This Kiss

Chapter 32

The following morning, Natalia woke to the smell of bacon and coffee. Peeking at the alarm clock, she was surprised that it was only 6:30am and obviously Olivia was already awake. Dawning her robe, she descended the stairs. Rounding the living room, she silently propped herself against the door frame to the kitchen. Enjoying the view of her lover, standing at the stove flipping pancakes.

Olivia sensed Natalia before she felt warm arms wrap around her waist and a kiss pressed to the back of her neck. "Good morning beautiful." She smiled out, craning her neck for a proper good morning kiss before moving to pour Natalia her coffee.

Natalia took her place at the table and smiled with twinkling eyes at Olivia as her coffee was placed in front of her with one more kiss. "Am I having a very vivid dream?"

"What? I cook."

"It's not the cooking that surprises me, it's the hour."

"Ha, ha, ha." Olivia turned back to the stove and removed the final pancakes from the skillet. Placing the plate of bacon next to them on the table. "I couldn't sleep, so I made you breakfast. I set a plate for Rafe in the oven to keep warm until he wakes up."

"Thank you querida. You are amazing."

"Not amazing love, you do this every morning, I should do it more often."

"I love cooking for you. It's one of my greatest pleasures."

"And I love your cooking." She sat in the chair next to Natalia and they ate in mostly comfortable silence. It was a normal morning at the Spencer-Rivera house, except for the lack of Emma. They were enjoying this small gesture of normalcy.

Once they had finished, Olivia cleared the table, placing the dirty dishes on the counter and filling the sink with soapy water. "As soon as I finish these I'm gonna head to work."

Natalia stood and bumped Olivia with her hip. "You cooked. I got these. Why are you going in so early?"

"I just think the less Rafe sees me right now, the better. Last night was a little tense."

The previous night, after sharing a shower, the two women had come downstairs and made dinner together. Rafe came home and was, not exactly unpleasant, but was far from welcoming to Olivia. Dinner had been filled with a stiff silence. As soon as dinner was finished, Rafe had retreated to his room.

"It was, but he has to get used to it, and you avoiding him, isn't going to help."

Olivia wrapped her arms around Natalia from behind, resting her chin on her shoulder. She placed a small kiss to the side of her neck. "I'm not avoiding him honey, I'm just...making it easier on him. Easing him into my being here. For us, it's been six months, for him, it's brand new. He assumed, when he came home, it would be just the two of you, now there's me and Emma. We haven't even all four been here at once yet. I will be here for dinner tonight, and so will he. Let's start there, dinner every night, as a family. We will slowly add more and more of the family stuff. Breakfast, movie nights, game nights, who knows maybe he will start hanging out after dinner."

Natalia lay her hands over top of Olivia's on her stomach. "Baby, you don't need to change your schedule. He is just going to have to adjust."

Olivia spun Natalia in her arms so they were face to face. "Sweetheart, it's okay. I was thinking about it last night, and I think this is the best way to help him adjust. I'm only going in an hour early, and since my lovely assistant isn't there this week, I could use the extra time at the office. This is me doing my part for our son."

"You are so sweet."

"Well, I was thinking, while I wasn't sleeping, and I realized, Rafe has a lot of reasons to hate me. The things I did..." She shook her head. "You have had a long time to forgive me. You have changed me, made me a better person. He hasn't had a chance to see that. It's going to take time. You got to scream and yell at me in my suite for months. Rafe hasn't had that chance. We eased into this, he was thrown in, headfirst. I'm sorry I didn't think about all of this before, but I have now, and if my leaving early for work every day and staying in my old room for a while is what he needs right now, then it's what I'm going to do. I would do anything to help him, just like my girls."