"Come on, baby." I smile while opening my arms so Emery can jump out of the jeep and into them, hugging her tightly. "Ready to help me do some shopping?" I ask her, kissing her on the forehead and rubbing her back since it's pretty cold out.
"We get pineapple?" She asks, sweetly, resting her head on my shoulder.
I nod to her as I set her in the basket part of the shopping cart, flipping the seat belt around and strapping her to the back of the cart, since she likes to stand, and stuffing her mittens in my pocket. I hand her the ipad with our grocery list, complete with pictures she can help out in the produce department. "We'll get a pineapple." I assure her, her big brown eyes, looking up at me. "How was school."
"Good, we color with the brush today." She smiles brightly, looking up from the iPad.
I frown but nod in understandment a moment later. "Oh, you painted? Cool, was it fun?"
She nods quickly. "I color you a picture, and mommy a picture." She explains. "Mommy picture red, cuz her like red, and you picture orange."
"Whoa! I love orange." I tell her, "how did you know?" I ask, as I set shampoo and conditioner in the cart for Santana.
"You wear a orange shirt yesterday." Emery shrugs. "So I color yours orange."
"Gotcha." I smile. "Which toothpaste?" I ask her, stopping in front of the selection. Emery stares at the different tubes before reaching for a Paw Patrol tube and setting it down carefully. "Pick out a new toothbrush too." I tell her as I walk a litte ways down the aisle and grab new toothbrush heads for Santana and myself, setting them in.
We breeze through the store with Emery filling me in on her day, being her usual talkative self. I love when we have moments to ourselves like this, she has such a huge imagination and is great at story telling so we try to encourage it as much as possible. She's extremely detailed and descriptive, I feel like I was at school with her today. Santana is at school still, having to stay after for one of the clubs she is an adviser for and she had some other things to do at school, and said she would get more work done there, then home with our busy body daughter. She doesnt stay after work to just work usually, so I knew she had to be really swamped with stuff if she did.
I'm in the kitchen cooking dinner when I hear the front door slam, following by a loud groan, before the sound of high heels slamming to the ground. I head to see what the problem is, but I hear Santana talking softly to Emery, and decide to give them a moment, hoping a hug from baby girl and her new red picture will lift her mood.
"Emery's quite the artist." Santana says as she walks in the kitchen, and kisses me. "Hey."
"Hey, and yes she is." I nod, "she likes art, so I'm going to look up some classes for her to take outside of school." I watch Santana head to the cabinet where we keep liquor and pour herself a shot of bourbon, before sighing deeply and grabbing a beer out of the fridge, quickly opening it. "How was work?" I ask her over my shoulder.
She hops on the counter next to the fridge and shakes her head. "You first."
"Good," I reply, looking up from the sauce I'm making. "Landed a gig for this weekend in Chicago, engagement photos, then headed to Houston on Monday for a day trip for Christmas photos for their mayor."
"Congrats, I'm so proud of you, B." Santana smiles warmly, her eyes lighting up. "Can I come to Chicago with you?"
I frown because she never asks, it's just usually assumed she's coming, unless she has a ton of work or something to do for school. "Of course, I haven't booked a flight yet, do you want to bring Emery?" I ask her, because I get the feeling she needs a relaxing weekend to herself.
"Is it bad if I say not really, I'm off of work on Friday anyways, for math testing." She replies.
"Oh...did I know you were off?" I ask her, since I definitely would have remembered that.
She shakes her head, picking up a carrot from the tray next to her. "No, I was told today that they didn't need me to help with testing. So paid day off."
Turning the sauce down to simmer I walk over to her and stand between her legs, resting on her thighs. "How about I call my mom and ask her to pick up Emery Thursday night, and keep her through the weekend, and we can leave then, spend all Friday just relaxing in the city, you can help me work on Saturday, it'll be a quick shoot most likely, then you can head to Houston with me."
Santana raises an eyebrow at me but nods. "I'll schedule a personal day on Monday tomorrow."
"We can talk about your day tonight in bed, I can tell you didn't have the greatest day." I reply, leaning up and kissing her softly.
"I didn't, but I kind of don't want to talk about it, such a shit day, nothing terrible happened so nothing to really talk about; how about we just relax in a bath, some candles, music." She shrugs in reply.
I lean back and stare at her, looking deep in her eyes, while rubbing her thighs before hugging her tightly, and kissing her on the cheek. "That sounds great. Dinner will be done soon, why don't get out of your work clothes."
2am
"Mommy." I hear softly, followed by a sniffle causing me to wake up before Santana does. I sit up quickly and lean over Santana, who groans but wakes up.
"What's wrong, Emmy?" I ask our daughter, as she wipes her tear stained face.
I lean over and lift her in the bed, rubbing her back as Santana sits up. "What's wrong?" She asks tiredly, she's been tossing and turning all night and just fell into a peaceful sleep not long ago.
"I had a scary dream." Emery sniffles again.
Santana yawns and frowns. "What was it about, Tink?" She asks, cuddling Emery in her chest, running her fingers through her hair. "A scary monster?" I watch Emery nod against her chest, so I get out of bed and go to our bathroom, grabbing her a little water. I hear Santana talking to her quietly before starting to sing to her. I give them a few minutes and just look at Santana, she's such an amazing mother. You can see the stress and fatigue all her face, but she's wide awake now and super focused on Emery, and I just see the love pouring out of her right now. I don't know what has her in such a funk today, but I know that our weekend getaway needs to be special and I plan on making sure she's completely relaxed.
"Here, baby girl." I say, walking back in the bedroom and handing Emery the cup so she can take a few sips.
"Lay down with mommy, and let's go to sleep." Santana yawns again.
"I can lay with her in her room, babe, you look exhausted and need to get some rest." I tell Santana, as she shuffles to slide down, letting Emery lay on her chest.
"It's okay." She shakes her head, pulling the cover over them and closing her eyes while rubbing Emery's back and humming softly to get her to relax.
Noon
I smile happily after hanging up the phone from my mom, with her agreeing to watch Emery for the weekend, so Santana can come with me. So I might have told a little white lie that I needed Santana's help on the shoots, and that's why we needed her to come with me. And that Emery would just get in the way, we were almost derailed when my mom offered to come to watch Emery, and while we have used that option as well, I really just want some alone time with San. Emery might be a little disappointed, but we have a little Thanksgiving trip to a cabin up north planned so she'll get over it quickly.
While I love being my own boss and being able to make my own schedule, all while having my dream job...I hate this part of my job; paperwork. I would much rather be out in the field, taking pictures, or on assignment, but someone's gotta do it, right? Staring at the stack of invoices I need to process and pay, and the stack of invoices that I need to send out I roll my neck around and decide to book our flights instead. I opt for a Thursday evening flight, so I can just pick Santana up from school and head to the airport. I'll have our suitcases and my camera equipment all packed and in the car so we can go straight from there. After booking our flights and getting us a hotel right on Michigan Avenue, so we are in close proximity to shopping, I order a gift for Emery of Amazon that'll be delivered to my parent's house Thursday afternoon for her when she gets out of school.
Even though Emery understands that I have to "go places" for my job, and sometimes mommy has to come help I can tell she still gets a little sad when we leave, and with this trip being so long and sudden I want to make sure she's okay with it, even though being spoiled by her grandparents will quickly soothe her little spirit. I want to call Santana and see how her day is going, but I know she mentioned she had to work through her lunch, and she was presenting the new curriculum to the dean of the school during her free period, which was unexpected today, so I'm wishing her luck and all things positive.
After staring at my paperwork for another twenty minutes I decide to go have some lunch and try to get some candid pictures hopefully. Packing up a camera and my backpack I hop in my Jeep and drive to a park that always has a bunch of food trucks, hoping for some street tacos and corn. Once I pull up I order and head back to my jeep, sitting in the cargo area, while people watching, which is always so awesome in New York. I immediately get an idea to take some picture of people doing random but ordinary things, and I plan on schmearing out their faces, kind of with hazy tone, like how they makes cars and people look like they are going super fast.
One thing I love about being a photographer too, is creating a story out of pictures, the one thing I've never done as a photographer is have a gallery night. I know Santana wants to go back to school, and I'm all for it, and have combed through our budget so we can definitely afford it, but hopefully a gallery night can bring in some money.
I get so wrapped up in takes pictures and different shots that I lost track of time and didn't even notice is was after 3pm, so I jump up and speed to go get Emery, who got out of school at 2:30pm; luckily her school has an after school program, granted we'll have to pay extra, but she won't notice I'm late, hopefully.
Thursday 8pm
"Thanks again for letting me tag along on your work trip." Santana smiles once we are at a cruising altitude.
I grab her hand and lift it to my mouth, peppering kisses to her palm. "You're welcome, honey, thanks for coming to work with me so I didn't have to pay my assistant." I tease.
Santana laughs while rolling her eyes. "Oh I still want my fair pay." She responds, raising an eyebrow at me.
"I'm sure we can work something, beautiful." I reply, leaning over and kissing her softly. "So, did you want to do anything tonight, or are we just relaxing?"
She thinks for a minute before glancing at her watch. "It'll be pretty late when we get there, so maybe just grab something to eat and relax around the hotel, or do you want to hit a bar and have some drinks?"
"That'll be cool, we haven't done that in a while," I reply happily. I honestly don't know the last time we've been able to really cut loose and not have to worry about picking up Emmy in the morning. Sure, we have date nights and stuff, but nothing like this for a while. "Do you want to get all dolled up, or just have a casual night?"
"Let's keep it casual tonight, then tomorrow we can go get a fancy dinner." Santana suggests.
"Sounds good, baby." I reply. "Wings and fries, hopefully."
Midnight
After landing and getting to the hotel, and freshening up we called my mom to check on Emery, who was fast asleep but woke up long enough to tell us good night. We then decided to find something quick to eat before just hanging out around the hotel. We are walking hand in hand down the street, me dressed in dark jeans with an oversized bright blue cashmere sweater, a pair of brown ankle boots on. It's cold and snowing slightly so I have on a cream Northface vest as well, my hair down in it's natural curls. Santana has on a pair ripped skinny jeans, with a white fitted hooded sweatshirt, and a pair of brown Uggs, a greay Northface jacket on over, she had a big messy bun and looks so fuckin cute right now.
"You're staring." She blushes, looking up at me as we turn a corner.
"I like looking at you." I shrug as I nod to a bar and open the door for her to walk in.
We find a booth to the side and take a seat, as a waitress walks over right away. "Hey ladies, what can I get you?"
"Honey jack and lemonade for me." I say right away, before nodding to Santana, who orders a red bull and vodka, a splash of lemonade. "Do you have wings or any food here?"
"Yeah, we have wings what flavor?" She replies.
Santana perks up immediately. "Buffalo and a barbecue if you have it."
"How many?"
"Ummmm, 10 each?" Santana shrugs, locking eyes with. "And celery if you have it."
"I'll put this in for you ladies." She nods.
I stare at Santana, who is texting on her phone, nodding her head to the music, before slipping her cell phone back in her pocket. "That was Quinn, she wanted to meet for lunch on Saturday."
"This is our first time in Chicago together." I state, "we've both been here, me for a day trip for work, and you for a conference for work, but not together."
Santana chews on her bottom lip before nodding. "I guess so." She smiles brightly. "I didn't really get to sight see or anything when I was here, after we sleep in late tomorrow how about we look up some stuff to check out during the day."
"Sounds good." I reply as our drinks come out. "I know their aquarium is super cool here, but I kind of wanna go with Emmy."
"She would totally love that." Santana replies, taking a sip of hers. "Oh! We should go see The Bean. I follow this instagram account that posts main attractions in different cities, and they always post that."
"Cool." I shrug. "Want to do some shopping?" I ask her. "Not just for Emmy, for ourselves."
"You know I'm not going to turn that down." She laughs. "To a great night." She smiles, lifting her drink in air.