On August 8th, my character Aria Selnon’s son Noah from “Lost in the Halls” would be turning five years old. In honor of his birthday, here’s a throwback fluff scene of Aria and Karter preparing for his third birthday while reminiscing on his birth and first few years of life.

Takes place in book II “Finding Justus” nearly a year after the shooting. Tanner is twenty-one months old and Maxwelle is eight months.

 “Can you believe it?” Karter Selnon remarked as he reclined back in a chair, spinning the wheels on the toy truck he held in his hand.

“Believe what?” His wife Aria quipped from her spot high on a ladder, trying hard to get blue and red streamers to hang at an angle where they weren’t covering the monster truck banner that read, “Happy 3rd Birthday Noah” “That I’m up here all by myself doing all the work while you’re on your ass playing with toys? Yeah I can believe it.” It usually took a lot more from her husband to get Aria to snap; however the streamers were really pissing her off. The woman dealt with homicide victims and their grieving families begging for cause of death everyday. But those were dead bodies, they were black and white. Dead or alive. Homicide or death from natural causes. Blunt force trauma or gunshot wound. These were streamers. They had to hang at a certain angle as to not block the banner but not rub up against the balloons all the while hanging in a perfect arch. This was not checking stomach contents or liver temperature. No, it was much, much harder.

“No not that.” Karter corrected, shaking his head at her misconception but not bothering to look up from the toy. “Well yeah that, but the fact that we have a three year old. We have a three year old, Aria. We don’t just have babies anymore, we have a kid.” He stopped spinning the wheels on the car long enough to recover a memory. “Seems like just yesterday we were in that hospital room and you hadn’t even broken a sweat and I was on the verge of freaking out. I left the room cause I was getting a little lightheaded and I was gone for like a second and then everything happened so fast. I swear I wasn’t even out of the room for all of twenty seconds before your sister came running telling me it was happening. It was wild.” He smiled at the memory. The day his firstborn came into the world, back when their lives were simple and everything wasn’t so life or death.

“Yeah well you should have felt it from my end.” Aria teased, finally deciding on the correct placement for the blue streamer. “You know what my favorite part of his whole birth was though?” She stopped and leaned her head against the top of the ladder, using it to support herself as she broke into peals of laughter. “When I was trying to get into the mindset of pushing a child out and all of a sudden I head my sister and Hattie screaming, ‘oh my god sit down, sit down’ and I look over and there you were, flat on your face. Twelve hours after I showed up at the biggest double homicide of that year, nine months pregnant to see brain matter spewed against the wall…you pass out. My god Karter you didn’t even see anything.” She shook her head against the latter, covering her mouth to repress the laughter. “Look on the bright side--it made my day.” She recovered herself and refocused her attention on the red streamer. Karter had now moved on from the truck and was fixated on a blue latex balloon sitting by his feet.

“Yeah well, I didn’t like seeing you in pain. It made me uneasy. Clearly you don’t have the same problem as you hang out with dead bodies for a living.” He flashed his famous bright smile at her trying to win her over, a trick that may have worked five years ago when they first met…but not after three kids and a whole lot of brushes with death.

“I was not in that much pain.” Aria corrected, almost as if she were taking offense that he assumed like a normal human, giving birth to a nine-pound baby would have hurt. It was as if he called her, ‘weak’ “Noah was a breeze. I mean Tanner was nearly eleven pounds and I lost six pints of blood with Maxi. And don’t forget about this.” Stopping mid-sentence, she placed the blue streamer down and went to pull up the hem of the white cotton shirt she was wearing. Raising it to her ribcage, she exposed the faded bullet wound on her strip of exposed skin. It was around the size of a thumbprint, a little larger than a regular small caliber bullet having been stretched during her pregnancy with Maxwelle. As Aria used to joke, you worry about her skin stretching in pregnancy, not your bullet wound. She carefully massaged her bare skin before pulling her shirt back down. Karter grunted at the image of finding her lying there on the basement floor, bleeding out in front of him and trying to hang on to consciousness until the paramedics arrived.  

“I try not to think about that day.” He admitted, gesturing to her bullet wound. “I don’t like looking at that, I don’t want to remember. For the pain, Noah was a lot better outcome.” Aria nodded in agreement and it wasn’t too often they agreed on things. “Yeah.” She smiled. “His outcome was a lot nicer.” She beamed at the memory. “And easier, I would do that five more times if I had to. Out of all the kids, Noah was always just so easy. The pregnancy was perfect, the delivery was perfect, we got to the hospital at what? Around eight that night and he was out screaming and kicking all over the place by ten-thirty. It was an easy night for an easy boy.” She picked the blue streamer back up and this time attempted to tuck it under the red one.

“I remember that night.” Karter recalled. “You refused to go to the hospital until the literal last minute. I was so terrified we were going to have a baby on the side of the road and you and Hattie were going to have to deliver him. Or you were going to have to catch him yourself while Hattie revived me because I would have been long unconscious. I don’t know why you insisted on waiting so long!” Aria shrugged up a shoulder, her back turned to him as she began taping the monster truck print balloons under the streamers.

“I didn’t want to be stuck in that bed.” She defended. “There’s nothing worse than being stuck lying flat in a hospital bed, it makes the pain so much worse. Like you said, Hattie was there, we had two doctors. Plus when I was in medical school I had to do a round through the labor and delivery ward, I knew what I was doing.”

“Aria, you went to a crime scene fourteen hours before he was born. An active, police investigating, dead body smelling, double homicide crime scene. Bending over to check out a dead guy with a nine month pregnant belly.” Aria threw her hands in the air in aggravation sending a red balloon falling to the ground and landing on Karter’s head.

“What was I supposed to say? It was my second year working for the medical examiner’s office and it was a double homicide, high profile case.” “What were you supposed to say?” Karter repeated, stretching his words out. “How about ‘I’ve been having contractions can I not be on call today’ something along those lines?”

“Hey!” Aria challenged, pointing a threatening finger at him. “He turned out okay, alright? The kid is the closest thing to a future trauma surgeon that could be found in an almost three year old. All this talk about the day he was born and here we are three years later in the same place. Me, sweating and exhausted doing all the hard work and you…sitting on your ass.”

“Aria you can’t change the natural order of the universe.” He defended lackadaisically, batting the balloon back and forth between his hands. “I would be up there with you but let’s face it…I don’t have the best center of gravity.”

“What happened to, ‘come on babe, Noah deserves a big party I’ll do all the work you don’t have to lift a finger’?” She mocked in a deep and cocky voice, imitating him.

“Aria I don’t sound like that.” Karter insisted.

“Oh please, we both know the only reason you’re not up straining yourself to hang streamers is because you’re a whiny, cry-baby.” She stifled a laugh. “You were supposed to be the one holding me up here while I did this.”

“Well I was!” He defended. “But I got a hand cramp.”

“Like your hands do so much work.” She uttered sarcastically. She realized the words that left her mouth and saw her husband sneaking a laugh. “Shut up Karter, I didn’t mean in that way. And after three kids they’ll be out of work for a while.”  

“Besides that.” He brought up, waving her off. “We have a beautiful, very smart and sweet little boy after all this craziness.” Aria nodded in agreement.

“It seems like just yesterday he was all swaddled in our bed like a little burrito and we, I was up every hour to feed him and swaddle him again.” She bulged out her lower lip in nostalgia. Karter wrinkled his forehead in confusion.

“Seems like yesterday…wasn’t that just last night? The having a baby in our bed and we, you getting up five times a night to feed it?”

“Yes.” Aria answered, stretching out the word in oblivion. “Maxwelle…our daughter, remember we have one?”

“Yes, I remember.” He shot back, wrinkling his upper lip at her. “Still can’t believe Noah’s not the baby anymore. Now he’s this little person with feelings and emotions who can express his own opinions. Like when he says, ‘mommy I want to go see bodies with you’ that was so adorable and disturbing all at the same time. He’s three and knows how to do CPR on his bear.”

“Forget CPR, he knows the importance of cardiac massage.” Aria laughed. “You’re right though, he’s so big and handsome and sweet. And laidback, he’s easiest child. Since day one he was always so easy.”

“Just like me.” Aria and Karter announced in unison, then exchanged confused glances at each other.

“Like you?” Aria spluttered out in almost disbelief. “Karter your thirty-four years old and still need me to put your dirty socks in the hamper and fold your underwear! What part of that is easy? If I don’t give you direction you’ll walk off the face of the earth. Honey, I love you but I need to give you little treats after you finish your chores, you’re a glorified man-child.” He crossed his arms in defeat, offering her a pout before fighting back.

“And you’re easy? Aria you’re the one that holds us together and make sure we don’t fall into a million pieces, you gave me three beautiful children, you have this warrior-like strength, you’re like really, really hot…but you’re the most frustrating, stubborn and challenging person I’ve ever met. Ar, you jumped in front of a bullet without even blinking, you stitched yourself up in our bathroom and you’ve been chasing the man who killed your child relentlessly no matter how many threats he puts on your life. How is that easy?”

“The fact that after four years of picking up your socks with a rake I still find you attractive enough to have sex with you.” She quipped. “Noah is just like me as a kid. He’s laidback and really determined.”

“What part of you is laidback? The part that jumps up every single time a dead body drops? Or the part that preformed open-heart surgery three days after being shot?” Aria placed her hand on her hip, opening her mouth to argue back when a voice interrupted them.

“No, no more! Both of you stop!” Her father Asher ran into the room, abandoning his task of keeping Noah, Tanner and Maxi out of the living room while their parents set up for the party. “You’re right, Noah is the easiest and most laidback kid there is.” He pointed to both his daughter and son-in-law. “Unlike either of you.”

“Dad--.” Aria started.

“Ar, you have your nose to the grindstone twenty-four hours a day, and have since your mother died.” He turned to face Karter. “And you.” At the look of his father-in-law, Karter sunk low in the chair, a guilty look on his face. “You need her permission to get up in the morning.”  Aria was about to quibble at her father when the blonde-haired little boy with big brown eyes entered the room, clutching a phone in his hand.

“Phone ringing Momma.” Noah spoke clearly, holding the phone up to Aria. She climbed down the steps from the ladder to retrieve the device from her son, a puzzled look on her face.

“Baby where did you find this? I’ve been looking for it all day, I must have missed a million calls from work.” She scrolled through her notifications seeing that she had in fact missed a bunch of desperate messages from the medical examiner’s office, including a new homicide she needed to write the report for.

“Under the couch.” He answered. Taking a cleansing breath to calm herself, Aria turned slowly to face her husband knowing she, nor her children would ever leave her phone under the couch.

“You hid my phone?” She asked, her face seething with rage. Karter looked caught. “How else was I going to get you to hang the decorations without you running off to save the day? Hattie already said it was a busy day so I figured there would be a lot of calls.” He defended. “It was one afternoon, not like the dead bodies could get any deader. You can be late for once, they are.” He chuckled, nudging Asher. “See what I did there?” Aria bit her lower lip, fuming inside as she hoisted Noah up on her hip and headed out of the room.

“You jackass!” She hollered back at him. Karter rolled his eyes,

Since today would be my character Shania’s (from Guilty of Love) 20th birthday, I thought I’d share a little fluff scene in celebration. Shania, Blair and Presley celebrating her 19th birthday. 

“Do you know what day it is?” Blair whispered in Presley’s ear a week later. He stood over the burner in the kitchen with his daughter resting on his hip, her hands occupied by holding the spatula- she was a big helper. “It’s June 18th which means nineteen years ago your mommy was making her way into the world.” He explained, hovering over the pancakes that he was making. Three blueberry pancakes were on the griddle, sizzling beside a tray with a vase of roses. Presley babbled in his ear, sticking the spatula in her mouth as she looked around the kitchen. “She didn’t get to celebrate her eighteenth birthday because you were in her tummy and from what she told me you didn’t make it very easy for her in there. Not that I blame you P, she’s hard enough to live with sometimes I can’t imagine living in her stomach.” He stopped for a moment to flip a pancake on the burner before turning back to the wide-eyed baby who was watching the pancakes flip over in amazement. “So this year we’re going to make her breakfast in bed, okay?” He turned away once more to place a kiss on her rosy cheek, not spying the blonde poking her head from around the corner.

 “Shania! Shan wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Shania let out a soft moan and rolled on her side, shoving her head under a pillow as she felt Tatum’s weight jump on her back.

“Tatum.” She groaned. “Go away.”

“You’re nineteen! Wake up grumpy gills!” She exclaimed, attempting to pull the pillow off of her friend’s head but Shania refused to let go.

“Tatum.” She whined. “It’s my birthday and my head’s not in a toilet, let me enjoy it.” She groaned again before flipping onto her other side.

“No you have to get up.” Tatum persisted, shaking her. “Blair’s in the kitchen with Presley making you breakfast, you have to see this.”

“What?” Sitting up slowly, Shania brushed her hair out of her eyes and stretched her arms out. “Really?”

“Yes, it’s the cutest thing he’s telling her stories you have to watch.” Scurrying out of bed, Shania ran towards the door with Tatum at her heels, both of them poking their heads out the door. A smile crept across Shania’s face as she watched Blair flip pancakes in one hand, holding their daughter on the other with a burp cloth tossed over his right shoulder. Presley was entertained by pulling on his right ear lobe as he placed blueberries carefully on the pancakes to spell out ‘19’

“You ready to surprise mommy?” He asked the baby softly.

“They’re coming!” Tatum cried in a loud whisper as she began to push Shania back towards the bed. “Go, go, go, pretend you’re asleep!” Trying to keep herself from laughing, Shania jumped back into bed and pulled the covers off her head, forcing her eyes shut.

 After placing the tray of breakfast on her bedside table, Blair took a seat on the side of the bed and reached out with his right hand to rub Shania’s back, trying to coax her awake while holding Presley in his left arm.  

“Mommy, wake up.” It took a couple minutes but Shania’s eyes fluttered open from her fake sleep.

“Good morning.” She smiled brightly.

“Happy nineteenth birthday!” Blair announced as he leaned forward to kiss her lips lovingly.

“Thank you.” She whispered, as her eyes looked up at her daughter and a smile broke across her face. “Good morning baby! Did you have a good sleep?” Presley smiled her wide gummy smile at the sound of her mother’s voice and waved around the pancake she held in her hand, hitting Blair in the face with it.

“Blair why does she have a pancake?” She wondered, seeing how Presley kept smacking him with the dough and putting it between her lips. “She can’t eat that quite yet.” He stifled a laugh as the baby swatted him in the face with the pancake.

“I know she just likes holding it. Makes her feel like a big girl. Plus she’s amazed at the texture, it’s like this whole knew thing she has never experienced before.” He explained, then handed Presley over. “Say happy birthday to mommy!”

“Ma-ma-ma-.” She babbled as Shania took her in her arms with a bright smile.

“Hey there!” She exclaimed, peppering some kisses against the baby’s brow. “I’m so glad you’re here for this birthday.” Presley smiled and reached her arm out to offer her mother the pancake she was holding. “Is that for me?” Shania cooed. She opened her mouth wide as Presley fed it to her. “Thank you.” She mumbled, her mouth full of food before turning to Blair and smiling. “Thank you so much for making me breakfast, will you share it with me?”  

“Of course.” He replied as he kissed the top of her hairline and let her snuggle back into his chest. “Are you having a better birthday this year babe?” He whispered in her hair, his right arm wrapped around her petite waste.

“Well I’m not pregnant, not nauseous and I’m not throwing up so consider it amazing.” She joked. “Having you and Presley here…” She smiled and reached her hand to his cheek, turning his face to look at her again. “It makes everything that has happened up until now completely worth it. I wouldn’t take any of it back, even with all the pain and the lying it caused.” She leaned over Presley, placing her right hand on his other cheek and bringing his face closer to hers before kissing him passionately. They pulled apart, yet their lips remained only inches away as he whispered,

“Are you ready to see what I have in store for you today Miss Loomis?”

  “Oh my god Blair!” Shania exclaimed as he set the pink cake in front of her that read “Happy 19th Birthday Mommy!” with a camera design on it. She smiled brightly, her cheeks turning a rosy shade of pink as she positioned Presley in her lap. “Mommy’s nineteenth birthday- there’s so many things wrong with that sentence.” She giggled.

“Not as many as ‘Daddy’s criminal record’.” Blair teased, flashing a mischievous smile. He took her left hand and their interlaced fingers over her lap.

“Did you make a wish princess?” He whispered in her ear. Shania shook her head, and smiled in return.

“I don’t need to. I have you and P here, and the whole Charlotte thing behind us. Last year all I wanted was to have you back in my life- you not the person the media made you into. And here you are.” Her eyes lingered on his for a few seconds too long-not noticing how Presley looked at the cake with curiosity in her eyes. She leaned towards it and her small hand left a mark in the pink icing.

“Hey, hey! What are you doing that’s Momma’s cake!” Shania chuckled and took her daughter’s hand. Presley giggled at her mother’s voice, scrunching up her little nose. “She wants to try everything.”

“I think she’s just a little jealous that you get a cake on her birthday and she didn’t get one on hers.” Blair guessed and stifled a laugh. Shania rolled her eyes and shot him a look.

“I gave her life on her birthday, what more could she want?” She took her daughter in her arms and licked some icing from one of her little fingers. “Yummy, huh baby? I understand why you want it.” “I think this is a good time to practice the cake smash for her first birthday.” Blair said, smiling as he played with a tendril of Shania’s hair.

“What?” She retorted as if he was speaking in a foreign language.

“You know when baby’s smash a cake in their face for their first birthday and the frosting get’s everywhere?” Shania burst out laughing and shook her head.

“No, no way you’re not smashing a cake in my baby’s face.”

“No?” Blair questioned.

“No!” She exclaimed, giggling. “It will get all over the place.”

“You mean like this?” He asked nonchalantly as he took a glob of icing and smashed it in Shania’s face, some vanilla cake falling down her cheek.

“Blair! You ass!” She shrieked with laughter, her hand immediately going to wipe the icing off her face before grabbing a bigger glob of icing and smearing it across his cheek.  

“Very funny.” Blair protested, nevertheless unable to keep himself from laughing as he used a nearby napkin to wipe his face off.

“Have you made your point yet?” Shania said, giggling.

“No…” Blair leaned forward, taking a small amount of pink icing on his finger and placed it gently on the tip of Presley’s tiny nose. “Now I have.” Presley’s eyes widened in shock of the sensation on her nose as she looked from Shania, to Blair and then let out a loud cry.

“Aww, Daddy get it off.” Shania pouted in a baby voice. “Get it off my face.”

“I’m sorry Presley.” Blair cooed, taking his daughter’s little hands. Shania used this moment to reach out for a napkin and wipe off Presley’s nose.

“There we go.” He comforted and took the baby from Shania’s arms, leaning back on the couch with her.

“This is nice.” She said suddenly. “Spending my birthday with you and my daughter, my family.”