My brother's best friend

Chapter Twenty-Seven

I glare at Daniel who is sitting across from me. His hand is clutching the paper that has his top ten names written down. My own paper is neatly placed in front of me. "How could you shoot down Nathan?" I shrug, "Just like you shot down Matthew." He grumbles something incoherent. "Excuse me?" He shakes his head, "Nothing."

"What are you doing? Linds the shower is in like twenty minutes." Taylor comes over and tries to pull me to my feet. I shake my head, "No, your brother is a very bad name picker." I say, giving him another disproving look. He rolls his eyes, "Like you are any better." "I am." I stick out my tongue at him.

"Gosh, I hate to interrupt your important game of Name Wars, but it's time for the shower." Taylor says, grabbing both our papers. "T, give that back." She shakes her head at me, "No, I've watched you guys play this game for over a month now. I know the baby is due soon, but, please, shower now, baby later."

"Taylor-" Daniel grumbles. "I know; we'll play at the shower?" She suggests. We both shake our heads, "No, we don't want other people picking our kid's name." Daniel was the first to speak. Taylor smirks, "Well, then you better stop playing, because if everyone can't play, then no one can." She grabs my hand and this time I let her pull me away.

"This isn't over." I say over my shoulder. "It definitely isn't." Daniel declares. Taylor steers me away from Daniel as quickly as she can. We cross the street over to my house and suddenly I wish she'd leave me with Daniel.

"You look great." She says just before she opens the door. I don't even have time to wonder if she's sarcastic or not. Streamers and glitter paper falls over me. I try not to show my irritation, who's going to clean this up?

I am wrapped in a group hug and I try to figure out who was there. They pull back and I see Abby, Anina, Catharina, Amanda and Taylor are all smiling at me. Then suddenly they were all talking at once and I had no idea what they were saying. I try nodding when appropriate but I couldn't make out a word they were saying. They were all talking over each other, but it seems they know what they are saying.

After drinking tea and having small sandwiches Abby cried out, "Time for a game!" I give Taylor a look and she just shrugs. Amanda and Catharina seem excited. Anina sends me a smile and I wish it was only her, Taylor and I.

Abby places a diaper bag on the coffee table and hands out small note pads and pens to everyone. "Now, without looking, you feel inside the bag and guess as many items as you can in two minutes. There are ten items." She hands the bag to Taylor, "You can go first."

Taylor feels around for a while and writes down something every now and then. "Time's up." Abby calls and takes the bag from Taylor. She hands it over to Catherina, who repeats Taylor's actions until Abby declares her time up as well. This continues until we all had a try. She checked our lists and declared Amanda as the winner. She then bestowed the bag and its contents as a gift to me.

Amanda jumps up and grabs a paper from behind the couch, it's neatly rolled into a cylinder. She unrolls it and I see it's a picture she took a few weeks back. I am standing in the garden, sideways so you can see my pregnant belly clearly. One hand is resting atop the belly and the other cradling it, my head slightly tilted down to the bump. It is a very nice picture, now that I see it. I was very irritated with her that day. Now I know why I had to stand for ten of those.

She sticks the poster-sized picture on the wall and turns around, "It's like pin the tail to the donkey. Accept, now it's a baby and you need to place it on Lollipop's belly." She hands a piece of paper, which I assume is the baby, to Abby. She then blindfolds her and spins her around.

Abby walked, more like stumbled, to the wall and on her first try, she stuck the baby to my belly. Of course, she will get it right on her first try. I try not to roll my eyes. Next was Anina and so we went through the motions until it was my turn.