“That’s not why she named him Dallas.”
“Yes it is! I swear. That’s just a coincidence.”
“What is?” Half the table shouted at them. They turned to us and Ethan laughed again.
“Dallas, Texas is where the twins- happened.”
The table fell quiet for a moment and then erupted in laughter. Cleo was furious. She crossed her arms and looked down, pouting. Once we all calmed down, she spoke again.
“As I was saying, that’s just a coincidence. I liked the name; and we named Blue after his eyes. He opened his eyes right when he was born and you could see those beautiful blue’s for miles,” she said dreamily, rubbing her belly.
“I can’t wait to see what little Selkie is going to look like.”
“Please don’t name their baby that,” Adrian smirked.
“If anything, go back to Balboa,” Derek grimaced. I said another silent prayer that she kept looking for names.
The rest of the afternoon we spent relaxing, sipping on beer and eating snacks they had brought. Thankfully they had gotten a caterer to do the cooking and baking.
At some point we ran out of beer and vodka for the drink I had been making all day. Someone commented about going out to get more.
“Renee, you want to come with me? Ethan, babe, you can watch the baby while we make a beer run?”
Ethan shrugged and went back to his conversation with Adrian.
Derek stood up. “I’ll go with you. I don’t want you guys to pick up the wrong stuff. Chick beer.” I gave him the finger.
“I drink the same beer you do.” He gave me the finger right back.
“Fine, I want to stretch my legs. Shut it, I’m coming.” He followed us out and sat in the back. Cleo being the only one sober enough to drive, drove us to the nearest liquor store and we hopped out. Grabbing a cart Derek began loading cases of beer in it.
“Why are you grabbing so much?”
“For the next week or so. I don’t want to run out in the middle of the night or something,” he answered. I stopped moving the cart.
“Derek, you don’t live at my house.”
He sighed deeply.
“Come on, not today. Not on your baby’s gender day,” he whined. I rolled my eyes and continued on down the aisle. We picked up some more of the vodka I liked and some pear juice.
Suddenly we were stopped by a young man with a lumberjack beard and thick, ironic glasses.
“Cleo De La Rosa?”
We stopped laughing with each other to stare at the young man. Cleo forced a smile and nodded.
“Yeah, that’s me. Hi.” There was that brief uncomfortable silence as Cleo tried to move.
“Hey I’m the guitarist. Do you want my autograph?” Derek said rather loudly. The guy shook his head.
“No thanks, this is for you.” He pulled out a Manila envelope out of the bag I had missed before. “You’ve been served.” He tipped his paperboy hat and quickly disappeared.
Cleo turned back to us, mouth agape. All of the buzz I had left dissipated immediately.
“What the hell. Open it,” Derek demanded. With trembling fingers, she pulled up the flap and looked inside. She pulled out a packet of papers and quickly scanned the front page. She slammed the papers down into the cart and cursed.
“Christopher! He’s suing me for damages. He’s claiming mental distress over not knowing the truth about the twins.”
