28. Chloe
CHLOE
“What do you think about the name Sienna?” I ask as I sit cross legged on the floor, watching Liam put together a crib for the nursery in his extra bedroom.
After putting it off for so long, we finally decided that it was time to get some baby furniture and start putting everything together since our window of when the baby is going to come keeps getting smaller and smaller.
“I like it,” Liam starts. “But I’m not overly in love with it,” he finishes as he screws on one of the wooden legs.
“Okay, so I will be crossing that one out,” I say, not feeling the name now that he’s said how he feels about it.
Taking my pen, I cross out the name on the list that I have going on.
A list that has been growing since we found out what we are having.
We have officially hit the point in my pregnancy where picking out a name and making sure that the nursery is all set and ready to go, have become a top priority.
We are getting things done but there is still a lot more waiting for us in the trenches.
One of those is coming up with a plan just in case Liam is out of town when I go into labor.
After an amazing season, the Dark Knights are officially in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Good news for the team, bad news for me because given my due date there's a possible chance that Liam could be states away when it’s time.
Right now, he’s not worried, but that could change depending on if the team advances to the conference finals.
I want the Knights to win, but I also want Liam in the room with me when it’s time.
We just have to keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.
For now, we have baby names to think about and baby furniture that needs to be finished.
“What about the name Courtney?” I suggest.
Liam doesn’t even answer, he just makes a face and goes back to concentrating on tightening a screw.
“So, crossing out that one too.” I say, dragging the pen across the paper.
I have a feeling that there will be a lot of crossing out before we find the right one.
I’m about to suggest that we should just pick a name out of a cup or something, but then I catch a glimpse of Liam's face and I stop myself.
Things between me and Liam have been okay these past two weeks after our heated conversation but still a little rocky.
He says he’s not mad whenever I ask him, but he still seems to get agitated whenever I mention the fact that I will be moving out when the baby gets here.
Maybe not right away, but it is still happening.
I’ve been trying to make the best of the situation, but it’s a little hard at times. Especially when he doesn't talk to me for a while and I feel like I’m pulling words out of him.
Just a little glimpse at what I was afraid of, I guess.
I shake my head, not wanting to think about and move on to the next name.
“Oh, what about Gabriella?” I throw out there. It’s cute but I don’t if I’m sold on it.
“Sounds way too much like that girl’s name from High School Musical.” He throws out.
I’m surprised that he even knows what High School Musical even is.
First the bad bunny ringtone and now this. If I didn’t know it already, I would say that Liam Crawford knows more about pop culture than he lets on.
“It is the girl's name from High School Musical,” I tell him, trying to hold back a smile.
“Then I would scratch that off too.” He tells me, nodding toward the list.
“Okay, so no Gabriella.” Another strike across the paper. “Are there any names that you like? I can’t be the only one that put a list together.”
Liam just gives me a grunt in response.
A grunt.
Grunts I mostly how Liam has been communicating these last two weeks.
I’m tired of them. So damn tired. I’ve been avoiding talking about this but I can’t ignore it much longer.
“Liam?” I say, trying to get his attention but he’s starting a little bit too hard at the crib in front of him.
“Liam.” I say with a little more strength behind it and finally he looks up at me. Annoyance all over his face.
I hate seeing him like this. I hate that he’s looking at me like this.
That look on his face is very much about me moving out.
I know it is, and as much as I want to give in and give him what he wants, I can’t.
I have to stand behind this. I have to move out.
Even if I turn out to be wrong. And If I am, I will be the first to admit it and kick myself in the ass for doing this to him.
For denying what he said he was feeling toward me and for denying his feelings at all.
But I have to get there. If I ever do.
My shoulders slump a little bit and say the only words that I can possibly think of. “I’m really sorry.”
Liam’s expression shifts from being annoyed and irritated to confusion and then finally to caring and worried.
He doesn’t need me to explain what I’m apologizing for.
With a shake of his head, he abandons the crib and comes over and sits next to me. One of his heavily tattooed arms makes it around my shoulders and I can’t help but to lean into his touch.
He hasn’t held me since the night he stormed out and I miss it.
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” he says, letting out a sigh.
“I’m moving out and you hate it.” I say, letting my head fall to his chest.
“I don’t hate it.” He tells me and I can’t help but let out a snort hearing his lie. “Okay, fine. I hate it but I’ll get over it.”
I’ve learned enough about him these last few months that I know he won’t.
“I’ve been taking my anger about this out on you, haven’t I?” He asks, already knowing the answer to the question.
“You have. I think this is the most you’ve talked to me in two weeks. You’ve been giving me clipped answers and a lot of grunts.” I whisper, nodding my head against this chest.
“I’m really sorry, Chloe.” He whispers back, tightening his arm around me.
“I know you are.” I say, feeling a prickling in my eyes.
I won’t cry. I will not cry.
“We can’t keep living like this,” he says and I’m about to suggest I move out now before things get worse, when he speaks again. “We need to come up with something that won’t have us mad at each other when our little surprise arrives.”
He’s right.
Me moving out now will just continue the issue. We have to shelf whatever this thing with us is and make sure that this baby comes into this world knowing that her parents can at least get along.
“Let’s just put it on the back burner for now.
We won’t talk about me moving out and I won’t continue to pack mine or the baby’s stuff.
It won’t even be a thought. We’ll wait for her to come, and in the meantime, the only things that we will concentrate on is this nursery and you playing the best hockey games of your life to get that cup and bring it home. ”
“The girl that told me when I first met her that she didn’t know much about hockey, is calling the Stanley Cup just The Cup.”
I stab a finger into his side. “I blame you. I was perfectly fine with only knowing that hockey is played with a puck. Now my brain is filled with hockey lingo, statistics and way more things that I didn’t think I needed to know.”
“Now you do.”
“Now I do.”
“Let’s do it. Let’s put everything on the back burner and just concentrate on what’s happening now and we will think about everything else later,” he says with determination in his voice.
I can’t help but smile. “Okay.”
We don’t move from our position, or even say a word for however long, we just sit there in silence, either taking each other in or thinking.
Eventually, it’s Liam that breaks it.
“Two syllables.”
“What?”
“Her name. It should be two syllables like a parents’. It should match.”
“Okay,” I say, a little confused, but still pulling back from him, running through names in my head that could possibly be only two syllables.
There are so many.
“Emma”. He says, answering my earlier question. “I like the name of Emma”
I run it through my head a few times.
Emma, Chloe and Liam.
Liam, Chloe and Emma.
Chloe, Emma and Liam.
It works and just thinking about it brings a smile to my face and makes my heart swell in the process.
I like it too.
“I think Emma is perfect,” I tell him..
“Then, Emma it is.” He tells me, a smile appearing on his face.
I gave him one back and then look down at the bump that has taken over my body.
“Hi, Emma” I say to her, letting my hand run against my shirt, hoping to feel her kick.
Liam shifts next to me and he continues to shift until he is lying on the ground and has a hand extended over to my stomach.
Before the blowout, as I’m now calling it, he would talk to the baby every night, rubbing my stomach and telling her all the hockey stories that he could think of.
I didn’t know how much I missed it until now.
“Hi Emma. Daddy can’t wait to meet you, my little ballerina,” he tells our daughter, kissing my bump.
I try to ignore the kiss and what it does to me as much as possible. “Little ballerina, huh?”
He gives me a nod and looks up at me with a glimmer in his eye.
“Or hockey player. Whatever she decides. That’s up to her. All I know is that she is going to be just as beautiful as her mother and I won’t have it any other way.”