“This is my list of possible baby names. Since I know she’s a girl now, it’s much easier to narrow down.”
“What was your reasoning behind these?”
“Jane was for my first landlady in Spokane. She watered her porch plants with a measuring cup.”
“That sounds very precise.”
“She measured everything in her garden. Fertilizer. Compost. Water for every plant.” Reese smiled. “She once told me most problems start when people stop measuring.”
“Did she know she was dispensing wisdom?”
“No. She thought she was talking about petunias.”
“That’s usually where wisdom comes from.”
She laughed softly.
“I actually like the name a lot,” she said. “I just can’t hear it without seeing her muttering to her flowers.”
She tapped the next name. “I like Maeve.”
“Maeve sounds like a warlord.”
“That’s a point in Maeve’s favor.”
“It sounds like she’d conquer a neighboring kingdom before lunch.”
Reese grinned and looked down at the list again. “See, that’s the problem. Jane feels too much like a real person. Maeve feels like she’d arrive carrying a sword.”
“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“True.” They both looked at the third name.
“Elsie?” Axel asked.
Reese ran her finger over the ink on the page. “I keep coming back to that one.”
“It suits her.”
“What do you think an Elsie looks like?”
Axel considered it. “I know she’s small.”
“She’s currently eighteen weeks old.” She laughed. “But... I don’t know. Elsie just feels right.”
“It does.”
She nodded. “Elsie,” she said again. The moment lingered between them, and then Reese closed the notebook.
“Come with me,” she said, taking his hand.
She led him through the bedroom door at the end of the hall. Two packed bags sat at the foot of her bed. Axel recognized what they meant.
He had kept his own belongings packed for years as a child because every foster placement could end at any moment. He stepped around the bags without a word. Reese would unpack when she was ready.
They undressed each other in the lamplight. Reese worked his shirt up his stomach and over his head, and there was no hesitation, no careful checking of his face, no waiting to be sure.
She dropped the shirt on the chair and went for his belt like she’d already decided how the night would go. Then he helped her out of her clothes.
