I don't even bother getting ready for work in the morning. I haven't slept at all and I'm still sitting on the floor of the nursery when I hear Blink's alarm go off. I figure maybe I should get up, get dressed, go to work, but I know I'll be completely useless today. Plus I just don't want to move.

I hear footsteps and smell coffee.

"You been in here all night?" Blink comes in, pajama-clad, and hands me a cup of coffee.

"For the most part," I sniff, drinking my coffee.

"Baby." He sits down next to me, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. "Things will be okay." I sigh and look at him. "We can find another surrogate, Mush. Life isn't over."

"I don't want to find another surrogate." I feel like a stubborn three-year-old, but right now, I really don't care if I'm being immature.

"I know you're attached, I am too. But Jenny is young and full of hopes and dreams and is also apparently slightly retarded." I can't help but smile a little bit. "There you go. Look, we just can't dwell on this. We can't let it get to us. Think of it like when we were trying to get out as choreographers and we got rejected by nearly every director in New York. And now we're the highest in-demand in the business."

"Aww, Blink." I smile, leaning into him. "This is nothing like that. But it was very Mr. Rogers. Thanks."

He laughs a little and kisses my hair. "You going to work today?"

"No." I shake my head. "I don't really see the point in it. Don't feel much like dancing today."

"Me either." He sighs. "Want to stay here at home and be miserable together all day?"

I nod. "Yeah."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"So what do you want to do with the nursery?" I'm perched on the kitchen counter, peering over Blink's shoulder as he makes chocolate chip cookies.

"Well, we aren't just giving up on the whole baby thing, are we?" He looks up at me, and there's a little bit of flour on his nose, which I don't mention because it's funnier that way, even if we are having a serious discussion.

"No, I guess not. But... we decorated it for this baby."

"Mushie, shut up." He holds out a spoonful of cookie dough and pops it into my mouth. "We decorated the nursery before we knew the baby, and we still don't even know if it's a boy or a girl, so really, it'll work for any baby, so won't it just be the same?"

"I guess," I mumble around the glob of chocolate chip.

There's a knock at the door. I hop down from the counter and go to answer it. I'm greeted by a mess of bright red hair, a gigantic belly, and a flood of tears on my shoulder.

I stand, dumbfounded, as Jenny clings to me, sobbing. "Jenny, what are you doing here?"

Blink comes out of the kitchen and his face goes to stone. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

Jenny pulls away from me, wiping her eyes. "I... I didn't go today. I didn't sleep last night."

"Funny, us either." Blink dusts flour from his hands.

"That's not good for the baby, Jenny," I say. "You're supposed to get, like, ten hours a night."

"Well, I'm not much good for the baby, am I?" She sniffles. "Can... can I come in?"

"Uh... yeah." I step aside, bewildered. Jenny comes into the apartment, looking around.

"Wow. This place is so big. And so pretty." She runs a hand along the back of the sofa. "You sure you want a little kid running around in here, messing this all up?"

"We wouldn't have been looking for a baby if we weren't okay with it." I shrug.

"Do you have a room for the baby?"

"Um, yeah." I walk to the nursery, right next to our bedroom, and open the door. "It's right in here."

Jenny walks in, looking around, and starts back up with the crying. "This is all so precious," she says, running her hands over the crib, the mobile, looking at the vast assortment of stuffed animals piled around the room. She wipes her eyes and turns back to Blink and me. "You really did all of this for my baby?"

"When we were under the impression that we were getting a baby, yes." Blink still has that hostile look on his face. I never thought he could be this angry – he's so pissed off that he's actually calm. Like, no emotion at all. That rarely happens, so it's a little bit scary.

"You guys are so prepared." She sits down in the rocking chair, letting out a whoosh of breath as she does so. "I'm nowhere near being ready for this baby."

"Well, you didn't have much to prepare for, did you? All you had to do was push the baby out, sign the papers, and be on your merry way. But that's all changed now, hasn't it?"

"Blink." I glare at him. He shuts up and resigns himself to setting his jaw and leaning against the door frame, scowling.

"He's right," Jenny squeaks. "Everything he's said to me is totally right." She sighs and holds a fuzzy brown teddy bear to her chest. "As much as I love this baby, I'm in no shape to be a mother. I can't take care of it." She raises her pitiful brown eyes to us. "You guys will make much better parents than I will."

I can't help but grin.

"Are you sure this time?" Blink asks from the doorway.

Jenny nods. "I want you two to have my baby."

"Thanks, Jenny." I hand her a tissue.

"You, um..." Blink scratches his head, his expression slowly softening. "You got time to stay for cookies?"

Jenny smiles. "Sure."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"So, like I said, I don't want an open adoption, but will you at least send me a picture now and then? Christmas, birthdays, milestones, whatever?" Jenny bites into a cookie.

"Absolutely." I nod. "Just keep kind of in touch with us, so that if and when the kid asks about its mother, we can get you two together and answer some questions."

"Just no lies, okay? Don't tell him or her that their mommy and daddy loved each other very much and they loved them very much too and had to give them up because a magical fairy was going to come steal them or some bullshit. Give it to them straight if they ask. Maybe don't flat-out tell an eight-year-old kid that their father was a cowardly, son-of-a-bitch racist who attacked a sixteen-year-old girl in an alley, but don't play him up as some decent kind of a guy, okay?"

Blink nods. "We'll be honest."

"Good." She finishes her cookie and stands up. "Well... I'm really sorry for all the drama. I hope you guys don't hate me too much." Blink and I smile. "I've got to get going. Thanks for the cookies."

"No problem." Blink gets up and grabs some Tupperware from the cupboard, packing some cookies into it. "Here, take some home."

Jenny smiles. "Thanks."

We walk her to the door. "Call us if you need anything, okay?" She nods and heads for the elevator.

"Well. I guess everything is okay now." Blink closes the door and puts his arms around my waist.

"I guess so." I lean in for a kiss. "I hope it stays that way."

"It'd better," he says, kissing me back.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

We lay on the couch, entangled in one another's arms, watching some Oprah Winfrey special and not really paying any attention to it. I'm reading a magazine and Blink, I think, is just spacing out, perhaps plotting ways to rid the world of the force that is Oprah.

"Hey, Mush?" Ah! Maybe he is paying attention.

"Yeah, babe."

"What's the baby's last name going to be?"

I bite my lip. "Shit. I guess I didn't really think about that." I shrug. "I don't know. Both of ours?"

"Like, Erickson-Meyers, or Meyers-Erickson?"

"Yeah, something like that."

"Well, which one?" Blink switches off the television.

"I don't really care." I shrug.

"I kind of like the way Erickson-Meyers sounds."

"Well, Erickson-Meyers it is." I smile up at him and kiss him on the cheek, going back to my magazine.

"What about first names?" He asks, a few minutes later.

"Have you thought of any?" I close the magazine and set it on the coffee table.

"Um. Just one. For a boy. Brendan James." He blushes a little bit.

I smile. "I like it."

Blink smiles back at me. "What about you? You thought of any?"

I shrug. "A couple for a girl."

"Tell me."

"Well... I was thinking either Elizabeth Ashley or Claire Marie."

"I really like Claire Marie. It's pretty."

"Alright."

"So it's settled?" Blink smiles at me. "We have names?"

"Yeah. We just have to wait and find out which one we get to use." I'm hoping that I'm not showing as much excitement as I'm feeling.

"Which do you think it is?"

I shrug. "Oh, I don't know."

"Come on, you know you have your speculations," Blink says, elbowing me playfully in the ribs.

"Does it really matter?" I laugh a little, elbowing him back.

"Well, I think it's a boy."

"No, it's not! It's totally a girl!"

Blink laughs triumphantly. "Would you care to wager on that?"

I roll my eyes. "Blink, you're so weird."

He wiggles his eyebrows. "Scared you'll lose?"

"I am not!" I sigh. "You know what? Fine! I bet you four middle-of-the-night feedings, redeemable at any time and at my discretion, that come April eleventh, we will have Claire Marie Erickson-Meyers."

"You're on." He extends his hand and we shake.

He's so weird sometimes.