FicWad

‘Then put your little hand in mine…’
Bob surveyed his surroundings with a half-opened and jaundiced eye.
‘There ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb...’
Damn it, the room didn’t look any better in broad daylight. In fact, if anything, it was much, much worse. He closed his eye again.
‘Babe, I got you, Babe’
Speaking of babes, where was his? Without opening his eyes, he felt the bed next to him – empty. Damn. He felt it again – still empty. He cracked open his eyes and cautiously looked around the room. No sign of her. Where could she be? This was not how he envisioned spending this morning. All alone in a purple-blue hell. Although he had booked the promising sounding “Forest” room, a last minute snafu had them changing to this monstrosity. What was the name of it again? Periwinkle. He had just spent the night in the periwinkle room. Everything in here is blue. What the hell is Periwinkle anyway?
Bob rolled over and slammed the snooze bar on the alarm, silencing Sonny and Cher. He quickly drifted back to sleep only to be awakened some time later by Kara shaking him.
“Hi Honey. Rise and shine. Hurry up or you’ll miss breakfast.”
Bob mumbled something incoherent before rolling over.
“Bob…” Kara shook his shoulder. “Bob…. Honey…. Come on. You were supposed to get out of bed with the alarm, not go back to sleep. Come on. Mrs. Lancaster is saving you breakfast.”
Bob crooked his finger beckoning Kara closer. She bent in only to find herself pinned to the bed.
“Bob, Mrs. Lancaster is waiting.”
“Nope” He hugged her tighter and buried his head in her neck. “Back to sleep”
Ten minutes later, Bob somehow found himself out of bed and dressed and herded downstairs. Now how the hell had that happened?
“Oh, there you are Mr. Bryar. We’d about given up on you.” Mrs. Lancaster, the co-owner of the bed and breakfast, bustled over and took him by the arm. She led him to the small buffet set up across the room. “Now your wife tells us that you really don’t eat breakfast. Well, nonsense. Nothing is better for ya. Get ya started out right, dontcha know.” Bob looked forlornly back at Kara, silently begging for help.
“Now, Bob. Can I call you Bob, Hon? We’re all just friends here, dontcha know. Now Bob, here ya go. Here’s some eggs. The hens laid ‘em fresh this mornin’. We wouldn’t want to disappoint them after they worked so hard, now would we? And here’s my homemade soda bread and orange marmalade. I picked those oranges myself on our trip to Florida. Herbert, you remember that trip, dontcha? Had aheck of atime getting them thru customs, didn’t we, Herbert?” As she paused for breath, Bob looked over to see a pair of legs sticking out from under a newspaper. That must be the infamous Herbert hiding.
“…right, Bob?”
Oh, no. What had she asked about? He crossed his fingers and nodded hoping that he hadn’t just agreed to join this Martha Stewart cult.
“Oh and here’s some sausage. Herbert made it. It’s his own special recipe. He makes it with a secret ingredient. See if you can guess what it is. I’ll give you a little hint, the hens wouldn’t be too happy if they knew what it was.” She laughed at her joke while Bob remained confused. He found himself ushered to an empty table.
“Now here you go, dear. A big glass of milk. Just the thing for a growing boy like you.” Mrs. Lancaster leaned past him to pick up a small jug from the table. “And here, Dear. Here’s some maple syrup.”
Oh god, please don’t let her tell me how she hiked 50 miles into the woods on snowshoes in a blizzard and tapped the trees herself. Bob was punished for this uncharitable thought when Mrs. Lancaster poured syrup over his sausage and eggs. Any hope he had of somehow ditching the now sticky-sweet food was dashed when the innkeeper settled into the chair next to him.
“Now you just tuck in while your pretty little wife and I discuss what you’re going to do today.” Both Mrs. Lancaster and Kara looked at him expectantly. He took a small portion of sausage and eggs, braced himself and put it in his mouth, willing himself not to grimace.
Mrs. Lancaster patted him on the arm and looked at Kara. “Now, Dear. What are you two going to do today? We just have tons of stuff for two little lovebirds to do, don’t we, Herbert? I think after breakfast you should take a nice bike ride, right Herbert? Just the thing to get your day started right.”
Bob zoned out the chatter, instead focusing on eating his meal without gagging. His ears perked up as he heard the word ‘dinner’. He listened for a moment. Oh no, they were actually planning a dinner here at the Bed and Breakfast. Breakfast was bad enough, but dinner was out of the question.
“We have plans for dinner,” he quickly said. Both Kara and Mrs. Lancaster looked him, startled by his outburst. Bob looked uncomfortable. “I’m sorry but we have dinner plans.” They still stared at him as if amazed that he could actually speak. “Thank you though,” he mumbled before shoveling the last bite of food into his now red face. Mrs. Lancaster looked a little cranky that her plans had been thwarted and she frowned as she cleared Bob’s plate and glass.
“Well, okay, dear. If you’re sure.” She retreated into the kitchen, talking to herself the whole way.
“You’d better make a break for it while you can.” They’d forgotten about Herbert sitting in the corner. Bob and Kara looked at each other for a split second, quickly realized the soundness of this advice and raced from the dining room. Herbert smiled knowingly and went back to reading his paper.

“So what’s wrong with the names I picked out?” Jamia asked glaring at Frank who was seated across the room. He sighed. They had been arguing over baby names for the last hour.
“Nothing is wrong with them. I’m just not crazy about them. I mean you gotta take the whole name into consideration. You can’t just stick any old first name with a great name like Iero. It takes a special name. A strong name.”
Jamia rolled her eyes. “Well then maybe they should just have Nestor as a last name. That’s a good name.”
Frank tried not to lose his temper. He could see that Jamia was tired and cranky. “Honey, calm down.”
That was the wrong thing to say. “Calm down? Calm down? You want me to calm down? You just said the names I chose for our babies are stupid.”
“I never said stupid.” Frank tried to break into her rant.
“Well you don’t love them.” Jamia sniffed.
Frank stood up and walked over to where she was sitting. “Babe, I just said I wasn’t crazy about them. Look, we don’t have to decide now. The babies aren’t gonna be here for weeks yet. We got time to decide on names.”
“But what if we can’t decide?”
Frank tried not to laugh, “Then I guess we’ll just have to call them Baby Number One and Baby Number Two.”
Jamia shot him an evil glance. “That’s not funny. I wanna get this decided before they come.”
Frank sat down and put his arm around her. “Okay since we don’t know what we’re getting we gotta have two boy names and two girl names, right?”
Jamia nodded blinking back tears. “I like my names.”
He tried to be patient. His mom had warned him that Jamia’s emotions were going to be really messed up the closer she got to her delivery date. He understood she was tired of being pregnant. “Well I like my names too.” He said.
“So what are we gonna do?”
“What if I pick a girls name and you pick a girls name? Then once the babies are born will decide which one fits her best.”
“We don’t even know if we’re having a girl.” Jamia reminded him.
“True, maybe we have two boys.”
Jamia rolled her eyes. “Hell, we don’t even know if we’re having one boy. Monica said she thought one of the babies was a boy but what if she is wrong?”
Frank shook his head, “Pretty sure she was right.”
Jamia burst into tears, “That’s just cause you want boys.”
Oh, Lord help me, Frank thought to himself. “Honey, that’s not true. I just want our babies to be healthy. I don’t care if they are boys or girls.”
It was clear Jamia didn’t believe a word he was saying. She turned her face away when Frank tried to kiss her.
“Hey, come on.” Frank tried to coax her into a smile. “How about we name them Fric and Frac?”
Jamia didn’t even crack a smile. Frank realized these next too weeks were going to be very long.

Authors Note: Sorry but I’m off again. New chapter on Monday. Thanks again to all of you who have followed this story for so long. You will never know how much that means to me. Love to you all. – SanDee XOXO