"Hello, little one" Emma welcomes the toddler into her arms "How are you doing today, missy?" she asks in her baby voice.
Little Lin is stationed comfortably on her hip, her attention already drawn to Emma's blonde locks. She starts playing with them, catching and releasing, grasping tightly as she feels the foreign texture.
"Hey, Ashley" she looks at her friend and her husband "Sean, right?"
"That's right" he confirms with a smile and moves to pull piles of Tupperware out of his backpack.
"How are you?" Ashley plasters a kiss on her check and turns to look at her baby "We are having a picnic, right Emma?" she calls excitedly, winking at Emma.
"That's right, we are!" she bounces the blonde toddler on her hip, eliciting a giggle out. "I'm good" she answers Ashley's question while slowly swirling with Lin in her hands.
"How's the new job going?"
"Oh it's great, I love it there"
"I'm glad to hear that"
They both turn to look at Sean who's just finished setting everything.
They had originally made plans to meet at Ashley's, but noting what a beautiful day it was, her friend called and asked Emma to meet at the park instead. Feeling rather excited about spending some time outdoors, Emma agreed immediately, and proposed a picnic. It was only when Ashley hung up that she realized she probably didn't have anything picnic appropriate to bring with her. After a good few minutes of scanning all of her kitchen cabinets Emma walked out with a box of crackers, Pringles and a large bottle of diet coke. Her friend, it seems, was far more prepared than that.
On the large plaid blanket are numerous boxes with fruit, bread and dips.
They sit down and munch while Lin crawls around, possessed. When she reaches the end of the blanket she stops, looking at her mom with big wide blue eyes as she sports an exaggerated pout.
"She doesn't like grass, she's scared of it 'cause it feels funny"
Ashley provides, promoting a good laugh as they continue to observe Lin's attempts of bypassing the grass; she crawls to the other side of the blanket just to find out that she is trapped. She lets out a wail.
"Calm down, honey" Ashley fishes a toy out of the bag "there you go" she hands it to the baby who completely forgets about the sea of green surrounding them as soon as she lays her eyes on the chewed toy.
"Dada, dada" Lin calls out.
"That's right babe, where is daddy?" the kid looks at Sean and they all clap their hands. "That's right, this is daddy"
At some point, Lin passes out on the blanket and they lower the volume of their conversation, despite Ashley's promise that her girl could sleep through construction noise. Ashley tells her about Lin and all of the new things she has been doing lately, like how she uses their coffee table to pull herself up and stand, with their help of course. They talk about Emma's new job and how she manages to juggle two of those. Ashley advises her to go and check out the esplanade near the village when she hears about Emma's wish to start running, and she promises to do just that.
Somewhere along the conversation Sean mentions Josh and a girl he's seeing. Hearing that promotes a large smile from Emma, who's happy for him and relived for herself. He deserves to be happy, he's a great guy, and now Emma doesn't need to have an awkward conversation with him on why they won't work.
Later that day, thinking of Josh and whatever it is they were, makes room for a rather painful understanding. With enough free time on her hands, Emma rewinds her interactions with Regina again and again, only to realize that the brunette has never said anything about her sexuality nor being attracted to Emma. She did say she liked her, but Emma frowns when she realizes the she had said the same about Josh several times in the past. She meant it in a platonic way, so what makes Emma so sure it isn't the same for Regina? What makes Emma think she is not just the woman version of Josh to her boss? Her boss! A successful, beautiful, well achieved woman that she works for.
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Skyline of concrete dreams- SwanQueen
Romance"The way Emma looks at it, she has two options: she could either start dating men and wait for her confusion to disappear, or she could gather up some courage and open the can of worms with the label 'girls' on it." Fresh out of foster care, Emma Sw...