“No carrot cake. And no red velvet.”
“No?”
“Carrots don’t go in cake, and I’m not a big fan of red velvet.”
“What flavor, then?”
“Maybe cupcakes,” Helena said more to herself than Becky. “Or different desserts, not one big cake that everyone has to eat or not get dessert at all.”
“What’s your favorite dessert?” Becky asked.
“I love a good brownie. Double chocolate with icing on top.”
“So, chocolate, then?”
Helena chuckled and said, “I could eat chocolate off your body, if you want. Melt it and lick it off.”
Becky’s jaw dropped, and she nodded rapidly.
“Yeah? I have the good stuff at home. The expensive kind I only use on the best fruit or ice cream. I could dip some strawberries in it and feed them to you, too.”
“God, yes. Are you the world’s most perfect woman?”
Helena laughed and replied, “Maybe for you.”
Becky smiled and said, “Okay. Enough fictional wedding planning. What’s the next question?”
Helena picked up the card and read, “What’s something you’re not willing to compromise on?”
“Kids,” Becky stated.
“Kids? How so?” she asked. “We talked about it before, but we should probably do it again now, huh?”
“I don’t want them.”
“Okay,” Helena said. “I don’t, either.”
“I just don’t want to risk it. I’m almost forty, so not only would it be considered a geriatric pregnancy and come with more risks, but I honestly don’t think I actually want to have a child, even if I didn’t have the baby myself. I don’t know that I’d want to adopt, and I don’t think I’d want my wife to have one for us.”
“I agree.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Iamforty, and I’ve waited a long time to find one woman to spend my life with,” Helena said. “I’ve had other relationships, but none made me feel like they could actually be forever, and if it’s forever with you, I want that: forever withyou. If you and I got married in that ceremony we just built for ourselves, and we decided to have a kid, then we’d both be maybe in our mid-forties by the time we had them. I’d be exhausted, and it would be hard for us to have the time together that I want. I’m not sure I ever wanted kids before, but I don’t want them now either way.”
“One more important thing we agree on, then,” Becky said with a smile.
“Next one?” she asked.
Becky picked up the card and read it to herself before she said, “What goals do you have for our relationship?” She shook her head. “That Nia… I don’t know how she always knows what to do in these things, but she does.”
“What goals do I have?”
“Yes,” Becky said and set the card down on the small stack of ones they’d already read.
“Well, for tonight, I’d like to make love to you until the sun comes up. That’s a pretty important goal of mine,” Helena told her, moving until she had Becky on her back. The big stack of cards fell to the floor and scattered while Becky laughed, but she continued, “And tomorrow, maybe a threesome with Nia, but ifnot, that’s fine, too. I’ll still make love to you until the sun comes up.”
“And after that?” Becky asked and wrapped her arms around Helena’s neck.
