Rae laughed a little bit. "I think the only person she'd do that with is that DJ kid. Zach's little brother." With a smile, she nodded her head. "It is. It's good to bond with him like this. And it teaches helps teach him the whole mouth nom thing," she chuckled softly. "He's learning to eat little things on his own but he ends up getting it all over his face instead of in his mouth. So, yeah," she wet her lips and nodded. She saw his mouth move and chuckled. "Lilja is Swedish," she pointed out. "It means Little One. I'd been toying with calling him that when I was still pregnant, and it just sort of... came out, I guess." She'd always called EJ "Little One," but it just seemed like a good time to switch it up. "Yeah," she nodded. "I know you do. You actually have my back pretty well even when he isn't a handful," she pointed out with a smile. "And I appreciate it." EJ wasn't usually a handful, which was helpful.
As he spoke, Rae blinked twice. She chewed on her lip. "You... you told me that," she murmured. "I knew all of that." She didn't usually forget things. Her memory was foolproof, usually. "I'm sorry." She brushed a hand through her hair. It was a problem, obviously, when her memory made her forget things like that. Things that felt important, even if they weren't vital and crucial, stuck in her mind forever. Why hadn't she remembered that? Obviously it was an example of the exhaustion catching up to her. But that didn't feel like a good excuse. Not when it came to forgetting things about the man she loved. "I don't think you ever told me your middle name, though..." she said, wracking her brain a little and chewing her lip. What if he had? "Mine's a weird one. It makes me sound like a space alien," she chuckled softly. "Astrid. My daddy wanted me to have some of my Swedish lineage obvious."
Robbing the cradle. She laughed at that. "It probably would. I might look older if I dyed it red, though," she mused softly. "I'm kind of attached to the blonde, though, so I think I'll stick with it. Especially since you said you have a weakness for blondes."
She nodded. "I don't doubt that for half a second," she agreed. "He's tough, but he's nice. Friendly. Too sweet to be good cop. Brandon doesn't take any crap, so I can imagine that he was bad cop. They probably made good partners." She smiled. "I don't mind being see through. You're pretty see through, too, though maybe that's only to me. Well, and Brandon and Regan," she chuckled softly. The way he was looking at her made her think that maybe he was catching on, and she swallowed thickly and chewed on her lip, reaching for a subject change.
"We can do it when it warms up more," she suggested. "Maybe later in the month when the temperatures hit the sixties?" That wasn't warm, but it was warmer than it was now. She chuckled and nodded. "I hated driving in the Bronx, too. Traffic was always more aggressive there than the rest of the city. I walked mostly everywhere. I was within a block and a half of everything I ever needed," she mused with a grin. "I'm excited for this now," she smiled and squeezed him in a hug. "Kori or one of the twins can watch EJ, and we can just... be."
The expression that crossed his face didn't escape Rae's attention, and she looked down. "Sorry," she mumbled, her cheeks turning red. "And you bring all the spice out of me," she pointed out, wiggling her eyebrows and listening as EJ giggled, with her own smile.
"I need to..." she started slowly. "I know. I need to go slow." She breathed in deep, but the breath wasn't as deep as she wanted it to be. She took a couple more steps, before she felt her knees giving out underneath her, and after a couple more seconds trying to keep herself standing, she hit the wall—her head made a thud sound against it—and then crumpled down to the ground, unconscious.