"You're wearing a skirt." Caroline leaned on the kitchen sink - one hand sipping coffee from her mug, the other palm laid against the counter. Her eyes were narrowed but the corners of her thin, pale painted lips were turned upward.

Eleanor lifted an eyebrow and grinned. A skirt always meant one thing these days. Garters. "I am." She met the pointed gaze. Before she'd started seeing Caroline, she'd only occasionally wear garters with her skirts. It was something she did for herself during those long lonely years after she'd left Emma, to try and remember she was still a woman who existed in her own right. Outside of the girls and outside of her profession.

"Is there a special occasion – " a pause and scornful glance cast by Eleanor's very own headmistress – "at work?" Caroline broke eye contact and stacked the mug in the dishwasher, grabbed two lunches on the way around the kitchen island.

Greg and Flora waved at her from the couch in unison as she passed. "Bye mummy!"

Caroline walked over and kissed Flora on the top of the head, running a loving hand over her curly black hair. "Have a wonderful day, my darling." Then turning, she looked directly back at Eleanor.

"I must look the part of the put-together executive. The big boys are up from London today. Fiscal year-end evaluations and projection adjustments."

"Ah. And they're - 'skirt' - worthy?"

Quite accidentally - perhaps not completely accidentally - Eleanor had been wearing a skirt and garters the morning she'd had Caroline over for brunch so many months ago when one thing had quickly lead to another. Her lingerie had not escaped Caroline's attention. And she'd noticed Caroline – noticing. Since then she'd made a point of wearing garters each and every time she wore a skirt, which was rare. She told herself, repeatedly, it wasn'tâ€Ĥ exactly a mean thing to do. And it was nice to wear them for someone besides herself.

This entire understanding and much more passed between the two women early on a Tuesday morning in February as they prepared for work. Two months from Christmas and the agreement on both sides that trust might be the only way forward, things were going swimmingly. Two houses, two families, were hard. But the women were making it work. Well, it's actually love that's making it work, isn't it? Eleanor hadn't thought about that word in a very long time, the positive effects at least, when it came to the romantic iteration.

She followed at Caroline's heels into the entryway. Caroline looked back over to the living room, mostly out of sight, where Greg and Flora were otherwise engaged with the bright yellow ride-able plastic train Flora had received for Christmas. It had been an instant favorite - for all ages - once they'd twigged how to turn off the maddening soundtrack that had played each time the wheels turned.

Caroline lowered her voice and ran a hand down the turned-up collar of Eleanor's crisp pink button-down. "So. You're wearing a skirt to impress the higher ups? I'm terribly disappointed." She frowned, then bustled about the entry gathering her keys and bag, donning her coat.

'Dear God - I can do this - to her.' Eleanor watched the other woman orbit her, her own arms crossed and soul positively whistling in satisfaction. 'All of her just focused on me and pretending she isn't. Black patent heels clicking, blonde hair swinging, and blue eyes completely avoiding me.'

She waited for Caroline, who was now blatantly ignoring her, to finish at the rack and grabbed her own long winter coat, and reveled in the other woman's show of discomfort.

The stairway up to the bedroom stood adjacent, disproportionate in its presence in her mind, and she knew in Caroline's. She was flipping her long auburn brown hair out from under the collar of her navy overcoat when Caroline, handbag crooked in elbow and keys in hand, turned to face her, business all over her face.

"I've a faculty executive meeting in about -" she looked down at her slender watch, "one hour."

Eleanor smirked at the application of logic as a tool to diffuse the delightful tension. She made a point of looking down at her own chunky, platinum, wide-faced watch. "The boys will be in the office at half eight."

They stood again in silence. Her body hummed and she could almost hear Caroline's humming right back. She sighed as she imagined images of last night's delights appearing behind Caroline's shining eyes like little movie screens.

"I've dinner with Jane tonight, and Greg's back to Jenny's for the rest of the week." Caroline offered no mercy, just a steady look.

"Lily's a recital and June's home studying, we're all to have dinner late."

"So, see you Friday night."

More silence and more humming.

Caroline turned on her heel, stepped around Eleanor, and opened the front door. "Right then."

She followed her out the door, into the cold grey morning, then out past her own compact white SUV to the gunmetal Jeep, meeting her in the space bounded on one side by the car and the other by the tall hedge. She allowed her presence to be enough to convince Caroline to re-focus her attention.

Caroline pitched her bag over to the passenger side and turned to Eleanor, who immediately grabbed her by the collars and kissed her. Caroline pulled her closer, then pushed her away. "I had every intention of doing that to you as soon as I heard you nipping at my heels across the gravel."

"Did you?"

The cloudy sky looked down as they lost themselves in each other again for too long, and not long enough. They exhaled together, finally, producing a cloud of steam in the cold morning, releasing the tension and finally relaxing into the other.

Caroline picked at the shoulder of Eleanor's jacket. "You didn't wear the skirt for your senior boys."

"Never." She smiled and leaned into Caroline, who was now reclined against the inside of the open door of the Jeep. She wrapped her arms tighter around her, turned and spoke into her ear as their hair mingled and their heads rested side by side. "Only for you, darling," She turned her head and kissed Caroline's jaw. "Only for you. For this moment, for this reason." She kissed her again and smiled. "Only for you."