Page 58 of Santa Baby Maybe
I blinked. “Say again?”
“My name,” she said sheepishly, “is Joyful. As in Joyful Knews.”
I couldn’t help it. I tilted my head back and let out a roar of laughter. So loud, so hard that Jake was disturbed from his sleep. Angry with that, he made a swipe at my ankle and then stalked out of the room.
“It’s not that funny,” she said, which of course only made me laugh harder. “They had tried to get pregnant for a long time and so my dad promised my mom she could name me whatever she wanted…you’re still laughing!”
I shook my head and tried to catch my breath. “That’s bad. I mean not as bad as…”
“What?”
I let out a breath and reached my hand across the table. She didn’t hesitate and clasped it with her own. “So this is a date where we’re really going to get to know each other?”
“Yes,” she said, squeezing my hand. “Really know each other. And while I’m not the type to put out on a first date, I might be willing to make an exception for you. But only if I feel like you’re really letting me get to knowyou. Not what you want everyone else to see.”
Yeah. I guessed if she was going to get to know the real me it should start with the simple truth. Which was my name.
“Welcome Baby.”
Now it was her turn to blink. “Uh, yeah. We might be doing exactly that tomorrow.”
I shook my head. “No. Those are my initials. It’s what my mother named me.”
She pulled her head back and I could see it was because she knew I was giving her something important. Something I hadn’t given to anyone else. Ever.
“Welcome Baby. Wait. That means your name is…”
“Welcome Baby Darling. Yes, I am aware.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. And why shouldn’t she? It was an absolutely ludicrous name that I’d been stuck with since birth until I forced my mother to at least have it legally changed to W.B. Only Joy’s laughter wasn’t mocking or hurtful. It was empathetic.
She got up from her seat, walked over, and plopped her butt in my lap. She kissed me on the cheek, which I knew was her way of showing gratitude for my offering her something I’d held so closely my whole life.
“So tomorrow we find out if Joyful Knews and Welcome Baby Darling are going to bring a child into this world. One thing for sure is that if we do…”
I knew exactly where she was going with that thought so I finished her sentence for her.
“We can’t be the ones to name it,” I said.
“Absolutely not. We’ve got a bad baby-naming gene on both sides. We’ll need to let someone else pick. Wes or Sophie.”
I squeezed her around the waist. “Let’s go to bed. The sooner we do, the sooner it will be morning.”
“It’s awfully early,” she pointed out.
“I have a box of condoms and a lot of ideas to make you very sleepy.”
She smiled and kissed me again on the cheek. “Okay, it turns out I will put out for you.”
“Now that’s a Christmas present,” I said, taking her mouth in a rough and needy kiss.
* * *
Christmas Morning
Joy
The first thingI realized when I woke up Christmas morning was that I wasn’t alone. Instead, I was in bed, naked, with a heavy thigh snuggled between mine and a large hand swallowing my breast.
