As Bridget awoke that morning, she could feel a weight on her stomach. When she opened her eyes, she could see that at some point throughout the night, her niece had managed to turn herself sideways in the bed. Her head was now resting on the blonde's stomach, and her feet were draped up and over Franky's side.
Bridget carefully slid herself out from under the young girl, and stood at the edge of the bed as she gently turned her, being careful not to wake the sleeping child. When she had her positioned, she climbed back under the covers, hoping to get another hour or so of sleep.
When Franky opened her eyes, she saw Emily sleeping in the blonde's arms on the other side of the bed. She vaguely remembered the young girl coming in to talk to them at some point during the night. She knew that Bridget had been right to stop the conversation the night before for the sake of everyone involved, but she'd be glad to talk to Emily this morning, and be able to start to put the whole thing behind them.
She watched as the young girl stirred a bit, then opened her eyes. Emily normally greeted her with a smile the mornings that she slept in their bed, but this morning, it was absent.
"Good morning, bub," she whispered quietly. She reached out, and squeezed the young girl's hand gently, finally earning a smile.
"You're not mad anymore?" Emily looked at her, hopefully..
"I'm still upset with what you did, but I want to tell you something, and I need you to listen." Franky waited until she saw the young girl give a small nod. "No matter what, even if I'm mad, or upset, or whatever, I will always, always, love you very, very much, and I will always be there for you when you need me."
"That goes for both of us, love." Bridget had come to just in time to hear what the brunette had said. She tightened her arm a bit around her niece.
"I love you, too," Emily said to no one in particular. She was quiet for a moment before she spoke again. "What's going to happen?"
"Franky and I talked about that last night." The blonde could feel that the young girl's breathing had picked up. "I think you'll be okay with what we decided. Franky, would you like to tell her?" Bridget thought that since the brunette had felt that she needed to 'make things right', that maybe she would like to explain things to Emily.
"First of all, I want to say that we expect from now on that you'll behave." She saw the young girl nod. "Okay, so next week, you have to come to the restaurant with me because Auntie isn't allowed to take you to work. When we get there in the morning, I expect you to go to my office, and do whatever worksheets I pick out for you that day. When you finish them, you can come out and help me and Shayne with what we're doing. It probably won't be cooking, but it'll be something to do with getting the restaurant ready to open. Does that sound fair?"
"Yeah, I like being there with you guys." Emily's mood was finally seeming to lighten.
"I want to talk to you about something else too." This was the part the brunette knew would be hard for her to talk about. "I know I haven't spent enough time actually cooking with you lately. I was bringing you to the restaurant after school, but we were doing other things. I promised you that I would teach you everything, and I've been slacking off on that. So starting today, if I'm cooking something, I want you to be helping me, if that's what you want. We can look through some recipes I have, and look some up online, and find some new things you want to try. You can come with me to shop for the ingredients, because that's an important part of it, too."
"Yeah," the young girl had a huge smile now, "that's what I want."
"Now, love." It was Bridget's turn to be a bit serious. "You acted the way you did yesterday because you missed the stuff you used to get to do, yeah?"
"Yeah, a lot," Emily said, looking behind her at her aunt.
"From now on, instead of acting out, we expect you to come and talk to us about how you're feeling. You can come to me, or Franky, or you can ask for us all to talk together, but what happened yesterday, can't happen again." The blonde saw Emily open her mouth to speak, and she held up a finger to stop her. "If it does, then the next time there will be a punishment, and you'll lose some privileges."
"I promise." The young girl nodded, and looked at each of the women.
"Okay, good." Bridget believed that Emily meant in at this moment, but time would tell.
"How do you feel about something a bit spicy for brunch?" Franky directed her question at the older woman. She knew that Emily was always game to eat whatever she made.
"Yeah, I'm good with that." The blonde liked spicy food, but not to the extent that Franky, and Emily did, so she appreciated that her wife usually asked before she cooked any dish that had some extra heat to it.
"Awesome!" She turned her attention to the young girl. "I found a new brunch recipe I've been wanting to try. We can learn it together. How does that sound?"
"Yeah!" Emily half sat up in the bed. "Then can we pick something out to make for supper?"
"Of course! We can pick out things for the next couple days, then go to the store and get any ingredients we don't already have." Franky saw the young girl's eyes light up.
"I'm going to go look at the recipes on your iPad." Emily crawled out from under the covers, and went down over the end of the bed, then out the door.
"I think that went well," the brunette said with a small chuckle.
"Yeah." Bridget smiled. "I like when everyone is happy."
"Me too." Franky moved towards the centre of the bed, and wrapped her arms around the blonde.
She pulled the older woman closer, and connected their lips in a slow kiss. She let her hand trail down Bridget's back, then back up along her spine.
"I already found a couple. And there's a really cool cake. And did you know there are videos on youtube you can watch and learn how to make things?" Emily had burst back into the room, and crawled up over the end of the bed, the same way she'd left. "Hey, you took my spot!" She looked at Franky who had moved to where she'd been laying a moment ago.
"My bad, I thought you were staying out there to look at them." The brunette glanced at Bridget who stifled a small laugh, then moved back towards the edge, allowing Emily to reclaim her spot in between them once more.
"Doesn't this one look good?" The young girl picked up her train of thought, oblivious to the fact she'd interrupted their moment.
Bridget couldn't help but smile; things were getting back to normal.
"What are we making?" Emily asked as she climbed up onto the stepstool that Franky had placed at the kitchen island for her.
"They're called spicy pancakes." The brunette set two pans from the cupboard up on the stove. "So the first thing we'll do is get everything we need chopped up, and ready to go into the pan."
If she had been making these herself, she would have chopped as she cooked, but none of the stuff took very long once it was in the pan, and she didn't want Emily to feel rushed trying to get things ready. She couldn't help but smile when she saw the look of joy on the young girl's face as she handed her her knife set.
"Let's have a look at the ingredients. We have ginger, green chilis, garlic, olive oil, onion, our leftover cooked potatoes from last night, flour, salt and pepper, an egg, and some milk." She sat everything out in front of Emily. "We also have some spices." She sat these out as well, but didn't name them. "We need to chop up the ginger, but first, we have to peel it. We have a couple of options, any guesses?"
"A peeler like for carrots?" The young girl looked up at her, eager to know if she had given the right answer.
"Yep, that'll work. We could also use a knife, but a peeler is a little safer, and wastes less." The brunette handed her the peeler from the drawer.
She watched as Emily carefully removed the thin outer skin from the ginger.
Bridget made her way to the kitchen, finally having decided to get out of bed, and sat down on the couch. She loved watching Franky in her element.
"Right, now you need to cut it half so you get a flat side, then cut it into slices, then stack those, and dice it." The brunette made the motions with her hand as she explained.
"LIke an onion." Emily nodded. She understood exactly what to do.
"Yeah, just like that." Franky reminded herself that the young girl knew the basics already, so she needed to give her some credit. "Speaking of onions, we need one of those too, so you can dice this when you're done with the ginger," she sat the onion beside the chopping board, "and we'll need these cut up into small chunks." The brunette added the bowl of leftover boiled potatoes to the queue.
Franky felt the blonde's eyes on her. She knew the older woman liked to watch her while she taught. Every night that she and Emily had been in the parent and child class, she would catch her wife watching her even when she wasn't speaking to the whole group.
"Is this good?" The young girl pointed to the pile of ginger that she'd just finished with.
"Yeah, looks great. Now, when you get to the part where you're going to start dicing the onion, I want to show you a little trick." She sat the onion in the middle of the board so that Emily would do it next.
The young girl concentrated carefully on removing the skin before she began slicing it.
"I'm ready." She looked up at Franky, and waited for her next instructions.
"Okay, so one thing that's important, as you get more practise and you're more comfortable, is to build up your speed, so that you can work and cook at the same time. To do that, you'll need to learn to chop and dice things quickly. So what most people do, is they hold it like this," she took Emily's knife from her, and gripped one of the pieces of onion with her fingertips extended, "and then start cutting." Franky cut slowly a couple of times to demonstrate. "The problem is, they try to go faster, and they think they can move their fingers back as they go, but it's really easy to cut yourself if you leave those fingers sticking out. So what you do, "is curl them in a bit so that this knuckle," she pointed to the first knuckle on her middle finger, "is what sticks out the furthest. This knife is wide, so you rest the side of it against that knuckle, and you can use it as a guide. The actual sharp part shouldn't come up high enough to cut you, and your fingers are back out of the way. You try it," she handed the knife back to the young girl, "but still go slowly for now."
Emily worked carefully, concentrating hard on replicating the technique that Franky had just shown her. When she finished with the onions, she cut the potatoes into chunks, then waited for her next instructions.
"So the last two things we need to chop up are the green chilis, and the garlic. Now, with the chilis, most of the spiciness is in the seeds, so you can choose how much you want them to flavor your dish. For this one, we want the flavor, but not the super spiciness. The easiest way to get rid of the seeds is to take the chili between your hands, like this," she picked up one, and held it between the palms of her hands, "and roll it back and forth using a bit of pressure. Hear the seeds coming loose inside?" she asked, and saw Emily nod. "Okay, you try the other one."
Emily picked up the other chili, and rolled it between her hands like the brunette had just demonstrated.
"I can hear the seeds." She smiled as she shook the chili to show Franky that she'd done it properly.
"Nice, that's the sound you want. Now cut off the top just enough to open it up, and dump them onto the paper towel here, and we'll get rid of them," she said as she placed a square of paper towel next to the cutting board. "Good." Franky watched her. "Now just dice them like you would normally; into strips, then chop."
"All done. Now the garlic, right?" Emily had set down her knife, and as she reached for the garlic with one hand, she reached up with the other to rub her eye.
"Whoa, hey." Franky reached out, and took hold of her arm before she could touch her face.
"My eye is itchy." The young girl looked up at the brunette, slightly annoyed that she'd stopped her.
"I know, but if you touch your eyes after handling the chilis, it'll burn a lot." Franky let go of her arm. "If you need to touch your face, especially your eyes while you're working, you need to stop and wash your hands, or use a clean towel, or paper towel to wipe them with instead." She'd made that rookie mistake herself before, and wanted to spare the young girl from having to learn from experience.
Emily grabbed a piece of paper towel, and wiped her eye.
"The last thing is the garlic. Do you remember what to do with it?" Franky placed an unpeeled clove on the cutting board.
"Smack it!" Emily giggled, earning a small laugh from Bridget in the living room.
"That's right," the brunette chuckled. "I'll show you how to do the first one, then you can do the other one." Franky picked up the young girl's knife, and placed one side flat against the clove. "So something really important here, is that you have the sharp part of the blade facing away from you. If you hold the knife in your left hand like I am, and you're going to hit it with the palm of your right, then the sharp part should be facing left. Now, a quick, firm hit, and you should hear that little snap of the peel opening up." She hit the knife with the heel of her palm. "There, now just take the peel off, and chop it up." She handed the knife back to Emily.
"I need to use the bathroom," the young girl declared after she'd finished her task.
"Alright, when you get back we'll start to cook." Franky began to gather up the scraps for the compost bin as Emily made her way down the hall. "You're going to stare holes right through me, Gidge." The brunette glanced up at the older woman.
"I can't help it. I like what I see." Bridget gave her a small smile.
"Yeah? Is it the garlic, or the onion that turns you on? Maybe the potatoes?" Franky giggled, barely able to get through her sentence with a straight face.
"Smartass." The blonde simply shook her head, and smiled.
"I'm back." Emily returned from the bathroom, and stepped up onto the stool, which the brunette had moved to in front of the stove while she'd been gone.
"Okay, so the first part we make is the mixture that's going to go into the pancake batter. Get a pan on the stove, and turn the burner on. Now, one thing you'll need to learn is how to identify foods by taste and smell, and that includes spices. Sometimes they're obvious, and sometimes not. This," She opened up one of the glass jars, "is cumin seed. Have a little smell." She held out the jar. "You can get this ground up as a powder as well, but it'll smell the same, maybe even a bit stronger. Is your pan hot?"
Emily held her hand an inch above the frying pan. "Yep!"
"Good. Sprinkle in the cumin seeds, then a bit of salt." She watched as Emily added the seeds to the pan. "Good, that's enough. Now the salt. So when we add stuff like this that doesn't have moisture in it, with no oil or butter or anything, it's called dry roasting. Give the pan a little shake every so often, and let me know when they start to get a little bit darker."
"I think it's ready." The young girl had been studying the pan closely.
"I think so, yeah. Add in the ginger, chili, and garlic, then a bit of olive oil." Franky set the ingredients next to the stove, and watched as Emily added them one by one. "Good, now give it a stir, and we'll let it cook for a couple of minutes."
When the mixture was finished cooking, they sat it aside, and Franky wiped out the pan for her, then placed it back on the burner.
"Now we'll make the filling in the same pan. These," the brunette picked up a second jar, "are mustard seeds. Have a quick smell." She held out the jar again, the same as she had with the cumin. "Add a bit of oil, then sprinkle in some seeds."
As soon as the seeds hit the hot pan, they started jumping.
"They're moving! Are they alive?!" Emily looked at Franky with wide eyes.
"No, bub," Franky laughed, "it's just the moisture escaping when they get hot. Okay, onion in now." She watched the young girl scrape them off the board into the pan. "Good. Have a smell of this one." She held up a third jar of spice. "It's turmeric. Sprinkle a heaping spoonful over the onions."
"Add the potatoes now?" the young girl asked eagerly.
"Yep, and some salt and pepper too." The brunette waited while Emily added them, and stirred the mixture. "Good, now set that off to the side, and we'll make the pancakes." Franky gathered the flour, eggs, and milk in front of her. "Normally, we'd make our pancakes a bit thick, and we'd cook three or four in a pan this size." She held up a medium sized frying pan. "For these, we make the batter a bit thinner, and we'll only make one at a time, and it'll be the same size as the bottom of the pan."
"That's big!" Emily's eyes were wide.
"Yeah, they're kind of like crèpes." Franky loved how into the experience the young girl was. "We'll make the batter, then add in the mixture we made earlier. It'll only take a few minutes to make the pancakes, then we'll put the potato filling in, and we'll be ready to eat."
She explained how to make the batter, and even showed Emily how to flip them by tossing them in the pan instead of using a spatula. The young girl tried her best, but hers ended up half in and half out of the pan, eventually breaking in half. Franky could tell she was a bit discouraged. She knew the pan was probably too heavy for Emily, but she let her try anyway. Next time, she'd find a smaller, lighter pan, and use one of her dessert recipes that would be good in smaller portions.
"There, that's the last one." Franky placed the final, rolled up pancake onto the serving plate. "Gidge, brunch is served."
"It smells delicious." The blonde gave Emily, and Franky each a kiss on the cheek as she joined them at the table.
"Do you see anything you'd like to try?" Franky had sat down with the young girl, as promised, later that afternoon.
"Fried chicken! Can we have that for supper?" Emily tilted the iPad so that the brunette could see which recipe she was talking about.
"The thing with the fried chicken, see it says here that you should marinate it overnight in the buttermilk." She pointed to the part of the directions that explained this. "We can go buy the stuff today, and get it ready tonight for tomorrow, though."
"Okay. Can we make pizza tonight then?" The young girl asked for one of her favorites.
"Yeah, we'll need to pick up some fresh veggies for the toppings when we're at the store. Go get ready, and we'll go now." She took the iPad that Emily handed her, and placed it onto the coffee table. "You coming with us, Gidge?"
"No, I think you guys should have this time together." Bridget knew that this was Franky and Emily's thing, and she felt like, especially now, they needed this time alone together.
"Are you sure? I don't want to exclude you." The brunette reached up, and tugged on the older woman's t-shirt as she passed, pulling her gently down into her lap.
"I'm sure." She wrapped her arms around Franky's neck. "You guys go do this, and cook, and then we'll eat together, and spend the evening together. Besides, I can use the time you're at the store to get a bit of work done like I promised Vera."
"Mm, okay." Franky pulled her in close, and connected their lips.
It was a slow, lazy kiss that Bridget was quickly, and easily lost in.
"Maybe Em will go to bed a bit early since she was restless last night," she mumbled against the brunette's lips.
"Maybe." Franky couldn't help but smile. She loved knowing that the blonde was wanting her.
"I'm not tired." Emily had returned from changing her clothes. "And I don't want to go to bed early."
"You don't have to, love." Bridget slid off the brunette's lap. "Have fun at the store. I'll see you when you get back." She placed a kiss on her niece's cheek as she passed her on the way to her office.
"Alright, so we need some chicken, buttermilk, veggies, and cheese." Franky read the list she'd made on her phone, then put it back into her pocket. "Stay close by in here, okay bub?"
"Can I get a treat for tonight?" Emily smiled up at her as they entered the produce section.
"You can get one thing." The brunette didn't bring her to the store often, so she didn't mind letting her have something special. "You can pick out the veggies if you want. We need a green pepper, a red onion, and some mushrooms."
"What's the difference between a red onion and a white one?" the young girl asked, holding one of each in her hands.
"The red ones don't taste as strong, and the color is nice in certain dishes. Especially on salads, or pizzas like we're going to use it." She held out the basket so that Emily could place the one she chose into it.
As they shopped, Franky noticed a young couple watching them. She saw them look at her, and Emily, then appear to discuss something. She tried her best to ignore it, but it made her uneasy. She tried to stay calm, so as not to worry the young girl, while at the same time trying to guide her through the store a bit more quickly.
They finished finding the produce they needed, and Franky guided Emily towards the deli section, so they could get some cheese. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the couple leave the produce section, and follow a few feet behind them. As she saw them begin to approach from her right, she put her arm around the young girl's shoulder, and pulled her in close to her side.
"Hey."
Franky turned to see the young man and woman standing beside her. It had been the woman who'd spoken, and now had a huge smile plastered on her face.
"Hey." The brunette didn't want to be rude, but she couldn't help but be on the defensive.
"You're Franky from that cooking show that's on Foodlife now, right?" She glanced back at the young man who nodded and smiled, agreeing with her.
"Yeah…" Franky wasn't sure where she was going with this, and she felt Emily reach up, and hold onto the back of her t-shirt.
"We really love the show! You're our pick to win. Filming must be done if you're here. Did you win?" The young woman stepped closer to the brunette as she talked.
"Uh, filming is done, yeah, but I can't really say anything more." Franky reminded herself that she should be a bit nicer. These people were just excited about the show, and meant her no harm. "I'm really glad you like it, though."
"Do you mind if we get a picture with you?" The young man had stepped forward now.
Franky glanced down at the young girl beside her.
"Just one, then I have to go, okay?" The brunette didn't want this to take any more of her time away from Emily. "Wait right here, bub."
"Sure, thanks!" He held up his phone for a selfie as the young woman, and Franky joined him for the shot.
The brunette was grateful that they'd kept their word, and left after they got the picture with her.
"Do you know them?" Emily asked as they looked at the selection of cheese in the display case.
"No, they saw me on the show." Franky searched for the one she wanted.
"Some of the kids in my class watch it, too. They think you're cool. So does Ms. Williams." The young girl absentmindedly talked. "She said she really likes it."
"Is that so?" A small smile played on her lips." She had no desire to be with anyone other than Bridget, but a little piece of her ego liked that Emily's teacher had mentioned her.
"Yeah. I found the cheese." The young girl held up some mozzarella.
"Alright. So just the chicken, and buttermilk, then we'll get your treat." Franky led her on to the next section.
They gathered the rest of their ingredients, and their final stop was the candy aisle. The brunette had to admit that some of the sweets looked really good, and she was tempted to get something for her and Bridget as well.
"Can I get this?" Emily held up a Curly Wurly bar.
"Yeah, sure." Franky heard her drop it into the basket.
The brunette settled on a bag of Violet Crumble nuggets for Bridget, and was now looking for something for herself. The more she looked, though, the better the blonde's usual choice was sounding. In the end, she exchanged the bag she'd chosen for a larger one they could share.
"How was the store?" Bridget came out of her office to greet them when they arrived home.
"Franky let me get a treat!" Emily reached into the bag, and held up her chocolate bar.
"Oo, that looks good, love." The blonde was not at all surprised that her niece had been able to talk the other woman into buying her something.
"It was good. I got us something, too," she said as she placed the bag of candy onto the counter.
"Where's yours?" Bridget asked as she made a point of being obvious about looking for another treat.
"Right there." Franky pointed to the bag.
"Those are mine." The blonde could feel the corner of her mouth twitch slightly as she tried not to smile at the fact that the younger woman hadn't picked up on her teasing yet.
"Those are ours. I bought the big bag." The brunette set the other grocery bags onto the counter.
"Doesn't look that big." Bridget smiled with Franky's back turned towards her, then quickly tried to hide it as the younger woman turned around. She was too slow though, and the other woman caught on.
"Stop." Franky gave a small laugh as she playfully nudged the blonde with her elbow.
"Sorry, baby." The older woman giggled as she leaned in, and gave Franky a small kiss.
"So you're going to share?" The brunette raised her eyebrow.
"Under protest." Bridget gave her another small kiss.
"Some people took a picture with Franky." Emily interrupted the moment.
"Yeah?" The blonde studied her wife's face. She'd sensed the shift in her mood as soon as the young girl had brought it up.
"They recognized me from the show. My initial reaction was to tell them to go away, but then I thought I didn't want to be a bi-, to be rude." She caught herself before she swore in front of Emily. "They asked for a pic so I said okay, but then they had to leave us alone."
"You alright?" Bridget asked quietly. She knew this was one of Franky's worries when she'd agreed to do the show.
"Yeah. It was just unexpected. Feels weird." The brunette shrugged, and began gathering the ingredients for their meal.
"Okay." The blonde gave her hand a quick squeeze, then left them to prepare their food.
"Well, she went to bed kind of early," Bridget said as she rejoined the brunette on the couch.
"And we still have chocolate left," Franky said as she tossed another piece into her mouth.
"That we do." The blonde reached behind her wife, and ran her fingers back and forth across the nape of her neck. "You know, watching you with Em today, it's pretty clear you're both in your element in the kitchen. You can give her something that I wouldn't have been able to. I feel like she's really lucky to have you."
"She wouldn't have gotten suspended from school if she hadn't been trying to come spend time with me." She glanced over towards Bridget.
"I'm sure she would have at some point." A small smile played on the blonde's lips.
"Why? She's not a bad kid." Franky gave a slight shake of her head.
"No, but if you weren't here, I'd be raising her the same way we are now. To protect herself, to protect others, and to stand up for what's right, and what she believes in. I guarantee that at some point, those ideals would have clashed with the powers that be at her school." Bridget gave her a cheeky grin.
"Yeah, probably." The brunette knew that the people in charge didn't always get it right when it came to stuff like that.
"So," the older woman moved to straddle Franky's lap, "we will get through this, and whatever else comes along. Right now though, I think we should take advantage of the fact that she's gone to sleep early, and maybe spend some extra time in bed ourselves."
"Hmm, I don't know, Gidge. Like I said, there's still chocolate out here." She took another piece from the bag, and put it in her mouth. "I might need to be convinced."
Bridget studied her for a moment, then leaned in so her lips were next to the brunette's ear.
"I've been thinking about fucking you all day, and if you come to bed with me, I promise I will more than make up for you having to leave your chocolate behind." She punctuated her statement with a soft kiss just below Franky's ear, and felt a shudder go through the other woman's body.
"I think that's a fair trade," the brunette said as she ran her hands down Bridget's back.
"Good. Come on, then." The blonde smiled at her as she stood, took her by the hand, and led her to their bedroom.
