—” Then he flung himself upright again, clapping both of his hands around Beatrice’s face with a screech, “Mommy!”
He loved to say all of their names at once; ever so proud of himself for knowing each of them.
The woman quirked her chin at that, giving a short laugh through her nose, “Is that right?” She leaned to speak with a sort of sing-song voice at Gabriel, “All three mommies?”
Lilith stood up straight then like the crack of a whip, “Yes.”
The confusion quickly set in behind the woman’s eyes, “Well, you can’t all be his mothers…” She tried smiling, the rest of her befuddlement trailing off into the gentle wind.
Camila piped up finally from the front of their cart. “…And why not?”
“Cam.” Ava warned.
“It’s just—” The woman gave another quirk of her chin, “You’ll only confuse the boy.”
Camila hacked a disappointed laugh. “As if learning grandma and grandpa,” Then she pointed quickly towards the middle of her chest, “…or auntie is any more difficult? Or uncle, or brother, or sister—”
“Camila.”
“No- it was a dumb thing to assume.” Camila boldly whirled her head back around at the woman, “That was a dumb thing to assume.” She repeated.
“My apologies—” The woman lifted her hands outwardly in surrender, “Please excuse me.” She then gave a quick turn of her cart away and headed back towards the middle of the parking lot.
Now that she’d heard herself, Camila heaved a frustrated breath and rested her hands upon her hips, realizing her obtrusiveness and likely feeling an ounce or two of shame for it. “I’m sorry…” She apologized towards her sister and extended family.
“You’re fine.” They replied in unison.
“Fuck—” Lilith whined with each of her hands furled into the bars of her bed’s headboard.
Beatrice was kissing at her neck while Ava’s head bobbed between her legs. She bit her lip into her teeth to keep quiet, but God, did Ava’s tongue have a way of unraveling her… Lilith shook all the way up from her elbows as she gripped the rungs of her headboard tighter, and a moment later she came with little stars bursting from behind her eyelids, her moans deep and guttural with each crashing wave of her orgasm. Her grip melted soon after, and her limbs became liquid.
Ava popped her head up with a smile, buffeting some of her fawn brown hair out of her eyes with a satisfied breath. Lilith’s face spread with a smile of her own, just as it always did post-climax. She reached up to clamber her shaky hands around the hard line of Beatrice’s jaw and pulled her in for another wet kiss, breathing slowly there through her nose with a few more happy whimpers. Ava climbed up the length of Lilith’s long and slender frame to lay beside her then, just opposite Beatrice, just as she always did.
“Feel better?” She asked.
“Mhm.” Lilith turned to place a sweet kiss at the point of Ava’s chin. “You?”
“Much.” Ava grinned.
Beatrice sighed tiredly as she tucked her brow into the warm crook of Lilith’s neck. “I’m glad we got that all worked out.”
“Me too.” Lilith smoothed some of her long black hair away, tucking it neatly behind an ear. “For the record, I am sorry that I didn’t tell you immediately.”
“That’s okay.”
Beatrice moved to sit up then, but Lilith caught her by the elbow. “Stay?”
“Oooh, the rare cuddle?” Ava teased, stealing a kiss from the top of Lilith’s shoulder.
“Just for tonight. And then you can both go back home.”
“Oh, silly woman—” Ava sighed, “Don’t you know by now?”
Lilith took a peek behind herself as she turned around to spoon and be spooned. “Hm?” She asked.
Beatrice smiled as she pulled one of Lilith’s arms around her middle, scooting closer. “Home is wherever you are.”
“…God, y’all are mushy.”
A happy laugh was had, and then the smooth, mellifluous sound of sleep came shortly after.