My Number One Fan

Later on that night, we sat at the table to call my family from Texas and Maryland. They went home the day after the cookout, and from what I was told, both my grandfathers had been on pretty good speaking terms. We decided to use both cell phones to call them at the same time.
“Hey Grandpa Wally,” I said. “Is the rest of the family around?”
“We knew you’d end up calling later, so we all gathered around just in case.” Walter replied.
“Well, I have my dad’s family on Jeff’s phone on speaker, so they may be able to hear you.” I informed him.
“We hear them just fine,” Cathy replied. “So, do you have news for us or what?”
“We have great news,” Jeff answered, grabbing my hand. “We found out the sex of the baby today.”
“You didn’t want to be surprised?” My Aunt Becky’s voice asked.
“No, we thought it would take some stress off of me if we knew.”
“Good point,” she mumbled.
“Shush now,” Alexandria said to her daughter. “Well, what are we getting?”
“Granddaughter, niece, and girl cousin,” I answered, smiling up at Jeff.
“So you’re having a girl?” Frank asked.
“Yes, we’re having a girl.” Jeff spoke up for me. I heard sniffling from people and cheering from others.
“We’ll let you two go, this is just marvelous,” Cathy said, her voice thick with tears. I smiled up at Jeff, who rolled his eyes and disconnected both calls.
“We’ll tell them face to face,” he said as we heard the front door open.
“A daughter,” I said, rubbing my belly. Jeff’s hand smoothed out over mine, and we felt our daughter move even more.
“Daddy’s little girl,” he muttered back to me.
“Ew, we didn’t come for a porn show, we can get that online.” Matt’s voice said. I looked up to see it was just him and Amanda.
“Where’s Jas?” I asked my future sister-in-law.
“With Gilbert.” she replied. “So, how did it go today?” she asked, walking up to me and Jeff. “Are we getting a niece or a nephew?” Matt walked up to stand beside her just as Jeff answered “niece.”
Amanda squealed with delight and embraced both Jeff and me. “Congratulations you two,” she said.
“So, have you thought of names yet?” Matt asked.
“We did that last night. So from now on when the baby’s referred to, she’ll be called Kylie.”
“Kylie? After Riley?” Amanda asked, getting it straight on.
“Well, no matter what her middle name was going to be Nero after Jeff, so we decided Kylie to even things out.” I explained.
“I like it,” Matt said. “My little niece Kylie.” He gave a spastic shiver. “It just feels weird to say, like it’s hard to believe that this is really happening.”
“How do you think I felt when you adopted Jason as your own?” Jeff asked with a smile. “Daddy Matt never really fit in my head.”
“What does fit in your head?” Matt asked.
“Hey, I will not have my daughter listening to that,” I said, placing my hands on the sides of my stomach like I’m covering her ears.
“I agree,” Amanda replied. The guys looked around at each other before rolling their eyes.
“So, you have the gender, are you going to start working on the nursery?” Amanda asked.
“We left a room empty just for this, so I’ll probably end up painting it so we don’t have to worry about fumes when we start putting furniture in,” Jeff replied.
“I want to help paint,” I said, looking up at him.
“Riley, you can’t be around the fumes.”
“I can put on one of those masks.” When Jeff looked confused, I kept going. “You know, one of those masks construction workers wear over their mouths and noses to prevent wood and stuff from getting in their systems.”
“I know what you’re talking about Riley, why do you want to paint so bad?” Jeff asked, grabbing my hand.
“Jeff, it’s our baby’s room, what if someone said you couldn’t take part in it over something?”
“I would say forget you, I’m doing this for my daughter.” I stared at him for another minute before he realized what I was saying.
“Oh,” he said after a minute. He sat there and thought for a long time. “Only if you wear the mask and keep it on at all time,” he said finally. I squealed and wrapped my arms around his neck.
“I want cookies,” I said, letting him go and walking into the kitchen. I heard Amanda laugh, probably at the looks on Matt and Jeff’s face at my sudden craving for cookies. They walked in while I was looking through the freezer for cookie dough.
“Jeff, I don’t think we have any cookie dough,” I said, looking back at him. He walked up behind me and looked around, finding the dough in a few minutes.
“You’re my hero!” I said, taking the roll from him and cutting it out.
“You and your cookies,” He muttered, sitting at the counter beside Matt. She just flashed me a smile before reaching for the baking sheet.
“So, what are we going to do with the nursery?” Jeff asked me as I placed the cookies on the baking sheet.
“No idea,” I muttered, resisting the urge to eat some of the dough right then and there. I placed the baking sheet in the over and adjusted the cook time. “I know one thing I don’t want a lot of, pink.”
“Oh, yeah definitely.” Jeff agreed.
“What’s wrong with pink?” Mandy asked, looking confused.
“Nothing’s wrong with pink per say, I just think it’s way to overdone for girls.” I explained.
“Yeah I mean, you have people dressing their daughters in pink shirts with pink pants and pink socks and pink shoes. Putting pink ribbons in their hair and pink jackets or hats on them and it’s just…” Jeff shivered at a mental image. “It’s just way to much. I won’t mind the occasional pink outfit, but not all the time.”
“Yeah I get that,” Matt said, nodding his head.
“There’s so many other colors that’s suited for girls anyway, purple, yellow, light green, red, white.”
“We get the point Riley,” Mandy spoke up laughing. We laughed with her, and I felt Kylie move around a little bit.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” I muttered, rubbing my hand over my stomach.
“Moving?” Jeff asked. I nodded, letting my hand drop as the timer went off on the oven. I grabbed the oven mitt and pulled the cookies out, using a spatula to remove them from the sheet and placing them on the cooling rack Amanda must of pulled out. I turned back around to the others as I felt myself get slightly lightheaded.
“Whoa,” I grabbed my head. Jeff was at my side at once, as was Matt and Amanda.
“You okay?” Jeff asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.
“Yeah I’m fine, just got a little lightheaded for a second,” I replied, sitting on one of the stools by the counter.

~POV: Jeff~
Riley’s face had paled slightly, which was starting to scare me.
“Riley, you know you’ve been getting dizzy a lot lately,” Matt pointed out, looking up at me.
“Have you been getting headaches?” I asked her gently.
“Little ones,” she admitted. “I just figured they were from the pregnancy or something.”
“They could be,” I agreed. “But they could also be something else as well.”
“No, I can’t take anything else right now. They’re from the pregnancy, and stress, that’s all it is,” Riley said, resting her head on the counter. I looked back up at Matt again, who had his arms crossed behind his head.
“What else do you think it could be?” Amanda asked, looking at the both of us.
“T-This was the way our mother was during her early stages of her brain cancer.” I muttered.
“It can’t be, I can’t.” Riley muttered. “Not now.”
“We have to go get it checked out Ri,” Matt said, grabbing her hand.
“I can’t deal this,” Riley said, lifting her head with tears flooding her eyes.
“Hey, we’ll deal with this, if it comes down to it, we’ll survive. There’s a lot more medicine can do now than what it could did for Mom.” I said, wrapping my arms around her. She buried her face in the hollow of my neck.
“But I’ll be going through chemo and shit like that, and what about Kylie? I refuse to do anything to harm her Jeff.” She said in a sob.
“Let’s just take things one step at a time,” Matt said gently, rubbing her back. “One step at a time, and everything will be fine.”