Matrimonial Surprises (10/?)
Summary: What happens after Jeff and Annie's unplanned Las Vegas wedding.
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter
Word Count: 4,331
Disclaimer: Not mine!
A/N: Just a few more days, guys!
“ Lydia .”
“Beetlejuice.”
Annie looked at him over her laptop screen, “What?”
“ Lydia was the name of the girl in Beetlejuice,” Jeff said without looking up from the file he was reading. Annie had made herself comfortable in the corner of the couch with her feet propped up in his lap while he was looking over a few case files.
“So? It’s pretty. Lydia Winger.”
He flipped to a new page. “It makes me think of Winona Ryder, and she was in enough of my teenage fantasies to not want to be reminded of her when I think of my daughter.”
“Ugh, seriously? That was like twenty years ago!” Annie whined.
Jeff looked at her and narrowed his eyes, “And thank you so much for reminding me of that.”
“Well you’re the one making this so difficult! You’ve rejected almost every name I’ve suggested so far because it’s the name of a woman you’ve slept with. Apparently that severely limits our options.”
“To be fair, it’s not like I knew or remembered the name of every woman I’ve slept with.”
“What testosterone controlled part of your brain decided that was a smart thing for you to say to me right now?”
Jeff sighed and ran a hand over his face, “Look you can’t really blame me for being a little weirded out about giving her the same name of a woman that I remember sleeping with. It’s like you having a son and naming him Vaughn or Rich or the name of your gay boyfriend.”
“But we’re not having a boy and if we ever do the pool of names I would reject for that reason is a hell of a lot smaller than yours. And for the hundredth time I never slept with Rich, I never even kissed him.”
“I said I liked Amelia.”
“You said you liked Amelia for a middle name, that doesn’t help us with the first.”
“Alright fine, so how about we make her first name Amelia then give her Anne or something as a middle name.”
Annie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ugh. Anne.”
“Uh, that’s your name, it’s not like I pulled it out of thin air.”
“And I hate it, why do you think I still go by Annie? Even that isn’t much better. It’s like barely a name, it sounds like a noise you make when you hurt yourself and are trying not to swear.”
“You’re definitely an Annie, not an Anne. Anne is too stuffy sounding for you.”
“And it’s super common for a middle name. Anne, Elizabeth, Nicole, all really common. That’s why I’m okay with Amelia as a middle name, it’s unexpected but not weird.”
“Like Tobias. I have no idea what my mother was thinking on that one.”
“It could be so much worse than Tobias. You should see what some of the people on these websites have named their kids.”
He hummed in agreement, “I guess. Jeffrey must have been one of the most popular names in the 70s. In school I was Jeff W. more than I was just Jeff. That got annoying after awhile. I don’t want to do that to the kid.”
Annie nodded, “Nothing super common. But nothing weird either.”
Jeff’s eyes slowly widened and he turned to face her. “Her first name needs to start with an L.”
“Because…?”
“Because if her middle name is Amelia and her last name is Winger then think about what her initials would be!”
“L-A-W?”As soon as she said it out loud it dawned on her. “Ohh. Law.”
“Come on, I’m a lawyer! How perfect would it be if my kid’s initials spelled out law?”
“You know what name starts with an L? Lydia !”
Jeff groaned, “Babe, seriously. If you knew how many times I jacked off to Winona Ryder after I saw that movie you wouldn’t want to name her that either. It’s too linked my head.”
Annie sighed and went back to her laptop, “God, fine. Not Lydia . So now I have to find a name we both like that starts with L but isn’t the name of someone who you remember sleeping with or getting yourself off to.”
Jeff grinned at her. “Good luck.”
She shoved at his thigh with her foot, “You’re such a pain.”
He snatched her foot in his grip and pinned it in his lap. “Oh now there’s the pot calling the kettle black isn’t it?”
Annie stuck her tongue out at him before turning her attention back to her laptop. She was silent for awhile as she scrolled through the endless lists of names for baby girls that started with L. Finally she let out a small gasp and her face lit up with excitement. “Oh my God.”
Jeff glanced over at her, “Find one?”
“Laney,”She said looking up at him expectantly.
“Laney?”
“Yes! It’s pretty, you don’t hear it much but it’s not weird or made up, it goes with Winger. What do you think?”
Jeff pursed his lips and tilted his head to the side, “Hmm. Laney Amelia Winger. Can you picture yourself yelling it up the stairs when she’s being a bratty teenager?”
Annie mock-gasped, “Our kid being bratty? Never. She’ll be nothing but a perfect little angel at all times.”
He snorted out a laugh, “Yeah, sure. Just like I never gave my mom any trouble when I was growing up.”
“Exactly.”She sat up with a bit of effort and put her laptop to the side, then moved closer to Jeff. “Seriously though, what do you think?”
“Laney Winger,” He said again, testing it out on his tongue. “I like it.”
Annie immediately perked up again. She turned towards him and put her hand on his chest, “Really?”
Jeff smiled softly at her as he brought his palm up to smooth it over her hair,“Really. I’m okay with it if you are.”
She beamed at him and nodded eagerly, “I’m so okay with it.”
“Alright, then it looks like we’ve got ourselves a Laney.”
Annie squealed and hurled herself at him, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck and trapping the file he was holding between them. “It’s perfect.”
X-X-X-X-X
Annie sat on the couch nervously flipping her phone around in her hand. The TV was flickering in front of her but she was barely paying attention. It was Friday night and she had gone out to dinner with some of her co-workers to celebrate one of their birthdays. When she got home around 10’clock Jeff wasn’t there and figured he had gone out as well. But now it was nearing 2am and he still wasn’t home or answering his phone. Her nerves and overactive imagination were starting to get the best of her and she was on the verge of starting to call hospitals to see if he had been in an accident.
Finally she heard a key scrapping clumsily against the lock and hurried to the front door. Right as she reached for the deadbolt the door swung open and Jeff staggered in. She could instantly smell alcohol on him and knew he was drunk. He was still dressed in his work clothes but his tie was off, his shirt was untucked, and he was holding his suit jacket.
“Jeff!”
He looked up, a bit startled to see her standing there. “Heeeey. You’re still up,” He slurred.
Annie swatted at his chest. “Of course I’m still up! I was worried sick! I had no idea where you were and you weren’t answering your phone! Where the hell have you been?!”
He tried to focus his glassy eyes on her and squinted. “At a bar.”
“Obviously,”She scoffed. “You smell like you rolled around in a whiskey barrel. You couldn’t at least call me to let me know you hadn’t been in some
horrible car accident?”
Jeff swayed for a moment then leaned against the wall to keep himself steady. “’m sorry.”
“You don’t get to do this anymore, Jeff! You can’t stay out drinking as late as you want with those sleazy guys from work without at least letting me know!”
He blinked slowly a few times and let out a slow breath. “I didn’ go with anyone from work. I was by m’self.”
Annie narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “You were out drinking until 2am by yourself?”
“Mmm.”
“Why?”
Jeff shrugged one shoulder. “Wanted to be ‘lone.”
She sighed and rubbed her forehead, “Well you didn’t drive did you?”
He didn’t answer, his eyes slid closed and he looked like he was about to fall asleep standing up.
“Jeff!”
He took in a sharp breath and opened his eyes. “Hmm?”
“You didn’t drive home right?”
“No. Cab.”
Annie knew she wasn’t going to get anymore answers out of him that night and would have to wait until he slept it off. “Just go to bed before you pass out here and I have to leave you on the floor.”
“M’kay.”He pushed himself off the wall and stumbled a little as he headed towards the bedroom.
Annie followed him to make sure he actually made it to bed without hurting himself.“You’re not going to throw up are you? Because if you get it on the bed or carpet and I have to clean it up I’m going to be so beyond angry.”
He froze as he reached the bed and took a deep breath like he was trying to figure out if his stomach was about to rebel against him. Finally he shook his head slowly, “No.”
“Good. Go to sleep.”
Jeff kicked off his shoes then fumbled with his belt and took off his pants, nearly tripping in the process. Then he took off his dress shirt and threw it to the floor before falling face first onto the bed. Within a minute he was passed out and snoring loudly. The drunker he was the louder he tended to snore. Annie glared at his back for a moment then sighed in irritation and covered him with a blanket even though she was tempted to leave him exposed to the chilly night air. But she did leave his clothes in a pile on the floor instead of hanging them up.
By the time Jeff woke up the following morning his head was pounding, his mouth was dry, and he didn’t remember coming home. He groaned as he opened his eyes and realized Annie wasn’t in bed with him, then that the clock on the night stand said it was nearly 11am. After laying there for a few more minutes he dragged himself out of bed to the bathroom to down some Advil and chug a few cups of water before venturing out into the living room to find out just how mad Annie was. He wasn’t sure if he had done anything stupid but figured the odds were pretty good she wasn’t too happy with him right now.
He found her with her back towards him as she rummaged around in the fridge. “Uh, morning.”
Annie briefly glanced over her shoulder at him. “Jeff.”
He winced at her short greeting, usually he got a smile and a kiss in the morning. He had come to look forward to both. “You’re pissed aren’t you?”
“No, why would any woman ever be pissed that her husband stayed out until 2am getting plastered without even sending her a quick text to let her know he wasn’t laying dead in a ditch somewhere?” Her tone was even but by now he knew it was a dangerous false calm.
“I’m sorry. I just figured you were going out with your friends from work last night so you wouldn’t be home anyway.”
Annie spun around and slammed the fridge shut, making the bottles that were on the door rattle inside, “Exactly how late did you think I would be staying out last night?”
Jeff sighed scrubbed his hand through his messy hair, “I don’t know. I guess I wasn’t thinking. But I am an adult can and stay out as late as I want.”
She braced her hands on the counter and looked him straight in the eyes. “You’re right, you can, but how would you feel if the roles were reversed and I had stayed out until 2am without so much as a text and you had no idea where I was?”
“I would be a nervous wreck,” He admitted as he looked away from her gaze. It was true and he knew it. If Annie had been out that late and he hadn’t heard a word from her he’d be pacing the apartment and calling all over the place trying to find her.
“Exactly. Your damn phone is practically glued to your hand and you couldn’t answer me once?”
“I had turned it off.”
She raised an eyebrow, “You turned it off. Jeff, what the hell going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” He said a little lamely. He knew it was useless to put in the effort to try to convince her otherwise, she would keep pressing him until she got her answer and he was too hung over to bother.
“I’ve known you long enough to know that you only get that drunk by yourself when you’re lost in your own head and last night you could barely form a sentence.”
Jeff let out a slow breath as he slowly turned and headed towards the couch. He sat down and leaned forward so his elbows where on his thighs and his arms were hanging down. “She has a name.”
Annie blinked, completely confused. “What?”
“She has a name now,” He repeated. “Before we just said it or the baby then her or she. But now she has an actual name that we’re going to call her for the rest of our lives and I don’t know, I guess it became a lot more real and I freaked out.”
She narrowed her eyes. “So your response to deciding on our daughter’s name is to stay out all night getting drunk by yourself.”
Jeff fell back against the cushions and fixed his eyes on ceiling, “I never said it was a good way to deal with it! I guess it’s just been building you know? I’ve seen her face on the ultrasounds, I’ve felt her kick, I’ve seen the growing collection of tiny girly things around the apartment, and now she actually has a name and it just became really fucking real.”
“Because it is really fucking real!” She snapped back as she rounded the breakfast bar into the living room. “This is happening whether you’re ready or not, it’s a little late to be having second thoughts!”
“See, I knew you’d take it the wrong way, that’s why I haven’t said anything,” Jeff mumbled, still staring at the ceiling.
“How the hell am I supposed to take it when I’m less than two months away from having our baby and you get drunk off your ass because you can’t deal with it?!”
Jeff lifted his head to look at her again, “I’m not having second thoughts! I want her, okay? I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anything! But I don’t know anything about taking care of babies or raising kids.”
“And every time I talk about it or try to get you to read something you practically brush me off!”
“Just because I may not show much interest in whatever you’re reading doesn’t mean I’m not reading anything. For your information I’ve read every one of those Things Every Dad Should Teach His Daughter and 10 Facts About Newborns articles that I’ve come across. Hell, I have a bunch of them bookmarked on my laptop.”
Annie’s demeanor softened just the slightest bit. “You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “You go on all excitedly about parenting techniques and nursery décor and cloth versus disposable diapers and don’t seem scared about this at all! I didn’t want to bring any of this up and make you think…fuck I don’t know what you’d think.”
“You think I’m not scared? Jeff, I’m scared out of my mind! You know I hate unknowns and this is like the biggest unknown ever! I’m scared of having to push a person out of me, of getting a needle in my spine for the epidural, that she’ll come out with something wrong with her, that I won’t be able to bond with her and when she gets older we’ll have nothing in common and she’ll hate me. I can’t even name all the things I’m scared of!”
Jeff eyed her and furrowed his brow, “Then why didn’t yousay anything?”
With a sigh Annie sat on the couch beside him, but still with some space between them and her arms folded. “I’ve talked to Shirley about it, but I guess I’ve never really mentioned it to you. Why the hell do we keep having this problem? This is like the third time we’ve unknowingly been scared of practically the same thing and eventually it blows up into a big fight because we don’t talk about it.”
“Because we both grew up learning to internalize our fears. And a healthy dose of abandonment issues means that neither one of us want to say anything that we think might alienate the other.”
“Sounds about right,” Annie murmured. “But that still doesn’t mean you had to do what you did. I had all but convinced myself you were dead and I would have to raise the baby alone.”
“I know, that was an asshole move to make you worry like that. But like you said, you know me, when too many intense emotions flare up at once I don’t like it so I get drunk to drown it all out. I’m getting better about it but last night it was too much.”
“Jeff, haven’t you learned by now that you can’t drink away your feelings? It creates more problems than it solves.”
“Yeah, well, old habits are hard to break aren’t they?” He snipped back.
Before Annie could respond she felt the baby turn and settle into and uncomfortable position. Annie grimaced and pushed on a spot just below her ribs to try and coax her into moving again. “Oww.”
Jeff’s expression immediately changed from annoyance to concern. “You okay?”
“Yeah. She just moved around so her foot is jammed against my ribs, it doesn’t feel too great.”
He reached over and put his hand on her stomach, “Hey kid, stop sticking your feet in your mom’s ribs, she doesn’t like it.”
Annie huffed out a little laugh, “She’s not listening.” She prodded at her stomach with a little bit more force until the baby shifted again.
Jeff felt the movement under his palm, “Better?”
Annie let out a relieved breath, “Much.”
He kept his hand on her swollen abdomen and sat in silence for a moment, taking advantage of the momentary lapse in tension and trying to organize the thoughts that had been swirling in his mind. He hadn’t been completely truthful with Annie about why he acted out like he did. There was something else that had been bothering him beyond the nerves of a commitment-phobe turned first time dad. He chewed on his lips and took a deep breath in through his nose. “You listed all those things that you’re scared of,” he finally began tentatively, “but are you ever afraid that one day I’ll do something really awful like hit you?”
She scrunched up her face and turned to face him, “What? No. Why would I be afraid you’d ever hit me?”
Jeff removed his hand and turned to stare out the window that looked over the balcony. He couldn’t bring himself to look at her right then. “My dad hit my mom. He didn’t start out physically abusive you know, it happened gradually. And I’m so much bigger than you, I guess I’m scared that if I did ever snap I’d really hurt you.”
“Oh Jeff, even when your temper is at its worst I’ve never once been afraid you were going to hurt me. That’s not who you are.”
He shook his head and dug the heels of his hand into his thighs, “That’s easy to say but…”
She cut him off. “Have you ever even thought of hitting me and had to stop yourself?”
“No,”Jeff answered gruffly. He finally looked up at her and the look on his face made her freeze. It was one she couldn’t even name if she had to. Pleading? Fear? “Just promise me that if I ever do, even just once, you’ll take Laney and get the fuck away from me.”
All of Annie’s remaining anger melted away right then. She took one of his large hands in both of hers and held it tightly. “Jeff, you won’t…”
He shook his head and looked her dead in the eye, “Annie. Promise me. I need you to promise.”
Annie swallowed thickly under the intensity of his gaze. It was then she understood that he really needed to hear her say it, to let him know that even if his worst fear came true and he had that piece of his father in him she wouldn’t let their kid be exposed to it like he was. “Okay. I promise.”
“I know if that happened I would lose everyone I care about, god knows the group would take your side and rightfully so, but I’d rather lose you and everyone else than have my kid be forced to deal with an abusive jerk of a father.”
Annie’s breath caught as she searched his eyes, then brought her hand up to cup his cheek and brush her thumb over the stubble. “That’s what
you’re really afraid of, isn’t it?” She asked, barely above a whisper. “That you’ll do something to lose us?”
It was too much for Jeff and he flinched away, turning his head again to stare blankly into the kitchen. Annie watched his chest rise and fall with his ragged breath for a moment before wrapping her small hand around his forearm to try and get him to look at her again. “Jeff.”
“It was so much simpler when I was alone,” He huffed humorlessly.
Annie cocked her head to the side, “What was?”
Jeff jumped to his feet and threw his arms out to the side, “Everything! I didn’t worry about shit like this when I was on my own. I wasn’t worried about being alone because I thought I liked it, I was used to it. But now…now I realize that this is so much better and if I did something horrible and messed it up it would kill me.”
“And you don’t trust yourself enough to not mess it up,” Annie concluded.
Jeff gave a defeated sigh as his palms slapped against his thighs, “I guess not.”
She patted the cushion next to her, “Will you please sit back down? Because I really don’t feel like getting up.”
“Fine,”He murmured and fell back onto the couch beside his very pregnant wife.
“Thank you.” Annie grabbed his face in her hands and forced him to face her, “Jeff, look at me.” His eyes flitted to hers and she felt him swallow under her fingers. “You’ve got a temper that sometimes has a quick trigger but you are not abusive, physically or emotionally. You just aren’t, you don’t have it in you. The only times I’ve ever seen you hit anyone is when they’re threatening someone who care about. Remember what your mom told you about her relationship with your dad?”
Jeff blinked in confusion, “Which thing?”
“That looking back there was signs of what was to come early on, even before they were married and you were born,” She reminded.
Realization flashed across his face as he recalled the conversation he had with his mom a few months earlier. “Oh…yeah.”
“Well I don’t see any of those warning signs with you. She said he could be very demanding of her and would casually throw out little insults to demean her even when they were dating, you don’t do those things. You’re not going to do anything to permanently lose me or the baby or the group,” She assured.“Besides, you know how stubborn we all are, we’re not going to give up on you.”
A tiny smile pulled at the corners of Jeff’s mouth and he let out a small breath. He always did appreciate a bit of humor thrown into a serious situation. “You guys are pretty relentless when you want to be.”
Annie smiled back and let go of his face to pull him into a reassuring hug. “I know I won’t be able to completely erase your fears, but trust me when I say that I honestly don’t believe we’ll have the same problems as your parents.”
Jeff felt a little better as he tightened his grip on her. She was right, that wasn’t something he could just shake off but it was comforting to know that the person who knew him the best didn’t think it would happen.
She finally pulled back and ran her fingers through his messy hair trying to right it. “Now, you need a shower because you’re practically sweating out alcohol.”
Jeff lifted up his arm up over his head to smell himself and wrinkled his nose, “I’m even grossing myself out.” He stood up and turned back to her, rubbing the back of his neck. “I, umm, I am really sorry for making you worry like that.”
Annie nodded, “I know. Apology accepted.”
He gave her another small sheepish smile before turning again to head towards their bathroom.
“Oh, Jeff,” Annie called. He stopped and looked back at her expectantly. “If you ever do anything like that again I’m going to be so incredibly angry.”
Jeff’s eyes widened and he nodded in understanding.