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“Amaryllis?”
Louis gave it some serious thought. “I’m not sure I like that so much. It’s pretty, I just don’t think it works,” he ultimately concluded.
“I kind of like it. It’s Greek. It means ‘to sparkle’,” Harry turned the book over to show Louis a picture of the crimson flower. “You don’t think it’s pretty?”
“No, that’s...no, sorry. I just don’t like it but if you really do, I’ll consider it. Pansy?”
“Hang on a second,” Harry said, flipping through the pages down to the section marked with P. “Pansy. French. Means thought .”
“I kind of like that. ‘Thought.’ It’s nice. We’ll add it to the list if you’re ok with that?”
“Sure but I think I like Poppy over Pansy.”
“Those are completely different!” Louis laughed which prompted Harry to pout and bat his eyelashes. “All right, all right. I’ll put down both.”
They slipped into comfortable silence, each flipping through different gardening books, looking for inspiration.
“Rosemary?” Louis broke the silence a few minutes later.
“Isn’t that technically an herb?”
“It’s a plant. That still definitely counts.”
“Does it?” Harry quirked an eyebrow.
“Apparently not. Fine. I won’t add it then.”
“All I’m saying is, if I couldn’t have Clover, you don’t get Rosemary,” Harry huffed.
“I didn’t nix Clover for it being an herb. Or weed. Or whatever it’s classified as. I nixed it because it’s ugly and wouldn’t mix well.”
“Fine. No Clover, no Rosemary. Where does that leave us?” Harry asked.
The list wasn’t very long. In fact, there were only a handful of flowers written down.
Violet
Jasmine
Laelia
Dahlia
Pansy
Poppy
The truth was, there wasn’t much that they could agree on, in terms of what they wanted. Either they were ugly, the meanings were too far out there, too plain, or too much.
“Magnolia?”
“Yes! Love Magnolia,” Louis wrote it down, enthusiastically.
“Do you want to know what it means?” asked Harry.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a complete yes for me.”
“Really? That kind of surprises me.”
“Why does me liking Magnolia surprise you?” Louis playfully tossed down his book and huffed, sitting back in his chair.
“I don’t know. It’s soft. Delicate.”
“Harold,” Louis leaned in and punched Harry’s arm. “Are you honestly telling me you don’t think I’m soft?” He pinched Harry’s side in more of a tickling away.
“Lou...stop!” Harry giggled.
“I’m fucking soft Harry! And delicate. I’m delicate as a fucking daisy!” He then belched and blew the burp directly into Harry’s face. “And no. Before you ask, not Daisy. Reminds me too much of my sister.”
“My bad, Lou. You’re definitely delicate and soft. A disgusting fucking mess, but sure. Soft and delicate, too. And I wasn’t suggesting Daisy. Not that I don’t love your sister. What about Tansy?”
“Tansy,” Louis paused, weighing the option in his mind. “I actually really like that. It’s really different. Better than Pansy, though?”
“Totally different. And you know I’m not in love with Pansy. Except I don’t really like what Tansy stands for,” Harry passed the book over to Louis.
“ ‘I declare war on you’ .” Louis read aloud with a bit of a glint in his eye.
“Yeah, see, you’re too excited about that.”
“Harry think about it.”
“I am thinking about it. And I’m thinking absolutely not. That’s literally the worst possible meaning. Sends the wrong message entirely.”
“Is it really the wrong message, though? I just see it as a giant ‘don’t fuck with us’, right?”
“No, Louis. You’re not naming our daughter a flower that means declaring war.”
“But that’s what makes it so wonderful. Look at her!” Louis held up the sonogram photo. “She’s soft and strong and feminine and fierce. It’s kind of perfect. Like a blend of both of us.”
Harry sighed and tried very hard to not give in to Louis. Of course, he eventually broke and told him to add it to the list anyway, but not get his hopes up.
Their surrogate had invited them to the appointment to reveal the gender that morning. As much as Harry wanted to hold off on finding out which sex, the moment he was in the office with his baby on the screen, he desperately needed to know. Not that it really mattered to him, because bodies are just bodies and don’t indicate anything in the way of sex and gender. But he wanted to nest.
Louis obliged his indecisiveness without waiver from his staunch belief the baby was going to be a girl. He claimed it was watching his mom being pregnant with so many girls that he could tell, but really he just had a feeling. Just like he had a feeling she was going to be all wild curls and green eyes. Call it father’s intuition.
Back and forth they went for hours deciding on names. Louis wanted something different and not done a thousand times. Harry wanted something natural, something more of the earth. They went to the bookstore and picked up gardening books instead of baby name books and spent the afternoon combing over options.
It was well into the evening and they were no closer to a name than they were before they started.
“Listen. I have...It’s really unconventional.”
“We like unconventional,” Harry reminded him.
“I was just reading this section here. It’s all about air plants. It talks about them not even really needing soil or anything to grow . Literally wherever the wind takes them, they just grow where they land.”
“That sounds lovely, Lou. I like the idea of our baby blooming wherever she may be.”
“That’s kind of what I was thinking, too. The problem is all of the flower names are just...I can’t even read half of them.”
“That’s too bad.”
“There is one, though.”
Harry raised an eyebrow, realizing that Louis was teasing now. He tended to build things up only to knock the down just so he could pull a wild card out of his pocket that happened to make everything work. “Oh?” Harry asked, already knowing Louis was chomping at the bit to reveal his plan.
“It’s an air plant. Known for wild curls. Native to Brazil.”
Harry smiled, instantly knowing Louis’ thought process as to why it was particularly important to note Brazil.
Brazil held a special place in their hearts. The time they spent there interesting, to say the least. They were happy before then. They were. They had been happy for years.
But the air was different in Brazil. Charged. Thick. Steady.
Nothing spectacular happened there, in terms of their relationship. I love you’s had already been whispered more times than they could ever attempt to count . They had been intimate in every possible way and every possible position and sex was, while always good, old hat by then.
And yet.
In Brazil, they giggled like children just falling in love for the first time. They found moments to touch and flirt and just...be. It was like there was something about being in Brazil that managed to recharge their flame. They left there even happier. Settled. Renewed. Steady.
“Wild curls, native to Brazil. Sounds like something familiar,” Harry joked. “So what’s the name?”
“Arhiza.”
Harry hummed. “Arhiza Tomlinson. Very unique. It’s...it’s rather beautiful.”
“Isn’t it? We could call her Arhi for short,” Louis smiled softly. Harry could tell Louis was already more than smitten by the name.
Harry would be lying if he said he, too, wasn’t a bit in love with it.
“I was also thinking about her middle name.”
“What’s that, Lou?”
“I know we’ve talked about Johannah.”
“And you know I love it and support the idea of naming our daughter after your mum. She’s going to be our daughter’s guardian angel after all,” Harry ran his hand down Louis’s thigh, giving a squeeze and pat to Louis’s knee.
“I know. But I would like to honor your mom, too. She’s been...she’s been my mom almost as long as my own mom was. What about JoAnne? Then it’s both of them.”
He thought about how that sounded, how the names flowed together. Their baby would be a nod to a place they always cherish, a hint of who she could become, wild and free, with roots in the wind instead of the ground. She would carry the names of the only women who would come close to rival her for their love.
She could be everything they were, and more.
“Louis, that’s...that’s the one.”
“Arhiza JoAnne Tomlinson,” Louis smiled. “I think, yeah. I’m already a bit in love if I’m honest.”
”Me, too.”
Harry wrote her name under the sonogram photo. Silently, he got up to hang the photo on the fridge door. Louis came and joined him, slipping in front of Harry and wrapping Harry’s arms around him.
“Baby, she’s perfect.”