"You're just incredibly hard to please." He mumbles to me from the other side of the shower curtain. I stare myself in the mirror, vigorously brushing my teeth while I'm listening to him berate me about the fact that he gives horrible suggestions. I was hoping that we could go without discussing his terrible suggestions but he's not letting it go. We almost went the entire day without talking about it, too. Well, not the whole day but nearly. I just got home from work an hour ago and even though he got off the overnight from last night and came home to go straight to sleep, we talked twice today and he didn't even mention it…so I thought that by ignoring the text he sent me and not talking about it, he got the picture. I should stop giving him so much credit. "What's wrong with them?"
I lean forward and spit out my mouthful of minty toothpaste into the sink. "What isn't wrong? You have a terrible taste in names." I cup my hands and fill them up with water to rinse my mouth out. "I was giving you the benefit of the doubt by letting you pick the girl name but you're trying to give my baby stripper names and old woman names." I wipe my mouth off with my towel hanging next to his dirty clothes hamper and take a couple steps over towards the toilet. I pull my panties down and sit down on the toilet so I can pee. "And you didn't give me just one shitty suggestion, either. All the suggestions you gave me were shitty. Every last one of them was shitty."
The shower water stops and the shower curtain draws back. "Like I said…" He reaches over and pulls his towel off the rack before he steps out of the shower and stands butt naked in front of me. "You're just incredibly hard to please." I close my eyes because even though I've seen him naked before, I genuinely didn't need a full, front-row view of his dripping wet ass. With my eyes still closed, I blindly reach over to grab some toilet paper and wipe myself before I stand up and pull my underwear up. When I open my eyes back up, he has a towel wrapped around his waist and he's standing at the sink twisting the cap off his bottle of aftershave. "What was wrong with Gianna?" He dumps some aftershave into his hand and rubs it on his face.
"Gianna is an Italian name and she's not gonna be Italian." I walk to the bathroom door so I can go back into his bedroom and get ready for bed. I've had a long day on Neuro with Dr. Shepherd. I scrubbed in on a temporal lobectomy and got to hold the retractor. It was a twelve hour surgery and my feet really hurt. I didn't want to complain though, because Dr. Shepherd is borderline legendary and if I would've complained, I would've felt like a weenie. Plus, I don't think he knows that I'm carrying a kid inside me and I'm really not in the mood to tell anyone. "I can't imagine myself calling my baby 'Gianna'. Some little Italian-sounding name for a baby that's not even Italian. And I just don't like it. It's not pretty enough."
"Okay and what's your deal with Natalia? I thought for sure you'd like that one. We could call her 'Talia' or 'Tally' for short." He turns on the faucet so he can brush his teeth as well. "I could see us calling a baby 'Savannah'…you don't even like that?" His mouth sounds full so I'm assuming that he's brushing his teeth now.
I pull back the covers to my side of his bed and get inside the covers. "Natalia is gross. It's too try-hardish. You have to try to say 'Natalia'. It sounds too much like 'Natalie' and that's even grosser. Natalie is an old person name…it would be cute if we were having a baby in the 80s or 90s….it's 2014, can we have something more modern?" I reach over on his nightstand and grab his iPad. "And Savannah Karev is a mouthful and it doesn't sound right. It has too many syllables. Savannah Karev… ew. That's almost as horrible as Farrah Karev. Farrah sounds like stripper name." I open up his internet app on his iPad and tap on the search bar. "I want something unique, Alex. I want it unique but not ghetto or weird. Unique and pretty. Nothing basic like 'Isabella' or freaking 'Madison'."
"I didn't know Aurora and Harlow were basic names." He shuts off the bathroom light and wanders into the room with me. He drops his towel and walks naked over to his dresser so he can grab some clothes to put on. "And you only told me no Ks and no Os. You didn't tell me you wanted something unique." He steps into a pair of boxers. "And define 'unique'."
"First of all, I'm not naming my baby after the fucking Sleeping Beauty. Aurora is a Disney Princess name. Is that really what you want our daughter to aspire to be? A princess?" I just punch in "Baby girl names" into the Google search engine and wait for the results to pop up. "And Harlow isn't bad but it kind of reminds me of a boy's name. And I don't want to seem like I copied off April and Jackson. Aren't they naming their baby 'Harper'? Imagine if we had a girl and her name was 'Harlow'… that sounds like we copied."
"And this goes right back to you being hard to please." He pulls a t-shirt over his head and climbs in bed with me. He scoots over so that he's lying on the same pillow as me. I hold the iPad at a distance that allows the both of us to look at it the same time. "You want the baby to have a name that's not ghetto…but you want one that nobody else has. Am I right?" I nod my head. I tap on the first search result that pops up and wait for the website to load. He scoots closer to me and puts his head on my chest.
"Ouch!" I say in a harsh, loud whisper. "Scoot over a little bit… not on my chest." I gently push him over. "My boobs hurt too much for you to lay on them tonight…" I mumble, still adjusting him so that he's comfortable and so am I. Alex gets a little weird with things like periods and boob problems and cramps and stuff so he's quiet about my boob problem. I told him earlier that my chest was hurting and he got all weird and asked if he should rub them or something but I could tell that he was totally weirded out by the idea of massaging my boobs in a non-sexual way. I'll cut him some slack. I sit up a little more and put my arm around his body so that he still feels like he's lying on me in some kind of way.
"…How 'bout Nathan? Me and Avery were talkin' last night… I think Nathan's cute." He puts his arm around my waist and holds me while he lies on the same pillow as me. Alex is a big baby in himself, to be honest. He always has to be up underneath of me. I have to be holding him while we're lying down together or he has to be lying on top of me in some way. He's a big baby and he tries to act like he's so tough but he's such a big, cuddly teddy bear. "I know you're naming the boy, so I just thought I'd throw that out there…"
"…Nathan." I try it out orally and mentally. Nathan… Come here, Nathan. How was your day at school, Nate? Nathan… "I'd call him 'Nate' for short, probably." I look straight forward at the wall, trying to get that mental picture of the baby boy I was holding in my dream. He looked like a Nathan… "Nathan… Nathan Alexander…" I poke my lip out. "I like it." I admit. "Good job, babe. I like Nathan." I run my hands through his hair. "So Nathan, Caleb or Mason." I put my tongue in my cheek. "I was kinda feeling Caleb for a while there but I kinda like Nathan now."
"Glad I could help." He mumbles with a slight smirk on his face and grabs the iPad out of my hand. "That's the only suggestion of mine you didn't completely shoot down." He pokes the iPad with his finger and starts scrolling through the list of names we pulled up. "Penelope. Persephone. Eleanor."
I crack a smile at the way he's rattling off the names on the list. "…Can we be serious?" I lick my lips and try hard to put on a straight face. We're picking our baby's name, this should be a serious thing. "How about Willow?" No, that's not right. "Nevermind that." I keep looking. I tap the divider so it'll separate it into A-Z. "Abriella, Aaliyah, Aida, Alexa, Alexis…" I bite my lip. "Why is this so difficult?" I scroll thorough the As, past the Bs, all the way to the Cs.
"…Carmen?" He asks. "Mia?"
"Carmen Karev?" I tune my nose up. "Ew." I just ignore the "Mia" thing.
"Yeah, that is pretty horrible." He keeps looking while I look as well. "Carissa."
"No Ks."
"It's not a K, it's a C. C-A-R-I-S-S-A."
"I like the name but it doesn't go with your last name. Carissa Karev… that's a lot." I keep scrolling. "I kinda like Ariella but it sounds like areola and that's just… no." I sigh. "Eli…for a girl? Ew." I scroll past it. "Berkley, Mila, Tristian, Dahlia, Della, Adele, Adella, Delia, Lydia, Nahla, Brody, Soleil, Selene, Luna, Tinley, Mariana… Dixie." I stop after that name. "…Somebody really would name their child DIXIE." Alex starts laughing. "That's not even funny. I thought Josephine was horrendous but DIXIE." I shake my head. "Some people…"
"Poor little Dixie is probably homeschooled." He busts out in hysterics. I laugh along with him. "…Do you like Callie? I saw on the website Avery and I were looking at last night the name Kallie with it spelled with a K. I kinda like it. We saw Kallie and Kiersten. I kinda liked both of those but you said no Ks."
"…You have to look at the big picture, Alex. Like if we have a girl and she goes to school someday, somebody will definitely pick on her if her initials are 'O.K.' or 'K.K.' And I'm sorry, but if somebody picks on my baby, I'm not having it. I'll smack someone's kid and then I'll smack the mother too. I'm not playing that."
"Well, if we raise her right, she'll be able to handle bullies on her own. With a mother like you, I think she'll be far from a punk." He kisses my cheek. "We can't protect her from everything. I don't think you should worry about people bullying our kids."
"You don't get it though, Alex." I put the iPad down and look dead into his eyes so he knows I'm VERY serious. I'm not even close to joking. "I'm not playing with that. My baby has ONE time to come home crying to me about how someone picked on him or her. One fucking time and I'm done. I'll slap somebody's child and I'm not afraid to slap somebody's mom either. I'll smack whoever wants smacked. Nobody's picking on my goddamn kid. You know what bullying can do to kids these days? I wish my son or daughter would come home and kill themselves all because somebody's bitch ass didn't raise their own kid right. I'll go to jail and I'm not joking."
"But Jo, it's gonna happen. Kids are bastards. Kids on the playground are mean little fuckers and it's gonna happen. She's gonna get pushed down on the playground and somebody's gonna call her stupid or ugly or a butthead because that's how kids are. Not everybody's gonna like her, babe. And if she looks anything like her mommy, I can see now that girls are gonna be jealous. It's gonna happen and we can't protect her from that. The most we can do is teach her how to stick up for herself and not let people get her down. If people want to pick on her, they're gonna pick on her regardless of her initials, her weight, her height, her looks…"
"…Okay, you're right. But I'm slapping the shit out of somebody's child if they make my baby cry." I sigh. "…Kallie." I run that through my head. "…Isn't that Dr. Torres' name though?"
"Yeah, but her Callie is abbreviated for something and it's spelled with a C. Our Kallie would be spelled with a K and it's just Kallie…not short for anything."
"…So what do we have so far?" I put his iPad down on the nightstand and turn so I'm lying on my side and facing him. "Kallie and Harlow…and Mia." I reach up and curl my hand through his hair. He has a piece of fuzz in his hair that I meant to pull out for him but I'm stuck on his hair. His hair is so soft. I hope my peanut—no matter what the gender—takes after daddy with the soft hair. "What goes with Kallie, Harlow and Mia? We gotta think of middle names."
"…Kallie Alexander, Harlow Alexander and Mia Alexander. All done. Got the middle names." He puts his hand on my waist and cups his hand around it, as if he's trying to make sure I don't fall. Either he's protecting me or he's trying to grab my ass—it's one of the two. He kisses me on my cheek and smirks again. "...Nah, but if you didn't hate 'Josephine' so much, I'd say… go for Josephine."
"…Kallie Alexandra. That's the closest to Alexander I'll go for a girl." I cover my mouth with my hand and stifle a really big yawn. I'm just ready to go to sleep for the night. "And…Mia Marie. Or how about Harlow Kate?" I have to admit that I'm genuinely excited for this. I just don't feel like any of these names are right, though. The name for my baby has to be PERFECT. I honestly think that Nathan Alexander or Mason Alexander are the perfect names for my baby boy but I don't feel like Harlow or Kallie or Mia are perfect for my baby girl. I still think that I'm having a boy of course, but what if we do have a girl? She needs the perfect name. I really just don't want to fuck this up. His name has to be perfect and her name has to be perfect too. Why am I not feeling any of these names? We still have seven more months to figure it out. I hope we figure out a perfect name.
Alex catches my drift about me being tired just from me yawning, so he reaches over and shuts off the bedside lamp so we're in the dark. "…Have you given any more thought to moving in with me, babe?" I KNEW this was coming. Something in the pit of my stomach TOLD me that he was gonna pull this shit tonight. Because it's ALWAYS something with Alex. It's always something. He can never just let us have a decent fucking conversation without ruining it with some bullshit. I don't know if he knows this, but the more he pressures me into it, the more I DON'T want to do it. "You're always over here anyway, babe. Why not just move in?" He slides his arm around my waist again and lies down on my shoulder.
"Leave me the hell alone about it, Alex." I roll my eyes at him, even though he can't see me through the darkness. "I said no and I said no for a reason…okay? And you're not gonna worry me to death about it. I don't want to move in with you." Why can't we ever just be happy and stay happy? Tonight would've been perfect if we just discussed baby names and went to sleep. If this conversation would've ended after he turned the light off, I wouldn't be going to sleep irritated with him. "And don't try to start shrinking me. Don't try to start telling me why I feel like I can't move in with you or why this is a no for me. Don't start acting like you know me better than I know myself. I said no because I don't WANT to move in with you. Can we just drop the conversation?"
"No…we can't drop the conversation." He sits back up and turns the lamp back on. He's propping himself up using his elbow and he's looking down at me because I'm lying down flat in the bed, preparing to go to sleep. "I'm not gonna act like I know why you don't want to move in with me because I don't know. I mean, I think you're acting like a little kid about it, but that's not my business. I don't get you and I don't get where your mind is at right now if I'm being totally completely honest. I don't get why you insist on making things complicated between us."
"How am I making anything complicated? And how am I acting immature? You're the one pitching the fit about me not wanting to move in with you. I shouldn't have to explain myself to you, you should just support me. You should just support me in whatever I do; even if I'm wrong. It's not your job to try and act like you're my psychiatrist and it's not your job to tell me when I'm in the wrong. You should just support me. You should just shut the hell up and leave me alone because I'm really not in the mood to deal with you anymore. I'm so tired of the back and forth between us…and it's always because you like to push the fucking envelope with me. It's like you want to see how far you can push me before I snap."
"Of course I'm not allowed to tell you when you're in the wrong." He shakes his head and lays down next to me, visibly and audibly irritated. "You're allowed to berate me and bust my balls about being a bad boyfriend, but the second I start to have different feelings about something than you do, I'm the asshole. Has it ever occurred to you that you're an asshole too, Jo? Or is it always just me that in the wrong?"
"I never said that we can't disagree. We can disagree all day long, that doesn't matter to me. We're about to have a baby that we're gonna have to raise together. We're probably gonna disagree on a lot of shit as parents and I don't care if we disagree. But what pisses me off is when you decide to keep going with it. When you put it in your mind and say 'I'm just gonna keep fucking and fucking and fucking with Jo until she changes her mind' that makes me mad. Your stupid ass doesn't get that the more you FUCK with me about a subject, the more I don't want to do whatever it is you're asking me to do. Leave me the fuck alone about it. There's nothing immature about you leaving me alone and I'm not making anything complicated by asking you to just shut up for once in this relationship."
"How the hell do you think this is gonna work then, Jo?" He looks at me like I'm literally the dumbest, ditsiest person he's ever encountered. The look on his face is just one that says he thinks I'm an idiot. "You think we're just gonna drag the baby back and forth between houses all because you're acting like a brat about moving in with me? What's so wrong about living here? You're here all the time anyway. You leave your underwear over here, I found a bra yesterday… you have pajamas here, I bought you a toothbrush. You're here all the time already and the baby's gonna have a room here. What's so bad about moving in? You can't possibly think that dragging a newborn baby back and forth between houses is gonna work. You went to the Ivy League, you're not that stupid."
"Because there's nothing wrong with the way things are now!" I raise my voice at him and I really didn't want to. The baby book said I should avoid stressful situations while I'm in the homestretch of my first trimester. But I can't avoid Alex. He's the epitome of a stressful situation. "Yes, I'm here all the time. Yes, I have clothes over here. Yes, I might as well live here…but I DON'T. And I'm happy with the way things are RIGHT NOW. And who says the baby's gonna have to be the one moving? If you have him or her, then I'll come over. If I have him or her, then YOU come over. There's nothing wrong with the way things are set up between us right now. I'm happy and you're happy and that's IT. Why do we have to change something when things are good?"
"Well what the hell is your view on family then?! Do we really want to show our child that a family is a mom and a dad and a kid living in separate households? Don't you want our child to come home with both of us? I want a family Jo… I don't know what you want, but it's clearly not a family. You just want a relationship. You just want it to be me and you plus a baby. The baby should be the center of everything. Everything me and you do should revolve around our child…and you're making this all about you. I knew you didn't care about the kid but I didn't think—"
"DON'T YOU EVER SAY THAT I DON'T CARE ABOUT MY BABY." I bawl my hands up into fists because my first instinct is to punch him. Literally, the first thing my mind went to was punching him in his goddamn mouth for that little comment. "I care about my baby so much that I really convinced myself I don't need you. I don't need you, Alex. I'll do this by my damn self. I'm supposed to be avoiding stress so I really decided that you were out of my life. I did. But then you did all that crying to me and I decided to give your sorry ass another chance. I don't need you…that's how much I love my baby. I'll fucking…" Calm down. My blood is literally boiling. "Don't you ever say that again."
"Then start acting like you do. Think about what the baby's gonna need in the long run. The baby's gonna need a mom and dad in the same house. A stable home. Stop being selfish. You've always been selfish and you're way too selfish to be a mom right now, Jo. You need to shape it up. You can't be selfish and be a mom."
"HOW AM I SELFISH, ALEX?!" I'm seriously screaming at him so bad that my throat is burning right now. He's gonna make me cry. I know it's not just the pregnancy hormones, either. He called me selfish. Does he really think I'm selfish? I'm trying so hard not to be… everything I'm doing, I'm trying to do for my baby. I'm trying so hard every day to not be selfish but he still thinks I am? Oh god, I'm gonna do terrible at being a mother. If my best, conscious effort isn't even enough to be considered unselfish, then what the hell? I'm trying and I'm failing… "I'm not being selfish… You got me pregnant and you're the one that wanted me to keep this baby. You did this to me… how am I the selfish one?"
"And of course it goes right back to me." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "You act like I knocked you up on purpose. You act like I said to myself while we were having sex, 'I'm not pulling out. I'm getting her pregnant'. I didn't do this, Jo. It takes two." I roll my eyes at that comment. "…What would you do if Iz never left me? 'Cause if Iz never left, there's a chance that I'd still be with her right now." My jaw drops at that. I knew that. I don't know why I'm so surprised, I knew that. I knew that he's only with me because I'm having my baby. He just admitted it. "Would you still blame it on me? If you were pregnant and I was still with my fiancée? Would that totally be my fault or would it be both of ours? Mine because I fucked you and yours because you fucked me, knowing I was getting married?"
I can't even find my voice to say something back to him. I'm so angry, hurt, confused… I can't say anything. I'm dead silent, while he's still talking. "Well… let's see, if it played out that way, the baby probably wouldn't be mine. It'd probably be Jason's because you'd probably be with him… or who knows, what if the baby you're carrying right now is—" I know what he was about to say, and for that reason, I black out. My fist clenches and with one solid, hard movement, my punch lands dead in his mouth. I can't believe I just hit him. Better yet, I can't believe how good it felt to do it. He's silent and so am I. I feel something wet on my hand, so I look down at it. Blood. Just a little bit of it, but enough to make my hand feel wet. "…So we're hitting each other now?" His voice is musky, masked with a little bit of anger. I just look over at him. I still don't have anything to say. His lip is busted straight down the middle. "…Goodnight Jo." He doesn't even bother wiping himself off. He shuts off the light again and settles in to go to sleep for the night.
Did I really just… I'm still lying flat in the bed, in the dark. I can't believe I just hit him. Dammit. My bottom lip starts shaking and I raise my hand up to my mouth to stop it. I purse my lips together to try and shut myself up because I know what's coming is going to be loud and screechy and very whiny. I feel like my heart is like…breaking. In two pieces. My chest hurts and I feel so sick. I swear I never intended to hit him. I never thought that I was gonna punch him and I swear I didn't mean it. My whole body is just stone cold and my hands are shaking. I'm so sorry. I swear I thought I was over that. I thought I was done with ever hitting people. My hands are shaking so bad. I can't hold it back anymore. "Mmmmm…." I clamp my hand over my mouth tight to try and shut myself up because either he's sleeping or he's awake and both of those are bad. If he's asleep, I'm totally gonna wake him up with my blubbering or he's awake and he can already hear my blubbering. I hit him. Hard, too. I drew blood. "Mmmmhmmm."
Just as I suspected, he stirs for a second before he sits up. "Shh…" His arm wraps around my waist and he manhandles me, pulling me closer to his body. "Shh…hey…hey…" He pulls me very close to him and forces my head on his chest. His lips rest against my head, probably putting blood in my hair but I don't care. "No, don't cry… Jo, don't cry… don't." I can't help it though. I just hit him. He's the man I love. I love him with all my heart and I just hit him. "Babe, it's okay… I'm not mad." I'm still shaking though. "I deserved that. I was talking out of anger and I got out of hand. I deserved that. I was asking for that." He rubs my back. "I'm sorry. What I said was way outta line… about the baby… that was way outta line." He kisses my head again. "We're good babe…we're good. It was just an argument. We're good." I put my arms around him as well. "I can't go to bed mad at you… you hear me?" I nod my head against his chest. "I'm sorry… are you sorry? 'Cause I'm sorry." I nod my head again. "Let's go to sleep… no hard feelings." He's stroking my arm. "…Hell of a punch." I smile at that but I don't feel any better about it. "Let's go to sleep…"
I still can't believe I hit him though.
Alex's Point of View.
"You okay in there?" I make my voice quiet, in a near whisper. I don't work until 12:00 noon tomorrow so I can sleep in but Jo works at 7:00 tomorrow morning so she has to sleep. And she is sleep. She's been asleep for half an hour. Very gently, I lower my ear down to her stomach while she peacefully sleeps. "Sorry about all that yelling and stuff." Her stomach is kind of firm underneath her t-shirt. "Mommy's got a hell of a punch though, doesn't she?" I'm a baby doctor for a living, so I know that babies can respond to voices quite early on in pregnancy. I don't know if Jo talks to her much but in case she doesn't, I'm talking to her right now. "She's amazing though." I press my lips to her stomach, careful not to wake her. Jo doesn't really like to make a spectacle out of her growing stomach, so I usually wait until she's asleep to rub it and look at it. She's a heavy sleeper so it's easy, most of the time. She almost woke up one day last week when I did it though. "…I hope you're not as big of a hot head as mommy is."
Jo stirs slightly in her sleep but remains asleep. "…I hope you're as strong as she is though. Strong, stubborn, knows what she wants…" I kiss her stomach again. "I hope you get that from her. I hope you get her looks, too." I smile at just thinking about how pretty our little girl will be. "…On the other hand, maybe you don't need to look like your mom. Daddy will go to jail for murder." I give her belly just one last kiss before I head to bed for the night. "Goodnight, my sweet girl. I'll talk to you tomorrow…"
A/N: So, Happy Holidays to all that celebrate them! Hope you guys have a nice Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc. Enjoy the update for a holiday present lol.
Oh, and for those of you guys who said you like 'Natalie' better than Natalia, I do too. However, somebody PMed me and told me that another Jolex author named their baby Natalie and I don't want to copy, so Natalie isn't an option. Sorry.
