When Tessa had first come up with her plans to grow her own strawberries, it had all seemed so simple. The plant went into the ground. You watered it when it was dry, and put down fertiliser according to the instructions on the fertiliser bag. Eventually, strawberries would appear. Simple.
As Tessa looked down at yet another dying plant, her eyes narrowed. The plant's browning leaves seemed curled up at her as if in accusation, saying Right there! There's the murderer, officer!
She groaned. Kaia was all green thumbs, but in the year since they'd moved in together, Tessa had managed to kill every single plant she'd been responsible for. Hardy herbs, sensible perennials, unkillable air plants: under her tender loving care, all of them took one look at her and died.
Was it something in the water? Was she somehow watering them wrong? If a rain cloud could manage to do it, then Tessa should have been able to. She had a law degree and a law practice she built up from nothing. She had to be smarter than a cloud.
Ruby leaned over the garden fence. "You kill another one?"
Tessa threw a gardening glove at her. It whizzed past the teenager, as ineffectual as any reprimand that Tessa ever aimed at Ruby. "It was fine yesterday!"
Her foster-daughter ambled over, then bent down to look at the strawberry plant. It remained crispy, the little burgeoning berries now crinkled up into hard pebbles, beyond even the most adventurous measure of edibility. "Sure. I believe you. Hey, never get a pet, okay?"
"I don't know why they keep doing this," Tessa growled. "They do it to spite me, I swear."
"Is Kaia home yet? Just ask her."
Tessa shook her head. "She's coming home late tonight. She's in talks to expand the grocery store sponsorship. They want more products for the brand."
The two of them left the horticultural murder scene, and headed inside.
When Tessa had first stepped inside the little cottage, helping Kaia work on a new flavour of jam, the place had unmistakably belonged to an eldery woman. It was immaculately clean, but cluttered with a lifetime's worth of treasures. Doilies lined every surface, the curtains were faded with age, and old, well-used cooking books weighed down the kitchen shelves.
Now, the feeling of cosiness and comfort was the same, but some changes had been made. The doilies and tchotchkes were gone, either boxed up or moved on to new homes. The faded old curtains had been replaced by bright, summery prints, classic but new.
The cooking books remained, though. First in line on the shelf, though, in pride of place, was a thick leather-bound diary, filled with recipes.
The space was delightful, cosy and welcoming but open and fresh. Over the past year, the little family had settled into it, all three of them learning to live together.
If Grandma Kingsley could see it now, Tessa had no doubt that she'd approve of it.
But perhaps, Tessa thought as she surveyed the mess she'd made of the kitchen, maybe not at that very moment.
"What did the flour do to you?" Ruby ran a finger through the layer of clumpy flour that had been spilled over the workspace, then frowned. "Uh, why's it gritty?"
"It's sugar. I was trying to make a crumble."
"Shit yeah, I love crumbles. How'd it go?"
Tessa looked over the mess of ingredients that covered the kitchen. "Go ahead and guess," she said dryly.
During her previous life as a high-powered criminal attorney, food had just been something that people brought to her. Her time, billed by the hour, was too valuable to waste on something as simple as cooking. The closest she'd ever got to cooking was putting condiments on her delivery Thai.
Ruby smirked. She had an awful smirk, full of horrid cat-like smugness. Tessa scowled at her, and tried not to think about how she'd probably looked the same in her own teenage years.
"It's for Kaia's birthday, yeah?"
Tessa nodded. She crossed her arms, and leaned back against the counter-- and then stood up again with a start, belatedly realising the mess she was leaning against. "It's her birthday," she said, brushing clumps of flour and butter off the back of her cashmere sweater. "I'm trying to make a dessert."
"Lemme guess. With fresh strawberries?"
"With fresh strawberries," Tessa confirmed, gloomily thinking of the withered little plant outside.
"You're screwed," Ruby grinned. "Want to get her takeout instead?"
"It's her birthday. Do you really think it's acceptable for someone to come home to her closest loved ones on her birthday and find that they've prepared for her a deeply meaningful meal of-- what, fish and chips?"
Ruby didn't say anything. The two of them stood in the kitchen for a moment, surrounded by the judgmental evidence on display. Up on the wall, the cuckoo clock ticked back and forth like Chinese water torture.
Tessa picked up her keys. "What's her favourite type of fish, again?"
*
Kaia had gone to the meeting expecting to be given a few pages to sign. Instead she'd been handed something that was more like a phone book, a heavy slab of papers covered from top to bottom in fine, dense text.
She groaned. Couldn't the grocery store people just say "Hey, give us three more flavours of jam, and we will give you three times more money?" That would be nice. She'd like that a whole lot better than she liked in accordance with section iii(b), the party under the contract, henceforth known as Ms Kinglsey, subject to clause iv...
As the lights of her little cottage came into view, though, all her anxiety sluiced away. She pulled her cantankerous old van up alongside Tessa's Jag, turned off the ignition, and took a breath.
Outside, the familiar outline of Mount Ruapehu welcomed her home. You could see the mountain range from miles away, but the precise arrangement of peaks and valleys that she could see from her farm told her that she was where she belonged.
Inside, there were voices. There was the sound of Tessa, her clipped, crystal-edged courtroom tones on show in the way they were when she was giving commands, and then the lower monotone of Ruby mumbling something, followed by the raucous spike of her laughter.
The boughs of the mulberry trees swayed in the cool evening breeze. It had been a late summer, and they were still dripping with heavy purple fruit.
The sights, sounds, and scents of home.
On the way to her front door, Kaia plucked a mulberry. It was still warm from the light of the day, and nearly perfectly ripe.
At the doorstep, she knocked with a sing-song rat-a-tat-tat.
Tessa opened the door, her figure haloed by the hallway light. "Welcome back," she said, and moved forward to kiss her. Kaia leaned into it with a sigh, letting the stress of the day disappear under Tessa's masterful kiss.
Someone made a gagging noise. Kaia pulled back. "Hey, Ruby."
Kaia's partner may have applied to become Ruby's foster carer, but the relationship between herself and the teenager was still more like begrudging housemates than mother and daughter. Still, in a strange way, Kaia enjoyed having the kid around… now that she'd stopped tagging half the town with graffiti, anyway.
"Hey," Ruby said. "Don't look in the kitchen."
"Huh? Why shouldn't I look in t--"
"Never mind her." Tessa put her hands on Kaia's shoulders, and steered her into the living room.
There, waiting for her on the dining table, was…
"Is that... a fish with a birthday candle in it?"
"Told you she liked cod better," Ruby piped up.
Tessa narrowed her eyes, her hands on her hips as she glared down at the birthday fish. "I thought you preferred hoki."
"It's not the type of fish that's the problem!" Kaia managed between laughs. "No, no, it's fine." She squeezed Tessa in a hug. "I love it. Thank you."
Tessa huffed, her ego clearly a little bruised. "This wasn't the plan," she insisted, but allowed herself to be hugged. "There may or may not have been a plan involving a crumble..."
"Did that plan have something to do with those strawberry plants in the garden you've been trying to keep secret?"
Instead of answering, Tessa simply slid a plate of fresh hot chips over to her. "Eat your birthday fish and chips."
The evening passed in a warm blur of family, conversation, and food. It might not have been the food that Tessa had been planning, but it filled Kaia with bliss nonetheless.
After a while, Ruby stood up from the table, pushing her cleaned plate away from her.
"You're going already?" Kaia asked.
"Band night."
Tessa twirled her fork. "You've been having a lot of band nights recently."
"You like music," Ruby said, crossing her arms in front of her. "I like music, too. You know that. So what?"
On some of those band nights, Tui, an acquaintance from the local musicians' group, had come by to pick Ruby up. She'd been very polite to Kaia and Tessa, but there'd been moments when Kaia had thought that she'd seen a slight blush as she waited for Ruby...
"Tui seems to really like music, too," Kaia grinned.
Ruby turned on her heel and headed toward the door. "Gotta go!"
Tessa watched her go. She shook her head. "Kids. Should I be interfering with this? Chaperoning? Having tough conversations with Tui's father?"
The idea of Tessa trying to behave like some stodgy old sitcom dad made Kaia laugh. "I think they'll be fine. It's cute. Young love and all."
"Hmm. I suppose you're right. And on that topic..." Tessa stood from the table, extending her hand. There was a promise in her eyes, a flicker of something dark and playful.
Kaia reached out and took it, and let Tessa lead her away from the world's weirdest birthday cake, and over to their bedroom.
It had taken a while for Kaia to work through it, but the master bedroom in the house was now theirs. The decor was a mix of both of their tastes: sleek pieces of designer furniture that Kaia didn't even want to know the price of, and well-worn comfy blankets and cushions, patched and mended.
It shouldn't have worked together, but Kaia wouldn't have wanted it any other way.
Taking pride of place on the bed was a white llama wool throw, incredibly soft to touch. Lately, whenever Kaia caught sight of her freshly-shorn neighbours across the fence, Stephanie looked a little embarrassed, her now defleeced neck making her look noodly and awkward.
She'd grow it back soon enough, giving Leo more material to work with. In the meantime, Tessa and Kaia had the warmest blanket to cover them.
What was not part of the usual decor, however, were the shopping bags on the bedside table.
They weren't Kaia's usual re-used grocery store shopping bags. These were matte black, shimmering in the low light from the lamp, with red silk ribbon for handles. They looked expensive.
Kaia shivered.
Tessa's voice sunk down low, making Kaia's stomach flip. "I got you something else for your birthday, too," she murmured.
"O-oh?"
Tessa reached into one of the bags. When her hands rose up, there was something in them. Something slinky and silky, the light glimmering luxuriously on the inky blackness.
"Is that… a blindfold?"
"No. It's a tie for your wrists." Tessa held it in one hand, and then reached into the other bag to pull out something else. Something equally silky and exciting. "This is a blindfold." She cocked an eyebrow at Kaia. "Have you ever done something like this before?"
"Nope." Kaia wasn't some Bambi-eyed innocent, but the kinkier side of things had never come up. Her experience was mostly limited to one-night-stands with the women she flirted with in big-city gay bars, not lasting long enough to allow her to trust someone enough for this.
But she trusted Tessa.
Her partner in business.
Her partner in life.
Her muse.
When Tessa fastened the blindfold over Kaia's eyes, the cold kiss of the silk was enough to make her gasp.
"Excited?"
Kaia tried to laugh it off as casually as she could, but the anticipatory tremble in her voice betrayed her. "Oh, you know me," she said. "I'm always excited for birthdays."
Unable to see, unable to move, every sense of hers was roaring. As her heart pounded in her chest, Kaia's focus caught on every little sensation: the silky feel of the sheets underneath her; the mixed scents of the candle by the bedside and the dark spicy kick of Tessa's preferred perfume; the heat of Tessa's body, near enough to her to warm her, but tantalisingly far.
When Tessa drew a finger down her breastbone, Kaia couldn't help but shiver.
"Do you need a safeword?"
"How about 'strawberry'?"
Kaia could nearly hear Tessa's scowl. She laughed, then gasped as Tessa leaned in to speak into Kaia's ear, her lips barely brushing her. "Just for that," she promised, "I won't hold back."
Tomorrow, there'd be contracts to deal with, and a whole backlist of jams to make, and a teenager to wrangle into doing her homework. But for now, there was just Tessa, one hand commandingly on Kaia's chin, tilting it up to claim her mouth in a fierce, loving kiss.
"Happy birthday," Tessa whispered.
And Kaia wouldn't have it any other way.