A/N: Ha...I'm sorry. I mean, it's stated in my profile that I might not be cosistent with updating, but this time life just threw me off. I got Covid, then sprained my knee pretty badly, then had to travel abroad, then work, blah blah blah. It has been a pretty hectic time, where I haven't been able to even sit down to write, and when I did, my computer decided to fuck me up deleting everything I had written for this chapter...3 times. That means this has been rewritten four times, which has also been frustrating. But anyway, here it is. I am very sorry for the radio silence. I'm not going to promise it won't happen again but...yeah. My apologies. Thank you all for all the kind words you always offer me.


11. FIRST...DATE?

When Santana said yes, you almost couldn't believe it. Despite it being so very obvious that she was attracted to you at least to some level, you couldn't believe your eyes when you saw the simple 'okay' that came back as all reply to your text message.

You didn't sleep that night. You kept planning some grand romantic gesture over and over again in your head, chastising yourself right afterwards for letting you get so much ahead of yourself. It strike you in the morning that it wasn't a date. After all, all you said to her was that you wanted to see her; you never even hinted for the meeting to be something else than a get together. Thankfully, even if it felt kind of disappointing, your brain calmed down after that realisation.

When you talked to Santana about the details, she said she had a busy week, so she wouldn't be able to make it till the next one, and she also asked you to take her somewhere sort of private. She didn't enjoy big crowds, that's what she told you. You know that she didn't want to run into her husband by any chance. You thought about some quiet places you knew, that wouldn't be crowded, but none of them felt right, so you finally decided to take her to the small cabin you own in the woods. It would be about a two hour drive, but it was the most secluded place you could think of.

For the rest of the week you texted back and forth sometimes and you couldn't help but get more and more excited as the day came. The morning of the meeting, the only thing you told Santana was to wear warm and comfortable clothes. At that, she tried to get out of you where you are taking her, but you managed to keep the secret for once. Santana also asked you to pick her up at the gas station that was next to the community centre, and that somewhat disappointed you. You wanted to pick her up at her place, but you also knew that would have broken like a thousand more rules than you already had, and you had done enough of that that for the rest of your lifetime.

When the time came, you got in your car dressed with black tight jeans, trekking boots and a thick wool sweater, with your hair cutely braided in two long braids that fell over either your shoulders. When you get to the gas station, Santana is already there, and as you park next to her, you start to panic. How do you greet her? Do you hug her? Two kisses? A hand shake? While you try to think about what would suit best, Santana is already in your car, closing the passenger door. You end up awkwardly waving at her...right in front of her face. You are such a weirdo. Fortunately, Santana must find it cute or something, because she lets out a chuckle and waves her fingers swiftly back at you.

As she fastens her seat belt, you take a moment to actually look at her. She looks fantastic. Her lip has fully healed, and she moves graciously, so you assume her broken rip must be mostly healed too. And the bruises on her face are only slightly noticeable if you know where to look for them. And, damn, she is gorgeous. I mean, you already knew she was, but now she looks like some sort of a Greek goddess.

When you regain control of your actions, you notice Santana is looking at you with an arched eyebrow and a wicked smile on her lips, and you wonder how long have you been staring at her. Clearing your throat, you turn forwards and start the car again, soon getting back into the traffic.

You drive mostly in silence. Santana is quiet and you are a nervous wreck. You don't want to push Santana, though, she already told you she doesn't enjoy the small talk, but that gives you too much time to think. What if she hates where you are taking her? What if she thinks you are some king of psycho for taking her into the woods without a warning?

Oh, shit.

You suddenly realise you missed your appointment with Quinn. She's not going to let you live it down.

You have been so wrapped in your own little fantasy world, that you have forgotten most of the things you had to do this week. Dear lord.

Almost two hours in, you take a turn into a dirt road that takes you deeper into the woods, and you feel Santana tense beside you. You want to reassure her, but you also don't want to ruin the surprise. Soon enough you are parking your car in front of your cabin.

"What is this place?" Santana asks warily.

"It's mine. I have owned it for a couple years." You start, swallowing hard and moving nervously on your seat. "It's the most private place I could think of..."

After a few seconds, Santana's face relaxes into a soft smile.

"It's perfect." Is all she says before getting out of the car.

The first thing you do when you enter the place, is give her a tour. It's not too big, just a cosy cabin composed of a quite big living room, a small kitchen area, a bathroom and a bedroom. But it is homey and warm and very nicely decorated. Soon you are walking Santana through the bedroom to the back porch, where a huge lake opens up just a few meters away from the door.

You feel Santana's breath catch next you, and you totally get it. That was your first reaction too. The views are just something else.

"I was thinking we could have a picnic by the lake..." you start, looking everywhere but at Santana. "And then come back inside, and relax by the fireplace till the evening before we drive back..."

All you hear is silence, so when you dare to lift your gaze up at Santana, you are surprised by the look she is giving you. Her eyes are so deep, so dark, and looking at you so intently that you feel like you could melt from the inside, you feel like a prey about to be haunted, and you feel extremely desired. It's not a look you are unfamiliar with, not from her, but you weren't expecting it to be directed at you precisely now.

Slowly, Santana nods her head and bites her lip oh so deliciously. And just like that, the moment is gone. She turns her back at you and starts walking back inside.

"Let me use the bathroom first. I'll be right back."

You keep staring at where she was for a few seconds, even if she's long gone. Then you kick yourself into action and move back to the kitchen area. Thank God you have everything ready. You pull out a basket, a giant blanket, and two smaller ones from a cabinet, and then open the fridge looking for the goodies you left there just yesterday. You have different types of cheese, that you will combine with grapes, raisins and walnuts. You also prepared a couple of pastrami sandwiches, and you will top it off with a chocolate fondue accompanied by different fruits, from bananas, to pineapple, apples, raspberries and, of course, strawberries.

You are grabbing a bottle of sweet white wine as Santana emerges back from the bathroom, and you smile at her. You can't help it. In return, she winks at you and you are a goner. Your drool hits the floor, figuratively, thank God.

Santana has you wrapped around her finger and she knows it. And she enjoys it, probably more than you do.

"Are we ready?" she asks kind of excitedly after those two seconds of sweet torture she has put you through.

Without answering, you grab everything and walk back outside, being followed closely by her. When you get close enough to the shore, you throw down to the ground the giant blanket, and take out from the basket all the food you are offering. You leave the fondue for later, though. After offering Santana one of the other blankets, you serve her a glass of wine, and take a seat beside her.

Everything is going amazingly. The cheeses are gone, the sandwiches too, and more than half of the wine bottle has disappeared too. You feel a little tipsy, but you don't mind. The conversation with Santana has flowed nicely, about nothing too important, but you have talked, and laughed and slowly gotten closer to each other. Now your shoulders are touching, and you really don't want to move, but you also want to set the fondue up. So reluctantly, you move and you hear Santana complain under her breath. When everything is set, you make a bold move. You sit back down, but instead of letting your shoulder rest next to hers, you wrap your arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer. For a moment, Santana tenses slightly, but then she snuggles closer to you.

"Thank you, Brittany." She mutters quietly, nibbling on a piece of banana. "This day has been perfect." She adds and you feel your own hear skip a beat.

"You don't need to thank me. It has been an absolute pleasure." You say softly before biting on a quite big strawberry.

Santana is looking at you as you chew and you get so nervous again that you almost choke. Once you have swallowed the remains of the strawberry, Santana is the one who makes a bold move. This time without any pretension, without turning into that sexy vixen you know too well, without acting like the sex bomb you imagine her to be, she closes the gap between her lips and yours and kisses you tenderly.

Fireworks.

Behind your closed eyelids the only thing you see is a wonderful explosion of colours as you kiss her back, taking the chance to deepen the kiss slightly, and she gladly accepts it.

You are on cloud nine. Beyond cloud nine if that's even possible. When she softly breaks the kiss you feel every cell on your body trembling. The kiss couldn't have been more perfect. But now you don't know what to do. You look at her and she's smiling, she's offering you the most honest smile she's given you since you met her. Then she snuggles back into your arms, and keeps talking about nothing in particular like nothing happened. Your brain is stuck back at the kiss though.

After a while, you are picking everything up and moving back into the cabin. You light the fireplace and cuddle with Santana next to it. As you keep talking about nothing and everything, you learn that she's scared of turtles, and you know you will laugh at her for that for the rest of your life. You also learn that she hates broccoli and that her favourite music genre is jazz. In exchange, you tell her that your favourite animals are ducks, that you use to cartwheel through your apartment when you are bored, and that your childhood dream was getting married in an old English castle.

Everything goes south way too soon, though.

Right now, Santana is driving your car like a mad woman, and you are holding your head up high, with an ice pad and a ton of tissues covering your nose as it bleeds profusely. The closest Emergency Room is still an hour drive away.

How did you get into this situation?

Well, let's say Santana's reflections are as fast as a panther's.

She was washing the dishes at some moment of the evening and you had the brilliant idea of hugging her from behind, catching her off guard. That was bad. You need to remember that she is a traumatised woman, and that she has been beaten up badly in the past. You tend to oversee that when you are with her, and you definitely shouldn't. The thing is that, when you wrapped your arms around her waist, she turned into a beast and one of her hands flew up in a fist, colliding right with your nose, before she even realised what was going on.

Now your nose is most likely broken, judging by the amount of blood that's coming out of it, and Santana has apologised approximately a million times.

All you can think about, though, is the kiss.