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Chapter Eight – November 6

The next morning, as Nick and I were fighting over the last of the Cheerios, Nick’s cell phone rang. I grinned in triumph, pouring the little o’s in my bowl, as Nick reached for his phone.

“Lo?” he said. He made a face.

“Bri, you just cost me my last bowl of Cheerios. Sup?”

He listened for another moment, than pressed a button on his phone. Brian and Leighanne’s voices filled the kitchen.

“Congratulations,” they said simultaneously. I smiled and looked over at Nick. “Thank you guys.”

“Y’know Nick, it would be nice if I didn’t have to keep up with you by constantly checking your Twitter status,” Brian teased.

“I’m sorry. If it makes you feel better, Liv had to tell me to call my parents yesterday,” Nick said. Brian laughed.

“That doesn’t surprise me. By the way, what’s up with the pepto bismol shirt you were wearing in the picture?”

Nick grinned. “It was my good luck shirt.”

“I think Liv’s the one that needs the good luck. That shirt was horrendous,” Leighanne said with a laugh.

“Real men can get away with wearing pink,” Nick said defensively.

“I've worn pink before," Brian said. "But it was a normal lightish pink. Not a bubblegum pink."

“Hey Bri, how’s Kevin doing?” I asked, changing the subject. He had been on my mind since the wedding.

Brian sighed. “The last time I talked to him he was packing. He said he needed to get away from the craziness, so he rented a house in this little town called Sadieville that’s east of Lexington. I guess there are less than 300 people in the whole place. He and Mason are going to be wilderness men for a month or so.”

“Is being alone good for him right now?” Nick asked.

“Whenever he’s needed to think, he’s gone someplace secluded,” Brian reasoned. “More than likely he just needs some time to calm down and think out a plan of action. It’s not like there’s much that can distract him in a place where there’s less than 300 people.”

“Well, if you hear from him and he needs anything let us know,” I said. Brian laughed.

“He’s a stubborn old man,” he teased. “But I’ll let you know if he does call. Anyhow, we won’t keep you guys, but we’ll see you in a month for the video shoot and cruise.”

“Alright, love you guys,” I called out.

“Right back at you,” Leighanne said.

Nick made kissy noises into the phone. “Oh Brian, I love you so much. I’ll be counting the days until I can hold you in my arms again.”

“Oh, Nick, baby, I’ll be dreaming of your rock hard abs under that pink shirt when I go to sleep every night,” Brian purred back.

"I'll go flamingo on your tight ass," Nick replied with a lisp.

“Alright guys, we get it,” Leighanne said laughing.

Nick and Brian laughed. After a mutual ‘Later,’ Nick hung up.

“You guys are mean,” I said. Nick grinned.

“Y’know, if you hadn’t already slept with one Littrell, you and Leighanne would make all my dreams come true,” he said. He took his bowl to the sink; I rolled my eyes.

“You are such a guy,” I said. He chuckled. “Yeah, I’m guessing that’s one of my good traits.”

I heard the water come on as he rinsed his bowl. A few seconds later I felt his lips on my neck.

“I’m going to spend a couple hours in the studio. Let me know if you need anything.”

I drained the last few drops of sugary milk from the bottom of my bowl. “Will do.”

Nick disappeared to his recording studio in the back of the house. After rinsing out my bowl, I whistled. Four pairs of feet pounded on the hard wood floor. Our dogs Bitsy, Iggy, Lila, and Atari were ready to go outside.

“Alright you guys,” I said. “I’m taking you out two at a time. Atari and Iggy, you’re first.”

I had learned quickly that walking both of my Boston Terriers, Bitsy and Atari, at the same time was not a good idea. Within a few days I had learned that the boys walked well together and the girls walked well together. Any other combination led to disaster.

I took off down the beach with Atari and Iggy chained together. They nipped at each other playfully but kept focused and did their business. After about twenty minutes, they began to pant and I knew it was time for the second shift. I allowed the boys to run in and slurp greedily at the water bowls while I leashed Bitsy and Lila.

As I headed down the beach a second time, I noticed a man following me at a distance. I slowed down, allowing the gap between me and the man to narrow. Bitsy took the opportunity to pee and I took the opportunity to glance over my shoulder.

It was a photographer.

“Is this really how you want to spend your day?” I called over my shoulder. The photographer didn’t respond. “When you were growing up did you think, ‘Gee, one day I want to take a picture of a lady while her dog pees on the sand.’?”

I must have hurt the guy’s feelings; he disappeared. Cutting our walk short, I headed back to the house. After letting the girls loose, I drifted upstairs.

It wasn’t the first time I had experienced a run-in with the paparazzi. I had learned really quickly that it was much more fun to read celebrity gossip when you weren’t a part of the gossip. I used to love pouring over websites such as Perez Hilton and TMZ; Nick had warned me that the easiest way to avoid scrutiny and false rumors was to just turn a blind eye to the sources. And so I had.

Without any conscious thought of where I was walking, I drifted into the baby’s room. We already had the crib, changing table, rocker, and dresser. Nick had bought the supposed ‘one of a kind’ pieces at a swank baby store soon after a paternity test confirmed that Nick was indeed my little girl’s daddy. Everything had cost a fortune; Nick didn’t even bat an eye.

I drifted over to the rocker and sank down. It definitely needed a cushion. I looked around the room. The walls were a brilliant white and a huge window overlooked the ocean. Soft grey carpet provided just the right calming effect to the walls.

Even though we had all the necessities, we still had a lot of work to do. I wanted pink curtains hugging the window that tied back with pink and white polka dot sashes. We also needed to find bedding for the crib and decorations for the walls. I knew that I wanted to keep the walls white; my mom had painted my room in pinks and purples and I knew from experience there was such a thing as too much pink. The white would maintain the brightness of the room.

With my mental to-do list still running through my head, I stood up from the rocker, letting it creak back and forth by itself for a second. I wandered over to the changing table and reached down for the baby name book. Even though I knew I would probably need a team of horses to help me up, I sat cross legged on the floor and began to flip through the book.

The first pages of the book contained a list of the top baby names. Emma and Isabella were neck and neck as the number one girl name. I paused, trying each name with ‘Carter.’ They didn’t sound right. Other names in the Top 100 included Kaylee, Trinity, and Amelia. Those didn’t sound right either.

I moved on from the Top 100, spending some time looking up name meanings. I was so engrossed that I didn’t hear Nick come in until he was sitting beside me.

“Whatcha doing?”

I jumped, then laughed. I held up the book. “Looking at names. Did you know your name means ‘victorious people’?”

Nick grinned. “That’s cause I’m a winner.”

I rolled my eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“What does your name mean?”

“Mine’s derivative of ‘olive branch’, so Olivia means peace.”

“And what about our middle names?”

“Well, Gene is short for Eugene, but it means well-born or noble. And then my middle name, Renee, means reborn.”

“So you’re peaceful and reborn and I’m victorious and noble. We make a very good pair,” Nick said, kissing my temple. He scooted closer, taking the book in his hands. I saw him flip through and stop at the Top 100 list.

“I’m crossing off any names that are attached to a girl I’ve previously dated,” Nick said.

“Does that mean the whole list is no good?” I asked. Nick grinned.

“You give me way too much credit,” he said.

He reached behind his ear and produced a pencil. He marked off almost twenty names. We studied the list for a few more minutes. Suddenly Nick snapped his fingers.

“I have an idea,” he said. He flipped to the back of the book and yanked out one of the blank liner pages. The librarian in me wanted to slap his hands and yell. He began to tear the page into tiny squares of paper.

“You write down your top five names and I’ll write down mine. Then we’ll see if we have any that we both like.”

“Good idea,” I said. “But, next time, ask me for some paper. You just desecrated a book.”

Nick shook his head. He made me turn away as he wrote down his five names. Then with a little nudge, he handed me his pencil. I wrote down the five I liked. We tossed all ten pieces of paper into a pile in front of us.

“Alright, let’s open ‘em,” Nick said. We leaned forward in a mad scramble to unfold the squares. When we were done we surveyed our work. Amazingly, we had three names in common.

“So we both like 39, 47, and 90,” Nick said. I nodded.

“I can’t believe you like Genesis,” I said. “I thought you wanted a normal name.”

Nick laughed. “I put that one in as a joke. Good music, though.”

“Thank goodness,” I said. I glanced back at the book, then up at Nick.

“Have you thought about a middle name?” I asked. He shook his head.

“Want to do some more slips?” he asked. I saw his hand go to the front liner page.

“NO!” I yelled. He laughed, letting the book drop to the carpet. He held up his hands. I blushed.

“Sorry, you’re killing the bibliophile in me,” I said. I tucked a stray piece of hair behind my ears. “I’ve been thinking about her middle name,” I said softly.

“Okay, what have you been thinking?”

I smiled down at the carpet, then glanced over at him.

“Nichole,” I said. Nick looked surprised.

“That’s the female version of my name,” he said.

I laughed. “I know. I thought she should take after her daddy.”

“Well, what about your middle name? Maybe it should be Renee,” he suggested. I shook my head.

“No. Ever since we found out the test results and put that nightmare behind us, the name Nichole has been coming to my mind over and over again. At first I thought maybe we should spell it N-i-c-k-o-l-e, but I keep coming back to Nichole with an ‘h’.”

Nick picked up the book again. It was a rare moment when he was absolutely quiet; this was one of those moments. When he finally lifted his eyes to mine; his were wet.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Nichole sounds perfect.”

“I love you too,” I whispered back. I leaned over and kissed him softly. Before I started to cry, I pulled away and tapped the book.

“So if we agree on Nichole, maybe we should try out our three first names with it.”

Nick nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. “Yeah. We need to find out which one sounds the best when we yell it out.”

I laughed. “Yell?”

Nick smiled. “Yeah, I mean whenever I was in big trouble mom would scream ‘NICKOLAS GENE CARTER!’ and I always knew she meant business.” He winked at me. “Actually, you’ve done that to me a couple times too.”

I blushed. I had. I couldn’t help it; his name just rolled off my tongue.

“Okay, you have a point. So let’s see. Try number 39…”

Nick cleared his throat. “RILEY NICHOLE CARTER!” he yelled. The sound bounced off the walls. We looked at each other and shrugged.

“Not bad,” I said. My finger trailed down the list and stopped at number 47. I cleared my throat.

“BROOKLYN NICHOLE CARTER!” I yelled. Nick smiled.

“Nice yell technique,” he said. I laughed. His finger trailed over to number 90.

“PAYTON NICHOLE CARTER!” he yelled. We looked at each other again.

I sighed. “I’m going to have to think about this awhile,” I admitted. Nick nodded.

“I almost hate to name her until we see her,” he added.

“I agree. I think when we finally see her we’ll know if she’s a Riley, Brooklyn, or Payton.”

Nick closed the book and stood up. After putting it back on the changing table, he helped me get up off the floor. I wobbled slightly, his arms tightened around me. I laughed, my forehead resting on his upper arm.

We walked out of the room hand in hand. At the top of the stairs, I tugged his arm gently. He turned to me.

“Just so you know, I think maybe we should keep our list of names to ourselves,” I said. Nick nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, otherwise we’re going to get a million more suggestions and the guilt trip that a great-great grandparent was named such and such and it would mean so much if we could keep the tradition alive,” Nick said. “I don’t want my daughter named Mildred.”

I laughed. “I totally agree.”

After another kiss, Nick made his way back to the studio while I headed to the car.

It was time to go curtain shopping.