“You know what I would love?” Rhetta asked. “To have a couple’s massage with you. I’ve always wanted to have one.”
Caroline just smiled and pressed a kiss to the side of Rhetta’s head. “Then it’s a good job that I’ve booked one for late this afternoon then, isn’t it?”
* * *
When Rhetta saw the room that they were staying in, her mouth fell open. The last time she had been here, she had only glimpsed the room when she and the other bridesmaids had posed for pictures with the bride.
Of course, she thinks, of course Caroline would book them the bridal suite. Of course she remembered that Rhetta had dreamed about staying not just in this hotel but in this very room. She kisses Caroline soundly for remembering and tries to pull her over to the bed. But just before the backs of her knees hit the edge, Caroline pulls beck, pushing Rhetta down onto the mattress when she pouts.
“We have a spa to enjoy,” Caroline reminds her. “We have three hours until our massage and we can’t go back into the spa when we’re all oily. Them’s be the rules, Princess.”
When Rhetta only pouted again, Caroline snorted and opened up their suitcase to rummage for something inside.
“What’re you looking for?” Rhetta asked, propped up on her elbows.
“Well I did get you a present for the spa, but seeing as you don’t want to go…”
“No!” Rhetta yelped. “I want to go, I want to go!”
* * *
There’s a ceremony and medals and flashing lights, but when Caroline finally gets inside the changing rooms, the first thing she sees is Rhetta waiting for her in a dark, secluded corner. She walks towards her, a smile on her face, and lets Rhetta tug her into the darkness and away from the craziness of their teammate’s celebrations.
They don’t need to speak. Rhetta just looks at her and she knows. She knows that everything that she is feeling, Rhetta is feeling too. She can see it in the sparkle of Rhetta’s eyes and feel it in the way Rhetta’s hands tremble as they hold her. Her finely muscled arms wind around Caroline’s neck and she kisses Caroline like they have all the time in the world and are the only two people in it.
They hear hooting and wolf-whistling, but when they pull apart, expecting to see their teammates rolling their eyes at them, they find that their attention is on another couple.
At the far end of the room Lavender and Perinnel are lost in each other. It’s the first time that they’ve acted as anything other than friends around the team and there are more than a few shocked faces in the locker room. Rhetta and Caroline creep out of their corner and join the crowd watching the couple, waiting for them to come up for air long enough to notice the attention they’ve garnered.
“Oh my God, can you believe this!?” Natalie exclaims, her mouth open wide with shock.
“Jealous, Geralt?” Rhetta teases quietly.
Natalie turns and looks at her with wide-eyes that soon turn narrow as she glares at Caroline. “You told her!”
“Come on, it’s not like you’re not as happily domestic as Al and me. And besides, Press came to Rhetta for advice. I couldn’t exactly keep it from her. I don’t have a death wish.”
The humour works and Natalie just snorts and rolls her eyes. They all turn back to the centre of everyone’s attention just in time to see Perinnel step back and blush furiously. Lavender looks on top of the world and ridiculously shy at the same time, and it makes a light go off in Rhetta’s head.
“Oh my God, I think that was their first kiss,” Rhetta says quietly, so only Caroline can hear.
Caroline smiled and watched as their teammates pile around the new couple. “Someone better warn them to knock it off before the cameras come in.”
Rhetta rolled her eyes and groaned. “They have so much to learn.”
* * *
Caroline was in paradise. That was her only coherent thought as she sat amid the steam, surrounded by warmth and the low, glowing light of burning coals. She didn’t really think that it could get any better. Not until the steam room door clicked open and she opened her eyes to see Rhetta’s flawless silhouette in the doorway.
“Hey there baby,” Rhetta purred from the doorway. “Miss me?”
Caroline swallowed, her eyes going wide as she watched Rhetta close and lock the steam room door behind her. Caroline didn’t even know that there was a lock. Who the hell put a lock on a steam room? What if someone collapsed and died and oh God Rhetta was swaying her hips as she walked towards her and Caroline was definitely going to die.
“R!” Caroline hissed, her pulse quickening when her eyes adjusted enough to the darkness to make out the way that the skimpy black bikini hugged Rhetta’s curves.
A smirk quirked Rhetta’s lips as she stopped and turned on the spot, letting Caroline stare. She stopped with her back turned to her fiancée, looking over her shoulder to catch Caroline staring at her ass.
“Like what you see, baby?”
Caroline’s eyes flicked up to hers, the hazel of them dark with desire.
“Come here.”
“There’s just one thing that I can’t figure out,” Rhetta wondered aloud as she moved to straddle Caroline’s thighs. “Is this a present for me… or for you?”
“Both?” Caroline suggested with a smirk as her hands wandered to Rhetta’s ass. “I think we’re both enjoying it right now, aren’t we?”
“Mmmmmm.” Rhetta’s eyes drifted closed as Caroline’s hands squeezed her ass. “Keep on like that and we’ll get thrown out, Stud.”
Caroline chuckled and leant up to press a kiss to Rhetta’s lips. “You were the one that locked the door, tiger.”
“So that I could kiss you, not so that you could get me out this bikini.,” Rhetta warned, though she was giggling and smiling whist she did it.
“Who said that I needed to get you out of your bikini?”
* * *
“I can’t wait to get you out of these pants,” Rhetta slurred into Caroline’s ear as their bodies moved together to the music. Her hands found their way to Caroline’s belt buckle and she used it to pull their hips flush together.
Caroline laughed and spun her around. “Really, R? With your mom three feet away from us?”
“Please, like my mom doesn’t know that we have sex,” Rhetta scoffed a little too loudly.
Caroline’s eyes met Alana’s over Rhetta’s shoulder. She was nowhere near drunk enough for this. She knew she shouldn’t have spent so long taking the DJ’s job.
“Well if she didn’t before, she definitely does now…”
“She told me never to marry someone who wasn’t good in the sack,” Rhetta said nonchalantly, still not realising that her mom was quite as close as she was. Either that or she was too drunk to care. Caroline wasn’t sure. She really hoped it was the former.
“I really hope that she was as drunk when she told you that,” Caroline muttered. “And that I was drunker right now.”
“We can fix that,” Rhetta grinned up at her, somehow managing to pluck a bottle of champagne from a passing waiter. “Just as long as you’re still able to carry me over the threshold of our room tonight.”
“We’re not married yet, Princess,” Caroline smirked. “No threshold carrying for you until you say ‘I do’.”
Rhetta’s resulting pout was short lived as a drunken Tamara careened backwards into them, followed immediately by her apologetic husband.
“Sorry, girls. I think it’s about time I took this one to bed,” Dave said as he pried a cheering Tamara away.
“Whoooooo, go Tamara!” Rhetta cheered. “See, Tamara’s getting some!”
“Oh my God,” Caroline laughed, covering her face with her hands. Unfortunately, when she took them away, Rhetta was still cheering. Which meant that she only had one option left.
“Come on, R. Let’s go,” she said softly as she took Rhetta by the shoulders and steered her towards her mom. When Alana turned around, Caroline pushed Rhetta gently towards her.
Alana caught Rhetta
and cuddled her close, patting her head in a half soothing, half patronising way.
“Poor baby,” She cooed at Rhetta before letting her go and nudging her back to Caroline. “And she’s your problem now.”
“Not yet!” Caroline protested, though she let Rhetta curl into her arms all the same. “Not when you’re here!”
“I’m not a problem,” Rhetta mumbled.
“Of course not, babe. You’re perfect. I’m sorry. Your mom and I were only joking!” Caroline soothed as she cuddled Rhetta tighter and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Say goodnight to your mom, then we can go to bed and drink eight pints of water, okay?”
“Noooooooo!” Rhetta whined. “Yick! I hate water!”
“Rhetta Anna!” Alana admonished.
Rhetta rolled her eyes and huffed. “Fiiiiine!”
The next morning, when Rhetta cracked open her eyes the light in the room sent a shock of pain through her head.
“Goooood morning cupcake!” Caroline greeted cheerily from the armchair that she had pulled up beside the bed for just this moment. She put down her iPad and smiled down at her beautiful girl. “I see someone is finally awake.”
“What time is it?” Rhetta groaned from beneath the covers.
“5am,” Caroline supplied in tone that far too chipper for Rhetta’s liking. “I’ve been awake since 4.”
“Urgh, why?” Rhetta asked, rolling slowly onto her side until she could see Caroline – the one sight that could never hurt her eyes, no matter how hungover she was. She was sat on the pale pink armchair in a pair of baggy jeans and a freshly laundered champions t-shirt. The window behind her lit up her golden blonde hair like a halo, cascading down her shoulders in waves that Rhetta ached to run her fingers through. “And how do you look so fucking gorgeous? I hate you!”
“No you don’t.” Caroline smiled.
“No I don’t,” Rhetta agreed sullenly. “Why are you awake so early?”
“Well someone failed to tire me out last night for starters,” Caroline began.
Rhetta paled. “I totally blacked out, didn’t I?”
“Walked straight into the room and collapsed face first onto the bed.”
Rhetta rolled back onto her front and buried her face in the mattress. She couldn’t look at her gorgeous, non-hung-over fiancée as she recounted her drunken blackout.
“Don’t worry, I managed to wake you up long enough to get a few glasses of water down you. And you didn’t throw up. That’s always a plus,” Caroline chuckled.
It only made Rhetta whimper.
“I can’t believe that I spent the night trying to get you into bed and then I collapsed into it,” Rhetta groaned. “You probably want your ring back.” She thrust out her arm. “Go on, take it. Leave me to my misery.”
Rhetta heard Caroline get up and felt her take her hand. Then the bed beside her dipped and she had to smile when she felt Caroline’s warm body pressed against hers. Caroline wrapped Rhetta’s hand around her middle and pressed a kiss to the side of Rhetta’s head.
“Not on your life, beautiful,” Caroline whispered against her messy hair. “You said yes. You can’t take it back now.”
Rhetta turned to face her and scrunched up her nose in a grin. “Promise? Even when I get too drunk and pass out in our bed.”
“Pinky promise,” Caroline said as she linked her finger with Rhetta’s and brought them to her lips to kiss.
Rhetta bit her lip then gave Caroline a coy smile. “Why don’t you let me make it up to you for last night? I’m really, really good at apologising.”
Caroline couldn’t help but smirk at the thought. “And don’t I know it.”
“Well then,” Rhetta said slowly as she slipped her hand down the toned plane of Caroline’s stomach and into her jeans.
“Not so fast,” Caroline said, catching Rhetta’s wrist and stilling it. “Why don’t we move this to the shower? You get to start.”
“Don’t I always when I’m apologising?”
“No, you get to start by brushing your teeth and showering before I get in there with you because you stink,” Caroline deadpanned. She smirked. “Then you can apologise.”
* * *
When Caroline woke up in their hotel bed, she found Rhetta smiling softly beside her, the sun shining off her beautiful dark hair. Her hair like a mermaid’s. Just the way it had been in Caroline’s dream. The one where she had been clothed in salt-stained cotton and stranded on a rocky shore. There had been a blue-green lagoon stretching out beneath her fingertips and Rhetta had swum up from its depths with dark, dangerous eyes that had drawn her out into the water.
When she had told Rhetta the story the morning after she had first had the dream, Rhetta had smiled and kissed her and made her write it down to tell to their babies one day. That had made Caroline happier, almost, than when Rhetta had said yes and held out her hand for the ring. One day, Rhetta wanted Caroline to tell their babies stories. No thought had ever made Caroline’s heart swell quite as much as that one.
“Good morning, baby,” Rhetta said softly and leant in for her ‘good morning’ kiss.
“Good morning,” Caroline replied, her voice scratchy for sleep and the emotion bubbling up in her throat at the thought of a brown eyed little girl curled up in her lap and Rhetta snuggled into her side, both listening as Caroline retold the story of the stranded sailor and the mermaid of the deep.
Rhetta sat up, the sheets falling away from her naked chest, and leant over to grab Caroline a glass of water from the bedside table. Caroline sat up to meet her, but Rhetta tilted the glass for her anyway, not spilling a drop.
“You okay, baby?” Rhetta asked as she put down the glass and pulled Caroline down to snuggle against her chest.
Caroline smiled at the warmth of Rhetta’s skin. There was nowhere she felt safer than wrapped up in Rhetta’s arms.
“I had that dream again. The one where you’re a mermaid,” Caroline confessed in her soft morning voice.
Rhetta smiled and pressed a kiss to her head. “Want to know what I dreamed about last night?”
Caroline nodded her head. She loved hearing about Rhetta’s dreams in the morning.
“I dreamt that I was walking down the aisle towards you,” Rhetta began, the fingers of one hand stroking through Caroline’s hair, gently loosening the knots she found there. “And little Allie was running in front of me, throwing petals from a basket. I woke up just before I reached you and I was sad for a moment. Then I turned around and saw your beautiful face sleeping beside me. You’re like an angel when you sleep, have I told you that?”
Rhetta had told her that. She had told her the morning after Caroline had held her as she cried herself to sleep after her ACL tear. They had been so far apart for so long and the tenderness and love in Rhetta’s eyes when she had said it had made Caroline’s heart melt.
“My mom used to say it when I was a kid. She said that I was so angelic when I was asleep and such a devil when I was awake, and why couldn’t I be like that sleeping angel all the time,” Caroline recounted, trying to keep the hint of bitterness out of her voice. She loved her mom, she did. She just couldn’t quite forget everything that had happened when she was younger.
“You’re always like an angel to me,” Rhetta said like she knew it was exactly what Caroline needed to hear. “I’ve always wanted to call you that, but I didn’t thought that my big tough goalkeeper would appreciate being called my angel.”
Caroline smiled and pressed a kiss below Rhetta’s breast. “Because being your baby is so much tougher sounding.”
Rhetta chuckled and swatted at Caroline’s hip. “That one you don’t have a choice in.”
“I guess that being your angel wouldn’t be so bad. As long as you don’t use it in public,” Caroline negotiated, secretly thrilled at the prospect. “And not in front of your brother. He would never let me live it down.”
“Alright, angel,” Rhetta agreed, running her fingertips up Caroline’s bare back. “What ti
me do we have to check out?”
Caroline smiled, glad that she had managed to keep this a secret. “By 10am tomorrow morning.”
“But… But there’s a wedding fair taking over the whole place from midday. The whole place is booked up with people staying for the fair tonight,” Rhetta said in a voice that was far too high pitched from her barely contained excitement.
“Then it’s a good job that we’re booked for the fair then isn’t it,” Caroline said as casually as she could. Truth was, she was just as excited about this as Rhetta.
“Stop it. You didn’t!” Rhetta squealed.
“Oh, I totally did,” Caroline countered, just managing to get the words out before Rhetta’s excitement all but deafened her.
Caroline was being a trooper. Rhetta had been able to tell that she had been almost as excited as Rhetta had been about the wedding fair, but two hours in and she was beginning to flag. Not that she would let Rhetta know that, of course. Especially after Rhetta had warned her not to try quite such big slices of all the wedding cakes that had been available for sampling after lunch.
She soon perked up, though, when she saw the next stall was dedicated to black and white patchwork bears of all shapes and sizes.
“Oh my God, this is so cool!” Caroline exclaimed excitedly as she tugged Rhetta closer to the stall by their joined hands. She picked up one of the bears and examined it closely before looking up eagerly at the girl behind the stall.
“Hi! My name is Amy and I own Wedding Bears along with my sister Lizzy. When Lizzy got married back in 2008, our grandma was insistent that she keep her dress to make into the baptism gown for her first child. The only problem was neither Lizzy nor her husband are religious and they didn’t want to baptise their kids. So, when Lizzy got pregnant a year later we thought it would be a great idea to get her dress and her husband’s wedding suit made in a teddy bear for their baby. We thought for sure that we would be able to find someone online to do it, but there was no one. That’s when Wedding Bears was born!”
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