“Aw. That is perfect. You haven’t found any names you liked, though?” Alla asked them.
“Well, a few,” Piper said.
Erik looked over at her. “You have?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Like what?” he found himself asking. He had been thinking so much about when he was leaving and how he was going to protect his son, along with trying to figure out ways to stop wanting Piper, that he hadn’t even thought of a name for the baby.
Piper grinned as she pulled out her phone. A few seconds went by and then she said, “Grayson?”
Erik shook his head, “No.”
“Bennett?”
“No.”
Alla giggled as Cooper shook his head.
“Jaxon! That’s cute!” she said reading from her phone.
“No.”
“It is cute,” Alla said, “Jaxon Blake, I like it.”
“I don’t,” Erik said with another shake of his head. “Keep going.”
Piper gave him a pouty look before saying, “Elijah?”
“No, I don’t like ‘Ja’ in names.”
Piper was really pouting now. “But I like Jason!”
“No.”
“Eriiiiiikkkkk,” she whined as Cooper’s laughter filled the room.
“No. Jason Blake? That’s stupid.”
“Blah,” she said. “What about Darcy?”
“Hell, Piper, let’s name him Voldemort while we’re at it! Real names here, real names.”
Piper giggled as Alla asked, “Who is Voldemort?”
“I have no clue,” Cooper answered as Piper said, “Fine.”
She spat off a few more as Erik shot them all down. At this point he figured she was getting mad, but instead of throwing her phone at him, she continued with her list of names while Alla and Cooper added in their commentary. Erik couldn’t believe it, but he was having a blast.
“Thatcher?”
Erik blanched as he threw his hands up in the air, “Thatcher? What the hell, Piper?!”
“What? It’s cute!” she protested with her hands on her hips.
“No, it is not. Thatcher sucks as a name. Come on, you are basically making our son a serial killer with that name: Thatcher the hatcher.”
Piper rolled her eyes as a giggle escaped her lips. “You’re dumb.”
“I’m smart! You’re crazy,” he said with a chuckle.
“What would you name him then?” she asked with a little sassy shake of her head. Erik shrugged his shoulders. “I have no freaking clue; that’s why I haven’t said anything.”
Piper puckered her lips and then nodded. “Fine, when you think of something, we will discuss it, but until then, his name will be Thatcher Blake.”
“Over my dead body!” he yelled to her quickly as she walked into the kitchen, giggling along the way. It made no sense how much he didn’t want to be anywhere but with his family, while at the same time, his body wanted to flee. These mixed emotions made no damn sense, and he was starting to think he needed some serious therapy.
“You know,” Alla said, drawing his attention to her, “when we were trying for a baby, before we were blessed with you and your brother, we had our names picked out, didn’t we, Cooper?”
Cooper smiled as he nodded. “Yeah, we didn’t even have a baby yet, but we had our names.”
Piper smiled as she leaned against the kitchen counter, listening to the ongoing conversation. The kitchen and living room were partially connected, so having conversation from room to room was easy to do; in fact, the whole house was designed like that except for the bedrooms. “What were they?” Piper inquired.
Alla shared a small haunted smile with Cooper before turning herself on the couch to look over at Piper. “If it was a girl, she would have been Victoria.”
“Oh, that is beautiful,” Piper exclaimed.
Alla nodded as she smiled back at Cooper. “We thought so. Cooper picked it out.” Piper shot him a grin as Alla went on. “And if it was a boy, he would have been Dimitri. I picked that one,” she said with a wink.
Erik smiled as Alla got off the couch and fell into Cooper’s lap, kissing him on the cheek. Her eyes were filled with the sadness of never being able to have a child of her own, but when she looked over at Erik, he knew that she was glad he was hers.
“You know, ‘Dimitri Blake’ sounds really good together,” Piper said softly. Everyone looked over at her as she approached the living room, cradling her belly. “Don’t you think so, Erik?”
Erik nodded as his eyes met hers. “It does.”
“Alla, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love to use the name you chose for our son.”