This time, Bette brought Tina’s hand to her lips, kissing each finger slowly, eyes shut, remembering, again, how close she’d come to giving up this life with Tina.

“I’m never going to hurt you again, Bette,” Tina said softly, reading her mind as she traced the brunette’s features with her fingers.  “I’m yours, forever.”  Bette caught Tina’s hand, turned it to kiss the blonde’s palm, eyes still shut.

“Thank you for finding me, Tina, and giving me a chance at this life with you and Angelica,” she whispered, opening her eyes, luminous brown orbs making contact with Tina’s hazel ones.  Their eyes locked into a shared gaze, the weight of emotion leaving them speechless, feeling as if time had stood still and the clocks had stopped.  At this moment, their shared glance held a lifetime, an eternity, compressed in a second.

The elevator door opened with whoosh, and they waited a beat longer, as they held their gaze, before stepping out, smiling, hand-in-hand.

“Thank you for taking me back, Bette,” Tina responded, as they walked down the short lobby to the waiting car.

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Lara surveyed Bette and Tina’s kitchen, which was done up in ebony, stone, and lacquer, enjoying the textural feel of its surfaces, particularly the cool lacquer-polished stone of the vast stand-alone island.  It was a super-modern kitchen, but full of fun and personality, also.  Lara especially liked the kitchen unit custom-built against the kitchen’s main back wall.

A bank of appliances had been installed into the unit in such a way that all their surfaces formed a uniform, unbroken line, from one end to the next.  Each appliance had a covering glass surface especially sized and cut to be installed over the surface of the appliance, in order that no break appeared in the exterior of the unit, when all appliances were closed.  The appearance of the wall-to-wall kitchen unit when all appliances were pushed into their resting positions was that of a long smooth glass.

The appliances consisted of two ovens on the left side of the unit, one oven on top of the other, then a microwave next to them, and a cabinet that slid out containing sub-cabinets for the cappuccino maker, juicer/blender, rice cooker, and mixer – each one of them detachable.   To the right of that cabinet were two dish washers, one on top for small loads, and another below that for “party loads."  To the right of the dishwashers were a spacious freezer and refrigerator unit.   And with one touch of the appropriate app found in either of the control panels embedded on either side of the kitchen unit, a frosted white or black tinting (your choice) over the smooth glass that covered all of that could make all the appliances visually disappear.