lookforme-inthelilies:

“Hey, you know what I was just thinking?” Taylor James asked as she gently bounced her tiny niece up and down in her lap. “You know what would be incredible?”

Haley, who was busy mashing potatoes, snuck a questioning glance over her shoulder in her big sister’s direction.

“If you guys died!”

Nathan, who was in the process of pulling his and Haley’s wedding china down from the top shelf of the cupboard, was so startled he nearly dropped the stack of plates he was holding. The look on Haley’s face as she froze mid-mash suggested that if her own child hadn’t been between herself and Taylor, she wouldn’t have been above hurling her substantially heavy cooking utensil across the room. Clay and Quinn, who were sitting together on a couch near Taylor, braced to intervene. 

“Um…” Nathan gently set down a stack of china, out of the way to keep them safe should a fight ensure. “Thank you, Taylor?”

“No, no, then I would get the baby!” Taylor exclaimed as she tickled the little girl’s belly. “It would be just like a movie! Like, at first I wouldn’t know what to do with her, and then I would rise to the occasion, and then-then I’d get a makeover, and then I’d get married!”

“That sounds like a lame movie,” declared Jamie, who hadn’t heard most of the conversation as he passed through to grab a pre-holiday snack. Nathan and Haley exchanged horrified glances as their son flitted off to the dining room to clean the table.

“Now, listen,” said Taylor. “Not that you guys could stop me or anything, ‘cause you know, you’d be dead, but I’m thinking about changing her name. I’m just not really a big fan of Lilly.”

Haley grit her teeth.

“Lydia,” Nathan corrected his sister-in-law.

“Why would I call her that?” said Taylor. “That’s even worse. It makes her sound like an old lady.”

“Look, Taylor, I don’t know how to tell you this,” Haley finally cut in. “But if something were to happen to Nathan and myself, um, you wouldn’t get the baby.”

Taylor glanced up with a horrified look as Lydia’s chubby fingers curled around her thumbs.

“Well then, who would?”

Nathan stepped over to his wife’s side.

“Well, we haven’t officially asked them yet,” he began. “But we would want Quinn and Clay.”

Nathan’s friend and Quinn’s sister both stood up, surprised smiles lighting up their faces.

“I can’t believe you’d want us to raise Lydia!” said Clay. Quinn was already beginning to tear up and looked as though she’d hug Haley right that second if Haley wasn’t still so pissed off.

“I don’t believe this!” Taylor declared. “Hold on a second…you guys die, and I don’t get your baby?” 

“Well, you see,” Haley began to explain. “We’re a lot closer to Quinn and Clay, we see them almost every day, and truthfully, honey, you don’t seem to enjoy spending time with kids very much.”

“What is there to enjoy? They’re just short people who don’t clean up after themselves or pay rent.”

Both Nathan and Haley looked away, unsure how to proceed with the moment until Clay spoke up.

“You guys, I’ve got to say, this means so much to me. That you would trust me, with your daughter?”

“But wait,” Taylor cut in. “So if you both die, and Quinn dies, and the dorky agent guy dies, then do I get the baby?”

“Well…actually, in that case, Lydia would go to Lucas and Peyton,” Nathan clarified. Taylor burst out laughing and only stopped when Haley shot her another death glare.

“Wait, Peyton is a real person? I thought you were talking about that horrible character from Lucas’s novels who keeps having all those problems that that slutty girl keeps getting dragged into along with that mary-sue character that he named after Haley?”

At that point, Haley looked like she might not be above throwing the whole turkey across the room at Taylor’s face.

“Uh, Taylor, those novels aren’t fiction,” said Quinn gently.

Taylor chuckled. “No, that’s impossible! There’s no way that Nathan’s mom actually went to rehab that many times and then became their nanny in real life!”

“Mom, what’s rehab?” asked Jamie.

“A place that Taylor might have to go to learn how to walk again if she doesn’t hand over my little girl and get the hell out of my house.”