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He helped Lacy lower herself onto the couch, her belly now so large it was making it hard for her to do even that. She sighed with relief as she sank into the cushions, closing her eyes and bringing her hands to her swollen stomach. She rubbed it back and forth, humming for a moment before her eyes opened again and landed on Derek.
He sat next to her and pulled her feet onto his lap. Her ankles were swollen, and he began rubbing them, eliciting murmurs of approval from his wife.
“How is little Joan of Arc today?” he asked as Lacy relaxed further into her seat.
“Kicking up a storm,” Lacy admitted, still rubbing her belly. “I can’t believe there’s still two weeks to go. I’m ready for her to be here now.”
“Ready to meet her?” Derek asked.
“And just ready not to be pregnant anymore. I don’t really like being the size of a house.”
“You’re beautiful,” he corrected, and she snorted a soft breath.
“I can be beautifulandlarge. Both things can be true at once.”
“Well, I’ll just speak to the beautiful part.” Derek laughed, shaking his head slightly at the woman he loved as he continued to rub her swollen feet and ankles. They sat in companionable silence for a few seconds, the kind of silence that can only be found in the company of people you are wholly comfortable with. And Derek would have been perfectly content to sit like that with his wife for the rest of the night until it was time for them to go to bed.
But then Lacy let out a sigh as her eyes fluttered open. “We likely should get serious about her name.” She gave her belly another pat. “She’ll be here before we know it.”
Derek chewed the inside of his lip. He’d been thinking about that a lot lately, about what they would name their daughter, and he had more than a few ideas.
“I guess it is that time, huh?” He mused, never once stopping his massage of Lacy’s feet. “What about Daisy?”
She shook her head. “I had a hamster named Daisy growing up. It was mean and it bit me all the time. I don’t want our daughter named after that old thing.”
Derek chuckled and then looked at her expectantly.
“Ruth?” Lacy offered, and then it was Derek’s turn to shake his head.
“You want us to have a Baby Ruth?”
Lacy scrunched up her nose. “You’re right. Didn’t think of that.”
They went on like that for a while, each of them offering a name and the other shooting it down for one reason or the other. Andrea, Laura, Blake, Courtney, Alexandria, one after the other they were all proposed and subsequently vetoed.
Then, something tickled at the back of his mind. A name that he had read in a book once. He looked at Lacy, a smile blooming across his face as the name fell from his lips. His wife’s eyes lit up, and she repeated the name back to him. Then she said it again, chewing each syllable before she uttered it.
With a nod she grinned at him. “That’s it.”
He smiled back. “That’s it.”
They sat like that for a moment, grinning at each other like mad as they said their daughter’s name a few more times, trying it out to make sure they still liked it after they heard it a few times. Derek knew it was now or never to bring up what he needed for the following night.
“Want to go to St. Nick’s Place tomorrow?” he asked abruptly, unsure of how else to broach the subject.
“Why?” She furrowed her brows.
“I know the party is cancelled this year,” Derek explained. “But it still might be nice to spend a little bit of time there tomorrow evening just me and you. Just because we aren’t celebrating with the town doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate at all. I’ll pick up some sparkling grape juice, we can dance in the ballroom and then eat pizza on the floor?”
He hated that he had to lie to her, even if it was for a surprise like this, and he tried not to fidget with how uncomfortable it made him.
Lacy flushed with gratitude as her eyes roved over his face. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you,” he answered, holding her gaze.
That, at least, was not a lie.
“I think I’d really like that.” Lacy gave him a short, sweet nod. “St. Nick’s Place it is.”
