Lawyer vs. Love

Chapter 13

"I want to take you out," Emma said randomly when the small family were eating their dinner one evening in early April.

The idea had completely thrown Regina, and whilst she was getting used to Henry and Emma being called her own little family she hadn't stopped for one minute to think that she was actually dating Emma because being with the younger woman felt natural, like this is where she was meant to be. After Emma confessed her feelings for the brunette the day after their night on the sofa, they had just fell into a routine, neither of them had really stopped to think about what they were doing; until now.

"Y-you do?" Regina replied as she placed her cutlery on her near-empty plate.

Emma placed a piece of the smoky chicken in her mouth before replying. "Yeah. I mean-"

"Don't chew with your mouth full, dear," Regina interrupted.

Emma swallowed her food quickly and mentally recalled how many times she had managed to piss Regina off with her bad table manners. It wasn't like she was doing it on purpose, it was more to do with the fact Emma had been in places where you didn't stop eating to talk, because if you did someone else managed to swipe your food from you and you were left hungry; so as a child she had managed to do both tasks at the same time.

"Sorry," Emma mumbled as she followed suit with Regina earlier actions and placed her knife and fork on her plate. "As I was saying, we never really did the first date thing, so yeah, I wanna take you out."

"What about Henry?" Regina asked, sipping at her wine as she looked over to the growing child in the highchair.

"We get a sitter."

"A stranger?"

Emma laughed, "I'm not plucking a random kid off the streets and giving them 20 bucks, Regina, I'm not that stupid."

"Who then? It's not like we both have family members lining up to help us."

Even though Emma knew Regina was trying to be hurtful with her words, it hit her in the wrong way. The brunette was right, neither of them had anyone they could really call family. Regina had a mother whom she hadn't had anything to do with since she was 20, no matter how much the woman tried to make up for her mistakes in the past and, well, Emma was an orphan. She grew up in the foster system, she never had parents or a stable home; in fact this was the most stable home she could recall before being given back into the system at three years old.

"Laney," Emma stated.

"Your old boss from the coffee shop?"

Even though Regina had said that she should be staying home with Henry, Emma had been going against the older womans wishes and had been in contact with Laney from the coffee shop. She felt horrible that Regina was working 40 plus hours a week and bringing in the only wage, but even though the blonde could never make as much as Regina, she wanted to bring in something.

"Yeah."

"But you haven't seen her since you quit," Regina said.

Emma spooned some of the puree into Henry's mouth as she spoke, "She said I can work a few days a week. Me and Henry have been to see her at the shop, so she's not a stranger to him. She's good with him too."

"Emma, I'm not sure. I don't -"

"Regina, it's one night. She can come here, we'll be gone two hours, three hours max."

***

Regina stared at her reflection in the mirror, nervous about the night ahead of her. Yes, they had technically been together a while, but doing the whole 'date night' idea made the older woman feel queasy, she hadn't been out on a successful date since her early college years; but even then it was normally a date in a club where alcohol was around to make her feel more comfortable about the situation.