No Strings Attached

34

"Hey." Quinn said as she joined Noah on the couch.

"Hey." Noah replied.

"You've been ignoring me the past three days." Quinn noted.

"I'm sorry." Noah apologized. "I didn't mean to ignore you. I'm here, I promise."

"Do you wanna talk about your dad?" Quinn offered.

"I was just taking care of phone calls." Noah told Quinn. "I called my security team and stuff."

Quinn nodded. "Are you okay?"

"Me?" Noah asked. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me. What about you? You know you're safe, right? The baby, too. I won't let anything happen to you or her."

"I know." Quinn smiled as she kissed Noah's cheek. She got up from the couch and looked at him.

"Where you going?" Noah wondered.

"Let's go shopping." Quinn said. "For the nursery."

"Okay." Noah smiled as he got up. He gently kissed Quinn and walked away to get his things.

-

"Wanna keep me company while I work on putting this crib together?" Noah asked.

"Sure." Quinn replied as she followed Noah to what would become the baby's nursery.

Noah put the rocking chair out for Quinn. She sat down and watched as Noah got started on the crib.

"So the album comes out next week." Noah noted. "It's a little late, but it's finally gonna be out there and I'm gonna have to do a little bit of promo for it."

"Yeah, of course." Quinn said. "No problem."

"They want me to do a tour for it, but I'm gonna wait until winter or next summer." Noah explained. "But I wanted to talk to you about me telling the world about the baby."

"You can tell them." Quinn replied. "I can handle whatever happens next."

"I know you can." Noah said as he looked at Quinn. "I just didn't wanna say or do anything you're not ready for."

"I'm ready." Quinn promised.

Noah nodded. "Okay, good. That brings me to my next thing. I think we should start interviewing nannies."

"Nannies?" Quinn repeated.

"To help with the baby." Noah responded. "You and I have demanding careers and we're-"

"We're not letting some stranger raise our baby." Quinn cut Noah off. "I didn't grow up with a nanny, did you?"

"No, but my mom worked full time and my dad wasn't around so I just thought-"

"My mom stayed home with me and my sister, and when we were in school, she worked part time." Quinn explained as she looked at Noah.

"Our careers aren't exactly part time." Noah stated. "We're never really off."

"I'm not letting a stranger raise my baby." Quinn shook her head. "Our baby."

"I didn't say to raise the baby. I just thought it would be good to have some help." Noah said.

"If we need help, we can have our moms or our friends come." Quinn replied. "We don't need a stranger telling us what to do."

"It was just a suggestion." Noah nodded.

"Well, it was a bad one." Quinn told him.

Noah raised his eyebrow and looked at Quinn as the doorbell rang. "I'll go get the door. We can continue this conversation when I get back."

"I'll be here."