Hi! First of all, thank you so much for all the lovely reviews you always care to leave me every time I post something new. They warm my heart and always make me eager to share something new with you. Again, thank you so much.
So, I always write chaubrey as the kind of couple that wants to get married and have children, have a quiet, nice life, and this is my headcannon of them. This piece is something - that I particularly enjoyed writing - in which I try to show you how I see their essence as a couple everytime I write them. I hope you enjoy it.
Aubrey thinks they should've just had gone to Ikea and got themselves a new coffee maker. There was one only two neighborhoods away and they had a vast parking lot.
On their way back the could've pass by that stationery shop she loves and maybe get some new markers. She needs a new blue one, Chloe borrowed hers to God knows why and now she doesn't has a specific color to mark down dates on her readings. She has been using the purple one but it doesn't feels right. Purple is for extra information.
"Delivery in two days. Isn't it fast, Bree?" Chloe asks, rhetorically, marvelled with Amazon's services.
Too many days without coffee at home. The coffee shop down the street is good, but it's also always crowded. She never thought she would mourn a broke coffee maker. Aubrey frowns in her task of taking the dust off the bookshelves.
"Two days from now is Monday." She says, pilling up her Jane Austen collection on top of her work station by the window. "I'll be at work and so will be you."
"We could get that key thing they offer."
Aubrey scoffs. As if she is allowing a stranger into her apartment.
"No way. This is insane." She says, shaking her head.
Chloe looks up from the laptop and sees their living room full of piles of books. By the floor, by Aubrey's desk, by the coffee table, by the kitchen counter. Their books don't look that numerous when they're on the shelves. She feels like she just entered a small Diagonal Alley's shop.
"It's the future, Bree."
"No, it's madness. No stranger is entering my home." She says, looking down at the two books in her hands. "Why do we have two of these?" She shows Chloe the cover of the two books: they're both copies of the same edition of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.
Chloe smirks at her girlfriend. "Do you remember that there was once a day in which we didn't share everything?" She asks playfully, eyeing her yellow cat stamped sweater that Aubrey was wearing. "Look closely, one of them looks older, it's mine."
"Older? I'd say carelessly taken of." Aubrey smirks back.
"Potatoes, potatoes." Chloe rolls her eyes.
"Can I put yours to donation?"
The redhead looks up. "Sure. Can you come here so we can choose our new, beautiful, coffee maker?"
Aubrey sighs. She dusts off imaginary dirty of her light blue jeans and flops down beside her girlfriend on the couch. Chloe rest her tights against Aubrey's lap and adjusts the laptop so both of them can see their options, and giving up cleaning is less of a burden if Chloe is that close.
"This one looks neat." She tells Chloe.
"This one is literally the first one." Chloe replies, switching navigation tabs.
Aubrey pouts at the sight of at least 10 other tabs.
Yes, Aubrey likes when things are functional. She likes technology! A nice smartphone? E-readers? Bluetooth headphones? Apple TV? Those mops that they made a movie about? She loves all of those. But how much different between each other can those coffee makers be? She noticed one of them is red - which is a heavy no, it doesn't fit their kitchen's color palette - and that other one is black, but what else?
"This is way too expensive for a coffee maker." She eyes Chloe's eighth option.
Chloe seems to notice the price for the first time too.
"Jeez, it for sure is." She says. "Don't worry, we'll put this one on our wedding registry." She winks at her girlfriend.
Aubrey looks at her. "Can you actually make one of those in Amazon?"
"Yes." She answers. "Isn't it great?"
"It is." Aubrey says, honestly surprised.
They look up a few other offers before they - mostly Chloe - decides on a reasonable Nespresso well-reviewed model.
She stares a few seconds at the screen with the shopping cart page open. She looks deep in thought and Aubrey is almost startled when she speaks again.
"Do we want it?" Chloe asks with a vague look.
Aubrey looks at her and nods. "Yeah, look, it even has a warming plate. This one is cool." She taps Chloe's knee affectionately.
The redhead frowns. "No, Bree. I mean…like, the wedding registry. Do we really want it someday?"
Aubrey looks at the redhead. It's not like they never had that kind of conversation before. It's just that every time it came up, they were both too vague about it.
("I want to get married someday. If I ever meet the right person, I mean." Aubrey said when they were still friends.
"Let's take our time. There's no hurry. We're young and happy and we love each other." She said a couple years later, after telling Chloe she was the right person.
"I mean, we are practically married, right? I don't even know what is mine and what is yours." She said another time, when the matter came up, looking around their home and drinking hot chocolate out of Chloe's Best Teacher In The World mug.)
"Of course we do. You are the love of my life" The blonde says this time, in a beat, making Chloe's worries seem foolish and her heart to swell almost painfully with Aubrey's words. "We do, don't we?" She reaches for reassurance.
"Bree, of course!" Chloe replies, also in a beat, putting the laptop aside and bringing her hands to Aubrey's face. She peckes her lips and pulls back. "I'm sorry I even asked you that, it's just…it feels like we are but at the same time, I know we aren't."
She feels Aubrey's arms sneaking through her waist and pulling her slightly closer, which she was sure was not possible - she was like, half on her lap all that time.
"Yes, yes, I know." Aubrey sighs, the tip of her fingers against Chloe's small back. "I want spend my life with you, and I know I'm always telling you that we have time and everything, and it's true. But…"
Chloe frowns. "But…?"
Aubrey sighs. "It's stupid, but I'm constantly afraid. Like, what if we don't want it for the same reasons?"
Chloe's frowns deeper. "What do you mean?"
"I see marriage as a, uh, contract kind of thing, or taxes kind of thing, or hospital decisions kind of thing." Aubrey explains.
"So, marriage is solely about you wanna deciding if I live or die while I'm in a hospital bed? That's so hot, babe."
Aubrey rolls her eyes and ignores the joke.
"I want you to know that, before we think about doing it someday. That's what marriage meant to my parents: a contract. That's what I grew up knowing."
Chloe bites her lips, growing uncertain if she really wanted that conversation.
"Of course I believe in the love of part of it, but this one I know we already have, you know? I don't need a wedding gown or flowers to know that." The blonde tells her and Chloe smiles broadly before kissing her full on her lips.
"And I know you want the wedding gowns and flowers and a honeymoon and everything-"
"For sure I do." Chloe interrupts her, grinning.
"And I want you to know that I'll do whatever the hell you want, but that I could never do it without making sure you know what it means to me."
Chloe traces the shell of Aubrey's eat with the tip of her finger. This vision of marriage is so Aubrey that she can't even bring herself to be slightly upset that her girlfriend doesn't shares her exactly same wedding goals (which is also the name of the board she keeps on Pinterest). Honestly, she knew it all the time, but she also knew that that was how their relationship worked: never assume anything, just ask and have a conversation. That's why every day they went to sleep knowing that they were doing at least one thing right.
"Is that what you want too? A wild life of eating what I cook and paying taxes and attending my office functions?" Aubrey asks, but she's grinning.
Chloe grins back. "I'll be honest with you: this sounds very boring and I kinda get now why you had to make sure I was on-board." She laughs. "But you are beyond my dreams." She says, feeling that tears are prickling in her eyes. "I think beyond the happily ever after when it's about you. I want it all with you, what we have now and we're are going to have. I want you to decide if the doctors can turn off the machines."
"See, you are a hopeless romantic." Aubrey smiles sweetly at her and Chloe chuckles. "I want it all with you too." She caresses the small of her back. "The dog, the suburban house and the loud kids. I'd do any of them for you."
Chloe chuckles. The thought of Aubrey as the mom of her children makes her insides melt. "Our kids will be so fucking loud, I need you to be sure what you've just committed to."
Aubrey laughs. "We'll meet halfway, right?" She asks the smaller woman.
Chloe nods, resting her forehead against Aubrey's. "We will. We're good at it."
Aubrey kisses her and pulls back to look into her eyes. "We are." She kisses her again.
The blonde leans in and kisses her repeatedly, again and again, forgetting about the bookshelves, the coffee maker and the blue marker she couldn't find.
Aubrey pulls back after a while and asks. "So, if I ask you, someday, to, y'know, marry me, will you say yes?"
Chloe's smile occupies all of her face as she nods, with her forehead still against Aubrey's.
"Okay, I'll keep that in mind." The blonde says and gets out of the couch to resume cleaning the bookshelves. "Buy this one." She points at the laptop's screen. "And please don't let a stranger get into our apartment. Just send it to my office or whatever."
"Alright, babe." Chloe says picking up the laptop to finish the shopping.
The blonde picks up Chloe's purse from the desk and hangs it on the chair to free more space to the books.
"Oh, Bree, open my purse, there's a surprise for my honey-boo." Chloe says in a baby-ish voice. (The voice that every time she tries to use with Aubrey she getst a "I love you, but please, shut up".)
Aubrey found a new blue marker inside it, wrapped in a red ribbon.
"I know I lost yours and I'm sorry." Chloe says as Aubrey takes the small gift in her hands and holds it into her chest.
All those little things they made for each other are the baby steps in the direction to the life she promise the redhead minutes ago. And she did not need any GPS (there's another technology she does likes) to tell her that she is on the right track.
Thank you for reading! If you have the time, leave me a review, I'd love to hear your thoughts!