Shooting Star (3)
Hello Beloveds!
Now, before anyone else calls me out, I’ll admit it myself that I’ve been slacking. It’s been way too fucking long since I posted chapters 1 & 2– my bad. 😬 Just love me, okay? A bitch is out here living a whole ass life.
If you don’t want to be tagged, let me know. If you do want to be tagged, let me know.
Here it is y’all, Chapter 3.
Author’s Note: I am very new to this, so be kind to me.
Warnings: Idk what goes here? Swearing? Use of the n word is inevitable.
Words: ~ 1.8K
Enjoy my loves xo 🖤✨
Chapter 2
The air was thick. Almost opaque with the fear and anger; frustration and impotence rolling off of Erik and all around those nearest him. Why had her eyes zeroed in on his daughter, and why had the trio taken a collective glance at each other? Erik tried to shift Aurora away from the thieves' sightline, but they’d locked in. They had seen her necklace, and it was apparent to all around them that this was what they were really after.
Zora attempted to break their laser-like focus on the child, “Look. The alarm has an auto trip function. Anything or anyone so much as cracks that glass above and it alerts the local police and SWAT. You’ve got 3 more minutes tops before--”
“You shut her up, or I will.” Tatania never took her eyes off of Aurora’s necklace, but calmly and swiftly silenced Zora with a delicate yet deadly looking blade which just seemed to appear in her hand. She twirled it-- gracefully, almost majestically, but no less menacingly.
Puck went to Zora quickly and shook his head at her, revealing some of the short and gruesome cuts all over his neck and upper torso, just below his collar bones, trying to do for her what no one seemed to have done for him: shut her before things got worse. The sight of Titania wielding that knife seemed to have relieved him of his incessant chatter.
Nothing in Erik’s life could prepare him for this moment. No amount of time in the SEALs, nor number of deployments to Afghanistan could have prepared him with the tools to quell the fear which had taken root in his belly. The almost palpable tension in the air had him in a cold sweat; perspiration covering his whole body in a matter of moments, causing his black v-neck t-shirt to cling to his torso, his palms slick with the ever growing reality that he is outnumbered and outgunned while this psycho bitch has her focus zeroed in on his babygirl.
“My, my, my. What a beautiful little flower you are, ma petite” Titania practically purred as she made her way across the bank’s lobby. She pulled up just short of the Stevens family.
“Errrrrriiiiiiiiiiik!”
He didn’t need to see Portia’s face to know she was upset with something. He also didn’t need either degree from MIT to know that if he didn’t hurry his narrow ass up those stairs to help her, it would only get worse. He sped up.
“Yea, bae. What’s up?”
“This is all your fault! I hate you for talking me into this, and I swear I’ll never forgive you.”
The morning sickness had been almost non-stop since her first trimester.
“Can I get you some Saltines? Tea? A ginger ale? Anything? Fuck, lemme get you a cool cloth.”
“No, no, I’m fine. I’m just being bratty,” Portia said, head still in the bowl, ready to offer up yet another sacrifice to the porcelain gods. She knew that being miserable for the last 7 and a half months wasn’t Erik’s intent when he first brought up trying for a kid. He’d grown up longing for a family for so long, and from what little she’d shared about her own, he knew that her’s wans’t close. Building a family, just the two of them, had been his dream for the first two years of their marriage. When they decided to start trying, Portia didn’t expect them to be so...good… at it. Within the first month of trying, it seemed to have taken, because within the first 6 weeks, she was puking every day.
Loudly. Painfully. Incessantly.
“It’s not bratty behavior when there’s actually something upsetting you.”
“Mon chou, I’m not upset. Your child is just tossing and turning in there, and I’m riding that wave of sea sickness. I’ll be fine. Besides, I’ve only got literal days at this point. This little butter bean will be here before we know it,” Portia finished weakly, lifting her head and trying to reassure him with a grimace she hoped looked more like a smile.
“Uh, bae. I love you, but you gone stop calling my daughter a fuckin bean.”
“Well, since someone can’t agree with his wife on a name or even agree to find out the sex, it looks like I’m sticking to veggies and fruits. Maybe I’ll just call him Mommy’s Little Kiwi.”
“Aye--”, Erik responded with a deadly look in his eye, “ No daughter of mine is gone be some dumbass Kiwi. If ANYTHING, she’s a pomegranate. She regal as fuck.”
Portia erupted into laughter. It was just the right kind of laugh to help her get out of wallowing from her morning technicolor yawn. Erik helped her to her feet, and she washed her face and brushed her teeth.
“Okay, well, if we can’t agree on a fruit or vegetable, should we move from edibles to something else? We have to call him something.”
“HER name will come to us as soon as we lay eyes on her. How am I supposed to name my daughter before I ever see her?”
Portia tried a different tactic. “Well, it would help us if we just knew what sex we should be expecting, then we could be compiling a list of names to choose from. That way when he, or she -- she interjected quickly-- makes an appearance, we have a short list. Can we at least agree to a short list? We won’t even have to make a decision, we’ll just have a jumping off point today.”
“Fine,” Erik acquiesced. “Let’s start with the boys, it don’t really matter no way,” he said sucking his teeth.
“Excuse me,” Portia questioned, incredulously.
“I’m just sayin, ma. I know you carrying my little Princess. I just know it!”
Portia looked up into her favorite eyes in the world. Their depths fathomless when he was this full of love, and their color reminded her of the vanilla beans her grandmother used when making fresh ice cream when Portia was a young girl. She couldn’t deny him anything when he looked at her like this. If she had the power to snap her fingers and move heaven and earth to give him a daughter in that moment, she’d do it.
“Okay, well just humor me.” Portia asked they dressed to head out of the house.
They came up with a list of three names for a boy: Oscar, Maurice, and Bryan
For the girls, Erik wanted to stick to more of a theme. While he may have fought at the beginning to not even go down this path, now that he was here, he was determined not to walk away from this conversation without landing on his daughter’s name.
“Okay, how about this: she can have one name from each of us.” It was a little hard to hear Portia’s words, coming through muffled since she was presently stuck trying to slip one of Erik’s hoodies over her puffy hair and swollen midsection.
Smart enough to not comment on his wife’s dilemma, Erik just set out to help her finish pulling it down over her belly, and without a word on her current predicament, went to the closet to grab her slides.
“I like it,” Erik agreed. “But which names? I don’t have any family names I want to pull from. The only woman in my life growing up was my moms, and she was gone so soon, I wouldn’t even want to lay all of that on a little one,” Erik quietly confessed to his wife.
“Let’s see. She could have a name from the Xhosa language for her heritage and family on your side. I don’t know what to do for mine.” Portia was almost ready to go, just looking for her favorite hair wrap to tie up her mane.
Erik was quiet for a moment. Heart still grieving a mother and relationship long gone, while still overflowing with love for this swollen, smart mouthed woman that he knew his mom would’ve adored.
“Anathi,” he said before he realized it. “It means ‘they are with us’. Seems pretty fitting, huh?”
Portia’s eyes caught his in the mirror as she tucked the last end of fabric in her wrap. Both sets were bright with tears.
“I love it,” she whispered, words barely audible. “But what are we going to do about a first name?”
“Well, I like that thing your family has going on. All of y’all are named after women in literature, but they also are the names of constellations, right? How about, Juliet?”
“Nigga! I am not naming my daughter after some little precocious child who thought she was in love and wound up offing herself over some knucklehead boy before they even turned 16. Try again.”
“Astrid,” Erik risked, only to be rewarded with a sharp sniff coming from Portia’s direction as she gathered her keys and wallet.
“Aurora!” He exclaimed.
“Pretty sure I’ve never read that name as a leading lady in any story,” Portia countered, her haughty ass attitude slowly slipping away. These mood swings were getting out of hand.
“Fuck. I just couldn’t deal with you gettin any snippier, so I just thought of the most beautiful sight I could think of that made me think of the stars,” he answered, bashfully, putting on his finishing touches, and grabbing his phone, wallet, and keys.
“It’s perfectly, imperfect. Not quite what we set out for, and somehow precisely what we needed. Aurora Anathi Stevens. I love it, mon chou.”
His dimples took over his whole face. “Really? I just wanted her to have a little of both of us in her name. She gets your family’s bougie ass legacy with names, and one of mine as a reminder of all the ancestors who’ve come before us.”
Portia was practically bouncing in place she was so happy. “I love it. Really, really.” She took a heavy, negro spiritual sigh. “I have to call my family and tell them we’ve landed on a name. We don’t talk much, but they at least need to know.”
“How bout this: you call them while I drive. I think we’ve earned a very nice breakfast of your choosing. Naming my daughter is kind of a big fuckin deal and all; let’s celebrate.”
“Oooh! I know just what I want.”
Erik rolled his eyes and mouthed along, “Strawberry pancakes.” It was the same thing Portia had been craving this whole pregnancy. One short stack order of strawberry pancakes with blueberry syrup.
“Aiight now, but don’t be tryna pick off my plate. I’m getting chocolate chip pancakes, and I ain’t sharin’ shit.”
They climbed into his car just as Portia’s family answered her call.
“Hello, Erik.”
That cadence. The subtle lilt of an accent she’s tried through years of practice to discard. Fuck.
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