LET'S HAVE ANOTHER ONE
#7 IN THE STARSKY & HUTCH 'IN LOVE' SERIES
Everyone knew that if Starsky ever had a daughter, he'd be a goner.
And now he was going to.
He was absolutely nutty about his son, Kenny, of course. Kenny was three and a few months old. Very intuitive. Sivvy felt that Kenny should be involved in the baby process as it was happening, and as a matter of fact Kenny seemed strangely aware of more than his parents thought he should have been.
Starsky walked into the kitchen and was startled to see his son perched on a kitchen stool, standing precariously on shaky toddler legs, poking in one of the middle cabinets. Kenny was rescued by his father and clutched in his arms.
"Why, Kenny?" he asked.
Kenny drilled his father with a piercing look and then poked his finger into the living room, specifically at his mother's stomach, which was protruding rotundly.
"Ring Dings", explained Kenny simply.
It took all of Strarsky's willpower not to break into hysterics. So Kenny thought Sivvy's new belly was caused by hidden Ring Dings that she was stashing away in the cabinet? He would laugh himself sick with Hutch about this later on.
But back to baby girls. Sivvy was insisting only on a healthy new baby, sex irrelevant.
Starsky was too, for the record.
But inside him was another story.
He saw Hutch with his own daughter Olivia, and remembered a time when Kenny Starsky was an infant. Starsky never said anything to embarrass Hutch, but he knew that Hutch was so besotted with the Starsky baby that he pretended sometimes that Kenny was his own son. And now Starsky was doing the same thing with Ollie Hutchinson.
"Can I hold her?", he frequently wheedled, loving how the toddler curled into his chest and looked and smelled and regarded Starsky with half-lidded eyes.
Oh, what joy if the upcoming Starsky-to-be would be like her mother! A miniature Sivvy, not that Sivvy was that big anyway. But a little replica of Starsky's gorgeous, beautiful, wonderful wife.
He had been bopping around like the Everready Bunny for the past nine months.
He nearly twisted Sivvy's hand off in the ultrasound room. No little weenie this time. It was definitely a baby girl.
And now Bella Elaine Starsky was a reality, was here. Bella for Starsky's grandmother. Elaine for Sivvy's mother and Starsky's mother Esther.
Hutch and Becca were the godparents, of course. Hutch was doing double duty, as he was already Kenny's godfather. Four college funds set up by Hutch now, the last one being for the new baby who sported four rambunctious curls, double what her brother had had at birth.
Hutch had been indifferent to the loads of money that he had from various Hutchinson trusts and inheritances. But he appreciated it all a lot more now that it had a damn good purpose. He was lovingly generous and indifferent to occasional squawks from his friends on how that largesse was allotted.
'How gloriously lucky can one guy be', mused Starsky often.
One evening he cuddled his baby girl treasure and crooned his own special interpretation of 'Bella Noche' from 'Lady and the Tramp'.
'This is the night, it's a beautiful night…' He initiated slurping up a long strand of spaghetti.
"Oy," commented Hutch. "Don't give up your day job, Gordo." Hutch was in the Starsky home to borrow something or another. He didn't really need an excuse to be there.
Then Hutch added ,"She's a beauty, even though she's being serenaded by a tone deaf alley cat." Hutch reached over and commandeered his new goddaughter. "Except for the curls, she's almost all Sivvy, happily. You must have been concentrating very hard during the production process, hoping that Siv's genes would dominate."
"Well, I WAS concentrating very hard during the 'production process', as you so couthly refer to it. I was concentrating on Sivvy's face and praying for stained glass eyes."
Sivvy came into the room in time to hear that, and to make a grab for Bella. "But there's another classic little Starsky tush in the family," she proudly pointed out. "That was what 'I' was concentrating on when we were, um, producing."
"His good side, huh?" cracked Hutch. "Relatively speaking, of course. I never really saw anything about it worth hanging a flag over ."
"No flags are to be hung over my husband's…."
The end