Chapter 14:
"So you and my sister?" she queried without looking up from her reading.
"What?" Santana was caught. How was there no door at the top of those stairs? How long had she been down here? They came in the back way and went immediately up the stairs, which were obscured by the stacks. They hadn't even noticed her or thought about the fact that the store was open for business. Had she heard everything?
"I guess she and Finn are really over, huh?"
"Oh God." Santana hung her head down to her chest as she proceeded toward the counter.
"Yeah, I heard that part already. Gross, by the way."
"Beth, I'm so sorry. We weren't thinking." Santana arrived at the counter and Beth finally looked up to meet her eye.
"You don't have to apologize to me. I'll admit when I realized what was going on up there, I wanted to vomit, but I put on my headphones and went into the office so I couldn't hear anything else. I would have left, but the store's kind of open so…."
"Well, thanks, but it still doesn't change what you heard."
"Well, I would have preferred to hear about you two another way, but it's cool. "
"It is?" Santana was more than a little surprised.
"Yeah, I like you. You seem cool. Much cooler than Finn. I'm super open minded about stuff like this. Have to be if I'm going to move to LA. You also seem to really like my sister, which even though she gets on my nerves sometimes, she deserves someone who treats her right."
"Yeah, she does." Santana tried to lighten the situation.
"Since my brother died and my dad ended up in the chair, she's taken on a lot. I was too young to really do anything when it happened, but I know what she gave up for us. My parents do too and they regret her having to make those decisions. She's just been going through the motions recently… just trying to keep the business going and make sure the bills are paid. She even convinced Mr. Clemmons to pay for her business class by telling him it will help her run the store better."
"Sounds like her."
"She's happy with you. I can tell. She smiles a lot now."
"You're not at all freaked out by the fact that we're both girls?"
"Please. I couldn't care less about that stuff. Neither do my parents if you're curious. They voted for Obama."
"Speaking of your parents…"
"I won't say anything to them. She's my sister. I love her. On that note, she's my sister and I love her."
"You just said that."
"I know. What I mean is that if you hurt her I will have to kill you." She shut her magazine before pressing a few buttons on the register to pop the drawer out. Santana smiled and laughed lightly. "Quinn is the best big sister in the world and she's lost stuff. You're a summer tourist. You're going to leave her behind when you go and she doesn't deserve that."
"I love her."
"Doesn't change the fact that you're leaving and she's staying."
"We still have some details to work out before then."
"Make sure you do because I really don't want to see my sister heartbroken." She took the drawer and began moving to the office. "Lock the door, will ya? Time to close up shop. I'm going to count this out in the office with my headphones on and the door closed, but if you could just wait 20 minutes before doing my sister again so I can get out of here, I would really appreciate it. I've already been traumatized enough for a lifetime."
Santana again hung her head on her chest in embarrassment. The office door closed behind Beth and Santana honestly had no idea what to do. She locked the door as requested and then turned to look at the stacks of books in front of her. She had promised not to be a distraction so she felt she should stay down here at least until Beth left and then she would go back upstairs and tell Quinn over dinner that her sister had heard their moans, gasps, and swear words. She made her way over to the architecture section and noticed the book written by her father was no longer there. They must have moved it to the clearance rack, she thought to herself before continuing to peruse the stacks. She selected a book from a row and found the old armchair in the corner to sit in while flipping through it. After a while, she heard footsteps from the office and waved a quick goodbye to Beth as she left out the back way. She returned to her book only for a moment before she heard Quinn coming down the stairs. She looked up to make sure Beth was indeed gone and saw that Quinn had thrown on a pair of shorts for the trip downstairs since there were windows in the storefront that anyone could see through.
"I miss you." Quinn announced while holding her arms out wide for Santana to walk into. They embraced before walking back up the steep staircase. The table was set with lit candles and there was a vase of fake flowers in the middle. Both plates already had food on them and the wine was already poured.
"Quinn, you didn't have to do this." Santana walked over to the table to admire her girl's work.
"I guess you could say tonight is my version of our first real date. This is dinner and later there will be a show." She lifted one of her eyebrows while she smiled and Santana returned the look walking back into her arms, but this time turning herself around so Quinn could put her arms around her and set her head on her shoulder while they both looked on.
"Actually, I think it's more like a show, dinner, and then an encore."
Quinn smacked her lightly on her stomach and let her go so she could pull out the chair for her and motioned for her to sit. "I don't want to rush you or anything, but when I see you wearing my short shorts and looking how you do right now with that sexy bed head, it kind of makes me what to skip dinner all together. It's like now that we've had sex, it's all I want to do. I don't know how much longer I can keep my hands off you."
"Shit." Santana sat and looked down while Quinn was walking toward her chair. She sat.
"That wasn't exactly the reaction I had hoped for."
"No, that's not… I have to tell you something."
"Okay."
"Your sister…"
"Shit." Quinn's face turned a deep shade of red and looked shocked at the same time. "Beth was downstairs in the store."
"Yeah."
"She heard us."
"Yeah."
"I completely forgot she was here."
"Yeah."
"Is she still here? I should go talk to her."
"She just left."
"So, you talked to her?"
"I swear I'm trying to keep us a secret, but people keep finding out. I'm like that Snowden guy and us being together is an NSA top level secret I keep putting out there."
"This one's on me, San. I wasn't thinking. We came in through the back earlier and it didn't even dawn on me that she was here. I was a bit distracted thinking about what we were going to do. Even when I was chopping vegetables, I was really just going through the motions while thinking about the bed right in front of me."
"She said she won't tell your parents. She loves you and wants to make sure you're ready. She also said she didn't care so that's at least one more person who doesn't have a problem with us being together except…"
"Except what?"
Santana decided she needed to start eating. She was starving and the food Quinn had worked so hard to make for her was getting cold. She also needed a distraction.
"She sort of warned me not to hurt you."
"She warned you? My baby sister warned someone?"
The mood was light now, which made Santana relax a little.
"Yeah, she doesn't want you to get hurt and she's worried that will happen when the summer's over."
"When you go home."
"She doesn't want me to leave you here alone."
"Well, that's sweet of her, I guess."
"She just loves you and wants you to be happy. She knows the sacrifices you've made for your family and she wants you to have the life you want." She paused. "Are we okay? I know it's not at all how you wanted her to find out, but I can guarantee it's not how she wanted to find out either."
"We're fine and I'll apologize to her tomorrow. I can't believe she heard us and didn't say anything to stop us."
"Quinn, you don't have a door and you live in one room. If she would've tried, she probably would have also seen. Besides, she put on headphones and closed the office door for a while so I think she missed most of it."
"I know that someday years from now this will be a funny story we can all laugh about, but right now I'm kind of creeped out and I'm really considering moving out of this bookstore." Santana's smile was stretched across her entire face. "I know what you're smiling at."
"You said years from now."
"Yes."
"You were so worried about this going beyond the summer and now you're saying we'll be laughing about this years from now. What changed?"
Quinn took a moment to consider her wording and just decided to keep it simple.
"Everything. Everything changed."
They finished their meal and Quinn insisted she do the dishes alone so Santana decided to just lay in bed and watch as she cleaned. The music was still playing softly in the background and the candles were still flickering light around the room. Santana liked the apartment, but she also thought it would be good if Quinn moved out of the bookstore preferably into a place that had a door and multiple rooms so they could have privacy if people stayed over. Also preferably, this place would be somewhere other than Jasper and they would be living there together. It was then that she saw the picture so clearly in her mind.
They were living in Cambridge. Quinn was at Harvard while Santana was working at a Boston architecture firm. She wasn't ready to own one herself yet, but she was now at least able to see herself sketching at a table again. Quinn would visit between classes and they'd take their lunches together when possible. They'd spend their evenings with Quinn's new college friends and Santana's friends she'd inevitably make now that she's done living in exile and can get back to having a social life. They'd buy a place that was expensive and safe, but modest at the same time. They'd take trips during Quinn's school breaks and they'd celebrate her getting into law school by going somewhere exotic. When they returned, Santana would consider starting her own firm assuming everything had gone well in her career. A few years later, Quinn would be a lawyer practicing in her dream city while Santana would be visiting her for lunch and bringing her coffee in between meetings and presentations.
This sounded almost perfect in Santana's mind, but she was missing something. She had never talked about kids with Quinn and had no idea how she felt about them, but Santana had always wanted them. Not tomorrow, but someday. Since she was little, she had Noah to play with some of the time, but she had no real siblings of her own and in those alone moments, she thought about how when she grew up, if she ever had one, she'd want another. She didn't care if she had boys or girls. She hoped in that moment that Quinn felt the same way and made an appointment with her brain to bring it up, but not to soon because she didn't want to scare Quinn away by talking about things that wouldn't happen for possibly another decade. They'd spend their holidays in Jasper with Quinn's family and maybe some in Chicago with her family. She thought about how much her aunt would love Quinn's mother and father. She could maybe see a wedding in their future, but she wasn't really concerned with that. Weddings were never really her thing. She did think she'd look kick ass in a tight wedding dress though. She wanted the person, but didn't need a ceremony. That was mostly for her parents and now that they're gone, she'd probably be doing it for her aunt and uncle.
The light from the flickering candles was gone as she opened her eyes. She saw Quinn lying beside her. They were both under the blankets and Quinn's arm was lazily hanging around her waist. She had fallen asleep. She leaned up to check the time and realized it was already almost 10 in the morning. So much for their night of hot sex. Quinn stirred so Santana moved back to her original position trying not to wake her. She just stared lovingly for a few minutes. Everything she thought about the night before had appeared in her brain again and it made her happy. Even thinking about her parents not being there for her future wedding had not brought her down from this emotional high.
"I love you." She told Quinn's sleeping form.
"I love you too." Quinn, who was apparently not sleeping after all, replied. "So, I'm going to forgive you for falling asleep on me and not giving me more orgasms."
Santana laughed loudly at this before snuggling in closer to Quinn's neck.
"I promise I will make that up to you. I'm so sorry. I guess I was just exhausted. I wonder why. You could've just woken me up, by the way."
"Nah, you looked too cute. Plus, I look forward to you making it up to me, but for now, I have to take a shower and get going. I'm due downstairs. We open soon."
"And I need to get back to the guesthouse before everyone notices I didn't sleep there."
"I was thinking that maybe you could wash my back before you go."
"That would require me being in the shower with you, which would require us to be naked."
"I changed my mind. You can start making it up to me now."
And with that she was up and walking toward the shower. Santana stretched her entire body before following closely behind.