Her Portrait Is Black and White

Living

Bette rolled over, her hand making contact with an empty bed, she slowly opened her eyes and ran her hand over where Tina was supposed to be sleeping. Bette rolled over and saw it was nearly 9am. She moved, last night the show had been a success, Tina was becoming a success, her show had sold out and now it was there for the public to see and to buy prints if they wanted.

Bette got up and wrapped herself in a towel robe before leaving their master bedroom, she went down stairs and smiled as the back doors were open and there was music coming from the studio which was located close to the house. she knew t once what Tina was doing.

Bette walked into the kitchen, pushing her hair out of her face, she filled the coffee machine and picked up the morning paper that was on the counter, she skimmed through it not really that bothered before pouring herself a mug of coffee. She slipped on her flip flops and headed out to the studio.

Tina was sat on her work bench the morning air rushing through the studio, Tina's hair was up with some lose strands falling over her face, she was slowly working with charcoal.

"Morning baby," Bette said softly.

Tina looked up,

"Hey, I was letting you sleep in."

"Hard to do when you move,"

"Babe I've been up since half five, it's nine now." Tina grinned.

"Why were you up so early?" Bette asked. She was worried that Tina wasn't sleeping.

"I just couldn't." Tina said softly, Bette knew not to press the issue.

"Have you eaten?"

"Not yet"

"Okay I will make us some breakfast."

"I'm just going to finish this,"

"What is it?"

"Something Peggy has commissioned me to day."

"What? Say that again?" Bette grinned, she loved that Tina was already being commissioned and helped by the people who had been at the show.

"Peggie emailed me late last night. She wants a charcoal picture of New York, so I'm using one of the photos I took when we were there and I'm drawing, she said there was no time scale but if I can get it finished before I start work on another set piece I'm going to start."

"I hope she's paying you well," Bette smiled.

"She's paying me more than enough Bette."

"Good, James is going to email the figures over shortly. We can go over them."

Tina was silent. She found talking about money hard. Bette walked over to her and gently cupped her face.

"Are you okay?" Bette asked,

Tina moved her head into Bette's soft touch.

"Yes, I know we have to talk about the money because you have to take a percentage,"

"Honey, if you want to leave it until Monday and we can do it officially at the Gallery we can do that."

"Yeah I think I would prefer that. Here it's home for us, I want to keep business outside the doors, I know we both work from here but I don't want it to overlap with our relationship. Am I making sense?" Tina asked, rubbing her neck.