We were quite lucky today, no doubt about it.

Yesterday rained like there was no tomorrow, but today the sun was shining without a cloud to be seen in the sky, the air feeling pleasant and filled with scent of petrichor, us two regaling in that atmosphere at the park as we sat on a bench. There were still some puddles, but unfortunately, those were quite muddy, so I wasn’t going to splash in them. I had my fill yesterday anyway.

Our quietude was broken by the approaching sound of cars honking. We both stared annoyed as a procession of cars drove by, following a white car with wedding decorations. Understandably, people are happy for the newly-weds, but even for me, that was being too noisy. I can only imagine how irritated Violet was right now.

“Right, you still haven’t told me why you woke me up like that,” she told me out of the blue, having seemingly remembered that now.

She was referring to me squeezing her head against my chest. Well, the answer to that was, “because it’s Valentine’s!” During winter, I almost always woke up with my face buried in her chest, so I decided to treat her to that same experience.

“You have the weirdest ways of celebrating holidays,” she sighed.

“Are you telling me it wasn’t nice?” I asked as I wiggled my torso at her.

“It was. It was a bit hard to breathe too, but... yeah.”

She was looking a bit redder around the face, thinking about what we did that morning, but still kept her eyes on me. It was funny when she averted her gaze out of embarrassment, but this was very nice in its own way.

I moved a hand to her stomach, slightly below her belly button, and asked if she wanted to do anything “special” for today.

“Not really, no,” she told me as she grabbed my hand for a kiss. “I’ve been hankering for garlic though.”

“Pfft, garlic?” I laughed, surprised by her out of left field remark.

“Yeah. Chop it in slices, roast it in the pan until it’s slightly burned, and add it to something super meaty and with cheese.”

We had breakfast just a little while ago but hearing her describe that was making me drool. She saw my hungry eyes and unnecessarily asked if that sounded good to me. I nodded enthusiastically, making her laugh as she asked if the garlic wouldn’t make it hard for us to kiss afterwards.

“If we are both eating it, I guess it won’t?” I wondered.

“I’m not talking about just a few cloves, I’m talking about eating the whole head in one go.”

I still wasn’t worried. For us, that is. The rest of our family might be the ones getting the short end of the stick.

“...Honey,” she softly called out to me as she started caressing my face with her cold hand.

“Babe, we are in public,” I moaned as I saw her face getting very close to mine, thinking that, perhaps, she had forgotten where we were as it sometimes happens.

“...It’s Valentine’s, so... who cares?”

I might get weird ideas about how to celebrate holidays, but Violet had wonderful ones.

We were both smiling and giggling at each other like the fools we were after kissing a couple of times when I noticed something behind her. A person was staring at us, and when I saw who that person was, my smile faded away and Violet turned around. Once she saw the staring woman, Violet got up and asked her what she wanted.

There was no answer from her, she just stared down and walked away with an unsteady pace.

“What the hell was that?” Violet said under her breath as she sat back down. “Are you ok?”

I was mostly weirded out by what happened, but otherwise, I was peachy fine. Still, I asked Violet if she minded us heading to my place. I had a weird feeling that things there had gotten messy.

Opening the door of the building, we quickly heard my dad’s voice talking with somebody else. When we finally got to my floor, I saw that he was talking with our landlady and that my sister was with him too. He was apologising again for the noise and for the door. What about the door, you may ask? Our front door had been kicked and punched with such violence that it had gotten dented in multiple places.

“Your mum finally got wind of what’s going on,” my dad explained as he rubbed his forehead. “I knew she wouldn’t take it kindly, but to go as far as to try kicking the door down... I’m just happy that you at least weren’t here.”

“We saw her at the park,” Violet told him. “She didn’t say anything, she just stared at us for a bit.”

My dad’s company was now operational and has been stealing some of her clients and workers ever since the month started. As far as I know, it has been a migration in droves. I know there are a lot of moral implications involved in what my dad was doing, but we were solely hurting someone who has always been escaping without paying for her sins, so let’s ignore that for a second. Seeing that, that woman thought it was a good idea to come and... what? Try and beat my father up? That woman was losing it. She couldn’t bear not being in control and now, everything was spiralling out of her grasp. That, I could understand. I couldn’t understand her reaction when she saw me and Violet. Back at the park, she looked so... weak. Not weak, diminished.

She stood hunched, with her shoulders slacked, pale and sickly, with sunken eyes and cheeks. A part of me hoped that meant mum was finally realising all the wrong she had done in her life, but who could really know? Maybe she was pondering if it was all worth it?

“Abby?” Violet called out, softly squeezing my hand.

“What was your impression of mum when we were at the park?” I asked, wanting to know Violet’s thoughts.

“Why does that matter?” she asked back, not looking willing to keep talking about this subject.

“Just describe it in one word then.”

“Hmm... fine... I guess... like she has given up?”

That, I found to be a very apt description of how mum looked and acted like.

First, she lost control of me. Then, she lost control of dad and her marriage. My sister came next. Fourthly, she lost control of how people viewed her when we were at Mrs. Fletcher’s party. Now, she was losing control of all that mattered to her: her business. What else did she have in her life? Nothing. She was all alone, and barely holding what little she had.

How pitiful.

I truly was feeling sorry for her. To have dedicated her whole life to something and then start seeing it all crumble away so quickly and without being able to stop it from happening... truly, it was pitiful.

“Are you ok sis?” I asked as I gave her a hug.

“Oh yeah, I’m good,” she told me as she hugged me back. “I was more worried about how you’d react, really.”

“Haah, I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but could you take Sophie along with you? I’ll have to see if I can find someone to come check on the door and it might get noisy around here.”

We hadn’t made any plans beyond spending the day together, so I wasn’t opposed to having my sister tag along. Violet on the other hand was a bit annoyed, but she still kept it to herself. I’d make sure to make it worth her while later with a full-body massage.

“Sis, don’t forget those.”

“Those?”

“Yeah, those. You know, what we made yesterday?”

“Oh! Those.” she hummed. “Couldn’t you have said it more clearly?”

I didn’t because dad was right next to us, and I wasn’t sure he’d appreciate knowing Sophie was giving hand-made chocolate to Stan.

As always, my sister went full gaga over Oliver, talking to him in a baby voice while our cat melted in her hands. That cat was too easy, but I guess he takes it from me. I too melt like butter on a hot plate whenever Violet tries getting intimate with me. In other words, we were too easy, so I shouldn’t really criticize him.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you three together today,” Papa Stan commented as he walked into the corridor.

“Some stuff happened, so she’s tagging along,” I told him. I could explain the whole story, but I was more interested in other things. Namely, in “reminding” Sophie of something.

She looked up at me, cursing her dear baby sister and pleading for mercy at the same time as she hugged Oliver. She was looking super-duper adorable as she turned a bit red and fished out of her bag a neatly wrapped small box. That got me completely surprised because we never did that once we packaged the chocolate. Maybe sis thought it’d be better to have it wrapped as a present? Now, I was wishing I had done the same to mine. So was Violet, by the looks of it.

“Thanks! Looks like I’m getting truckloads of chocolate today.”

“Oh, you’ve been getting lots?” my sister asked with thinly veiled jealousy. How cute.

“Yup, from Violet and Abby and now you too.”

A puff of air escaped me before I could contain my snickering. I was laughing at the two of them, just to be clear. Stan, because he thought that his daughter, her wifey and sister-in-law were a lot of people and Sophie for obvious reasons. The face she made once she knew Stan didn’t get chocolate from other women was priceless. For someone older than me, she sure was naive at times, but I guess that’s par for the course when it’s your first love. I too did, said and thought some pretty dumb things before getting to date Violet. I still do, sometimes.

“Why don’t you and I go somewhere for a bit? Leave these two lovebirds alone for a bit?” he asked Sophie.

“A-are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Oh yeah! They are good girls, they won’t do anything stupid if left unsupervised.”

That totally wasn’t what my sister meant, but she wasn’t going to point it out, nor was I.

“It will be fun!” I told sis as I hung from her coat. “Also, didn’t you say before that you spend too much time stuck inside the house?”

“Well... yeah, but... Doesn’t Stan want to enjoy some peace and quiet during the weekend?”

Stan jumped right in saying he too spends too much time stuck inside four walls, finally convincing sis to go out on a not-a-date with him. But first, he wanted to change into something better.

“I don’t mind if you go out like that,” Sophie told him.

“Thanks, but since you always dress so nicely, I want to put a bit more effort. Can’t drag you down, can I?” he told her without even giving sis a chance to answer as he sped up the stairs.

Now, it was the time to congratulate my sister on getting a date with Stan on Valentine’s Day.

“I-it’s not a date!” my sister hushed at me, getting almost as red as Violet would.

“Hmm? Reaaly? A man and a woman, nicely dressed, go out together on Valentine’s Day, and it’s not a date? I see, I see.”

My sis now looked like a redfish with how flushed she was and kept opening and closing her mouth without uttering a word. She wanted to argue with me, but she could only argue with herself.

“Honey, don’t tease your sister so much,” Violet jumped in defence of her sister-in-law.

“Sorry, it’s been a while since someone got so flustered from my teasing.”

“So, now it’s my fault?” she sighed.

“Tee-hee!”

She shook her head and reeled me in closer, maybe as an attempt to contain me.

Stan was coming back down, so we got quiet. He went for a smart casual look. Dark brown leather shoes, blue jeans with a dark brown belt, a dark burgundy t-shirt under a dark green sports jacket. I could even smell a bit of cologne as he stood by us.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yup, lots better,” I said as I got free from Violet and got behind him. I pushed him and sis towards the door and spewed whatever nonsense came to mind as I ushered them out of the door.

When I turned around, I saw Violet with her glasses raised to the forehead as she hid her face behind a hand.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Now you’ve done it,” she sighed.

“What? What did I do?”

“‘Have a nice date’,” she quoted as she uncovered her eyes to stare at me. “Really?”

“...Tee-hee?”

She shook her head and rolled her eyes before reaching out and pulling me by the hand as she scolded me for making things harder for my sister while also calling to attention Sophie’s feelings for Papa Stan.

“You take a lot after him, so it should be fine, right?”

She stopped and glared at me while I made myself look as cute as I could. Soon enough, her expression mellowed out and I was being pulled for hugs and kisses while our cat demanded some attention to himself too.

We solved it by sitting on the couch hip to hip and laying him between us. Once he settled down, we finally could flirt and make out to our hearts' content until it was time to prepare our lunch.

Today, we’d make hamburgers and rice, and we’d call the whole family to eat at Violet’s place. Dad was most likely too busy about the door and his new business while Papa Stan and Sophie were taking a walk, so they’d work an appetite soon enough, and we figured we might as well invite everyone over since we were cooking anyway. We took care of not going overboard with the garlic on the other’s food, but there were still some comments about the smell around the house once they started arriving. I’ll admit, the quantity Violet used was a bit too intense for me at first, but after the third bite, I got very into it. Kinda like with spicy food, it got better as I ate. This was also one of the few times that I saw Violet taking some joy out of eating.

“Hey, babe?” I called out while we were doing the dishes.

“Hmm? Hmm! Mmh!”

“Hehe, just as we thought, it’s not unpleasant, is it?”

“Fufu, no it is not.”

With our stomachs full, we’d be doing lots of snuggling and kissing once we were done cleaning that I was looking forward to. There was also another surprise I had for her that I was dying to see her reaction.

“Violet, look!” I hushed her as I pointed at her dad.

She looked, but she didn’t understand what had gotten me so excited. I then told her to look at what he was eating and from where it was coming.

“Oh! I see it now.”

Stan sat on his usual seat, cross-legged and eating chocolate. Sophie’s chocolate. It was the first box he opened, so he had yet to realise that, out of us three, they were the only ones heart-shaped. A bit of a trick we pulled on sis, as we reserved that shape solely for me and Violet, anyone else got squared-shaped ones.

Silly as it might sound, what got me excited was the fact that hers were the first ones he started eating. If you asked me, I’d surely tell you that he’d start with the ones given to him by his daughter.

“There might not be anything to it too,” Violet told me, keeping me grounded in reality. That was also true, but one can dream, right?

“Let’s go for a nap,” I told her as I stretched my body, starting to feel lazy now that digestion was going in full gear. Violet of course took that chance to wrap her arms around me, making us walk funny as she led us to the bathroom after bidding everyone goodbye for now.

When we got to the bedroom, I wiggled out of her hold and got to search under the bed.

Weird, there’s another bag here.

I pulled out both bags and looked at Violet.

“I saw that you stashed something for me, so I decided to also stash my gift to you with it.”

I had a small giggling fit, not having expected to have a surprise for me delivered that way. It didn’t last that long because I was super curious to see what she had gotten me. It was from the same store as mine, making me even more curious.

“No way!” I gasped once I unfolded the white night dress she had gotten me.

“Pfft, fufu! We bought the same present,” she giggled as she looked at hers. “Let me guess, Mathilda gave you the idea and told you not to mention anything to me too.”

Yup, that was exactly what had happened. She told me to get Violet some naughty lingerie, but I had more or less done that before, not to mention that we still lived with our parents and did our laundry with them, so it would be bad if they saw it hanging to dry. I also wanted to give her something she could use more often than just for bedroom fun. In the end, we agreed to get her a cute night dress.

“Yeah, it was exactly the same conversation I had with her. Although... now that we are trying it on... isn’t the fabric a bit too transparent?”

It was very faint, but yeah, you could kinda see through it from certain angles with the light we had in the bedroom. I didn’t tell her, but the fact we were still wearing our chokers made it look a bit kinky too.

“Well, it’s whatever,” she shrugged. “I like it anyway.”

“...”

“...Legs?”

“Legs,” I said with a nod, not averting my eyes for one second from what got my attention.

She got in bed and called out to me as she lifted the covers and tapped the mattress. Violet was going to let me sleep between her legs while hugging one of them and using her groin as a headrest.

She let out a squeaky whimper as I gave her thigh a goodnight kiss and told me not to do that.

We were all settled when there was a knock on our door.

“Our child wants to come in,” I said from under the covers.

Violet grumbled something, but then, we heard Sophie’s voice from the outside telling Oliver to let us alone since today was a special day.

“Abby? What’s wrong?” Violet asked as I crawled under the covers to put my face close to hers.

“Hearing my sister saying that got me feeling needy,” I admitted once we were face to face.

"Fufu, nice, isn’t it?”

“Yeah...”

“...Erm, Abby? Can I ask you something?”

It’s been a while since she asked me that. I thought that we were at a point where such a question simply wasn’t needed anymore. I agreed to it, of course.

“Ok, so... remember that wedding procession we saw at the park?”

“Of course, it was only a few hours ago.”

“Right. So, erm, it got me thinking... It’s not a proposal mind you, but... what are your thoughts about marriage now?”

That’s something I hadn’t thought about in a long time.

My thought about it, huh?

When I kept second-guessing myself and doubting my own worth, I thought I should never get married because I’d be anchoring Violet and dragging her down. Now, after being together for almost a year as a couple, spending almost every second of the day with her and making plans for our future together, I didn’t feel like it was a bad thing. It didn’t work with my parents, but Violet and I were different. We communicated, we understood each other, and we strived to have a harmonious relationship.

“If you were to ask me in the future, I’d say ‘yes’.”

“Hmm... I see.”

I looked at her face and immediately knew what was going on in that head of hers and I couldn’t stop myself from smiling and letting her know that I knew.

“Although, I’d prefer being the one asking since you were the one confessing and initiating everything last time. It’s only fair, right?”

“...Nope, I’ll do it.”

“Pfft, hehe. Why?”

“...Being asked is a lot more embarrassing than asking, isn’t it?”

Is it? Honestly, I doubted it.

Whatever happens, happens. Judging by her face, it was still a year until that question popped up. We’d figure it out then.