Because of a Cowboy

Moving Day

Even though Winnie and I shared a room, we were never that close. I expected her to instantly be taking over the empty space in my room and making a complete studio for her makeup tutorials.

We both stood silently in the empty half of the room that was once mine and mine only. Winnie took her hands out of her pockets and suddenly enveloped me in a hug I never thought she was capable of giving me.

"My baby sis is all grown up," she said as her voice cracked. Winnie was the queen of ugly-crying. "I'll really miss you, roomie. Now I finally have to learn how to fold and put away my own laundry!"

"I hope you know that I never did it to be nice. I only did it because you'd never put anything away. You'd just leave it all over the floor."

"I know! To be honest I never put that stuff away because I knew you would eventually!" she said, crying harder.

I tried my best to softly push her away. I really wanted it to be a full-blown shove.

"Well, good luck with cleaning the place," I said. "I'm gonna go now. See how the boys are doing with the place."

"Good luck. I'll miss you, baby sis."

I turned around and left. Moving was hard, but not that hard. I'd be over at the main house all the time for family dinners. Out one door, and in the other.

The entrance of the guest house, well now my house was all neat and tidy. The only things that needed to be moved were what I had in my bedroom. Winter and John were moved to Maine, but they were moving in with John's parents to take care of them. Long story short, I got to keep all the furniture.

I instantly ran to the grunting coming from around the corner. There were Will and Watson, both red-faced and struggling as they each held an end of the bed halfway up the stairwell. The mattress was caught between the wall and the railing.

"Why didn't you guys just take it apart and carry it up that way?" I asked.

"I move horses around, not furniture," Will said.

"He's...got a point," Watson said.

The two finally gave up, did a little rearranging, and carried the bedframe up by itself. I followed shortly after. I was running to my new master bedroom when something caught my eye.

The nursery, which just yesterday was a scattered mess, was almost full and complete. The walls were painted a calm grey. The crib, changing table, and rocker were all perfectly placed. Stuffed horses were everywhere, arranged in color-coordinated groups. A blanket hung over the side of the crib. It had an adorable horseshoe pattern on it. I was completely beside myself.

Toby stood right next to the crib, grinning ear to ear.

"Do you like it?" he asked.

"It's...amazing," I said, trying to hold back tears as he enveloped me in a hug. "I'm surprised you were able to touch all those horses though."

He chuckled. "They're small and they don't move." He backed away and motioned to the wall. "So, I know a lot of people do the wooden letters above the crib, but I thought I could paint something myself, maybe do a horseshoe pattern to match the rest of the room. I'm sure he'll want to keep it up for a while because he'll be into horses like his mom."

I smiled. "I love it! It's different."

"Great! Now all you have to do is come up with a name." There was a long pause between us. I tried my best to hide my grin. This was a secret I was keeping for weeks. "You have a name picked out already, don't you?"

"Well...maybe...don't you?"

"Not at all. I was just waiting on you to come up with something. I'm sure I'll really like whatever it is."

I took a deep breath. "So, I was thinking of naming him Tobias. We could call him Little Toby, after you."

It was as if Toby collapsed into himself. His composure was completely gone. He quickly wiped away a few tears.

"You really...mean that?" he said with a shaky voice. I nodded. "You've known me all this time...you know my name isn't short for Tobias, right? It's just Toby?"

"Of course I do." I caught one of his tears with my index finger. "I just...no offense...like the formal way Tobias sounds."

"It's regal. I love it," he said, placing a hand on my bump. "And I love you, Little Toby."