~ Mine ~

All Dressed Up (With Nowhere To Go)

"Okay, we will keep quiet about this to dad but you have to promise one thing."

"We get to be the ones to pick out the name," Shawna said with a hint of a smile as she crossed her arms. Sure this was weird; her divorced parents were having a baby in their late forties/fifties, and her step-mom was keeping it from their father, but aside from all of that she couldn't resist the excitement.

"Why?" Reba asked genuinely confused as she took a sip of the warm tea she firmly gripped in her hand, crossing her legs and snuggling into the couch as she did so.

"Because I still get nightmares from when you guys named Shelby." Shawna mused as she cast her eyes towards her sister, who nodded with her in agreement.

"Wait what?" Shelby said, the mention of his name catching his attention as looked up from the other side of his brother, who sat between him and his mother on the large couch.

"They were seriously considering Harold." Chassidy chuckled before clearing her throat when she met with Reba's slightly insulted glare.

"What's wrong with Harry?" Reba fought back as she leaned forward to set her mug on the crystal coffee table in front of her.

"What's not?" Brandon added with a laugh, as he too took a gulp from his Bud.

"I just remember having to rule out Melvin because I was just starting to date Melissa at the time." Brandon continued as he looked back over at Shelby's horrified face.

"Melvin?!" He repeated slowly.

"Mel as in Vin?" He asked once more for clarification, still not quite grasping the idea of potentially having to grow up with the name Melvin.

"You have got to be joking." He said looking over at his mother with wide eyes as he leaned back into the couch.

"Not even slightly Chuck," Chassidy answered in place of Reba, snickering a bit. She'd forgotten all about the picking Shelby's name terrors. Her parents had argued and argued for months on what to name him, ruling out just about every name in the baby book until they decided on a family name.

"Chuck as in Chucky the doll?" Shelby asked with a shudder. Did this nightmare have an end?

"Hey now! If I remember clearly no one had a problem with Will." Reba piped up, slightly offended at how much her kids had hated the names she thought were quite suitable for a young boy.

"Apparently not because I remember us all shuddering when you told us Will was short for Wilbert," Brandon added as he looked next to him, right at Reba.

"How did they land on Shelby?" Shelby cried out interrupting his brother, he couldn't hear any more of the horrid names that could have unluckily have been bestowed upon him.

"Granny," Chassidy said with a small nod.

"She was always big on family names." She added, thinking about the fact that not only did her older brother share the same name as her father and grandfather but that his son did as well... and it wasn't even that good of a name.

"Thank Jesus!" Shelby said laying a hand on his chest.

"Remind me to call her and thank her tomorrow." He said looking at his sisters seriously. He knew there was a reason he liked his Grandmothers so much, they seemed to have all the sense.

~~~~~

"Red! You made it!" Kix Brooks, Reba's longtime friend, and country music sensation greeted, pulling her into a welcoming hug.

"How was the flight?" He asked sweetly once they pulled away, taking in her tired features. Had she looked this beat up the last time they started a leg? Maybe it was due to the fact that her now secret ex-husband was still managing her and the show.

"Your girls are in there." He said pointing toward her dressing room and referring to his wife Barbara, and Ronnie's wife Janine. Reba thanked him with a soft nod; she'd been battling her morning sickness all night and morning long; rest was what she really needed.

"There's the sexy star." Janine Dunn hooted as her long time best friend entered the dressing room, she was sitting on the arm of the designer chair Barbara Brooks was comfortably in. Standing up Janine fixed her ruffly gold blouse and immediately brought Reba in for a hug.

"So how was Thanksgiving with the Ex's?" Janine bluntly asked, earning a flick in the butt from Barbra. She may have been one of Reba's longest friends, but that didn't mean she'd found any proper tact over the last two decades.

"Not as bad as one would assume, I spent most of it with my kids." Reba proudly announced. She knew how Janine felt about Narvel, and she honestly couldn't blame her. She also couldn't deny that Janine had been one of her biggest rocks in her divorce, that's why sitting on the huge secret she was caused her immense anxiety. Smiling painfully through her tired eyes she moved over to the table next to her, just now realizing how eloquently decorated it was for the Christmas season.

"You guys sure know how to spoil a Cowgirl, don't ya?" Reba said softly as she let her hand graze the soft fabric of the sparkly tablecloth.

"We do spoil you don't we?" Janine laughed back, causing Reba to properly smile for the first time that day. She wasn't going to let Narvel ruin her best friend's spirit.

"So your first show isn't until seven thirty TOMORROW night," Janine said with a sly grin as she looked over at Barbara, who was still settled in the chair.

"What to do, what to do?" Janine taunted as she laid one of her hands on Reba's back. The three of them were in sin city, one of them with a broken heart to drown, it was time to party. The only thing was that Reba wasn't exactly fit to be partying at the moment, only there was no way she was about to tell Barbara and Janine her secret just yet. Plastering on the biggest fake smile she could muster, she pushed back the stray hair in her eyes.

"Lead the way Diva Cookie." Reba finished with a nervous wink.