Page 416 of Bride of Choice

“What’s that?” Dace asked, peering around Buu to eye the pen in my hand.

“Working on baby names,” I told her.

Dace nodded as she eyed my paper. “What do you have so far?”

“I definitely want to have my cousin’s name in there somewhere. Rosa instead of Rosalinda, because it’s much easier for the furred fiends to pronounce.” Tapping the butt of the pen along my lip, I stared off out the kitchen window.

“If I ever have a child, I’d like a boy, so I can name him Melvin,” Dace admitted with a straight face.

I stared at her for a long moment, to be sure before I opened my fat trap. Yep. Blondie was dead serious.

“Meld-van?” Rek tried the name out loud but grunted, scowled, dropped it and got back to the hot tea he was sipping beside me.

My pen lifted and I pointed it at my sock monkey. “That, right there, that’s what you’ve gotta prepare yourself for. The name butchering.”

“Melvin’s a beautiful name,” Dace squeaked. “It’s my grandfather’s name.”

“No get pick, boy, girl. No work like that,” Rek grumbled. “Have the sex, make the baby, no say what it be.”

“I know that.” Dace scowled over at him, but there was a moment there where she looked surprised to hear it.

“It’s just like with humans procreating,” I chimed in.

“There are positions you can do to get a certain sex of the baby with humans, though,” Dace informed me.

“I’m not exactly sure those are tried and true, Blondie,” I murmured quietly.

“Oh, but they are!” she insisted. Frowning down into her untouched mug of tea, she muttered after a bit of a think, “I mean, that’s what my Gigi told me.”

“What Geed-geed? That name?” Rek shrugged. “Rek like that name.”

“Gigi is what I called my grandmother,” Dace sputtered.

“No want baby name old people name,” Odix blurted, blinking wildly as his gaze swung between us. “Why name baby old people name? Like naming them say, you old, here go.”

“Wait. No. That’s not-” I started to explain.

“Gigi means old?” Dace chirped in surprise. “But- But I thought it was short for Gloria. She told us to call her that because she was too young to be a memaw!”

“Maybe she want be Geed-geed ‘cause her name Glow-ree-uh,” Rek muttered. Making a face, he grunted out, “Sound like big humans word means cha-ch-”

“A perfectly lovely name!” I cut in to call out over him. Aiming a dirty look his way, I sighed in relief when he scowled but zipped his big ol’ yappy lips.

Dace scratched at her head. “How do you get Cha-cha from Gloria?” she blurted.

My gaze swung from Dace to Buu.

Buu made a face and lifted his upper arms in a half shrug that said he understood that nonsense about as much as I did. His lower arm, I noted, reached around Rek to cover his mouth.

“Rek no say it!” Rek barked as he slapped Buu’s hand away. “Man’s-handle Rek. No touches touches, Boob!”

Right. So Dace was a bit of an airhead, and Rek was still a dunderheaded ninnymuggins.

“Keh-Ro,” Odix rumbled out softly. “Sound like you Buu say him name Buu-Kehr, has you Rosie, and Kehko.”

I could only sit there and stare at him. It was cute.

Buu nixed that quick. “Kehr Buu second name. Clan name. Come after first name.

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