Morningstar Manor

( Nursery decorating for alterna!babyMadsenWeaver! )

Jake Sterling and Patty Lass became Mr. & Mrs. Jake Sterling at a church on the north side of Chicago. It was a big wedding, way bigger than Lara had been expecting, but apparently both Jake and his dad worked for the local government, so they knew a shitload of people on top of all the old friends and family. The Hawthorne-Follet-Steve party ran a little late on their way to the church thanks to an accident on Lake Shore Drive, so they didn't get a chance to do much catching up with the friends they spotted before the ceremony actually started.

( The kids go to a wedding. Some fall off the wagon, others ask drunken questions, and now I want waffles. )

Because he was smart enough to know that he needed more of a buffer than just Lis in order to quell any and all possible arguments between himself and one Stone Hawthorne, Noah had called in a special favor from one Detective Drew Marlowe. He wasn't officially a detective but with a name like Drew Marlowe and a band name like Smark investigations, the title was necessary.

The middle-aged man who was going to be helping with producing the joint effort of Lis Rhodes-Hawthorne and Stone Hawthorne, collective known as Rocky Rhodes, was late - which to Noah wasn't very unusual as he'd worked with the guy in the studio a number of times. The man wasn't very punctual but he was pretty damn awesome musically. He also owned an instrument store, which came in handy with mutual discounts and what not.

Currently, Noah was fiddling around with some knobs on the sound board, having heard a quick acoustic warm-up of the song they were going to record today already. Lounging around on the chairs and couches behind him were Lis and Stone. Stone was pretending to tune and re-tune his guitar, disinterested in Noah since he didn't want to get into a fight, and hoping to maybe get some inspiration for another song along the way while they waited. Lis, apparently, was interested in Noah's girlfriend, or asking questions about her anyway. Noah was kind of amused.

It was shopping day! Lis was so happy. And the best part about it was that her two favorite people in the building where there to shop along with her. Stone had already agreed to going when she had called him the night before, but Lara was a tougher sell. She hadn't been to eager to spend her day off being dragged to various stores, after all. Which was understandable, Lis supposed, but that didn't mean she was going to let Lara off the hook. Persistence paid off, and at approximately 12:48pm, all three of them were seated at that diner two-thirds of them loved so much, waiting on some breakfast/lunch/brunch.

Lis lifted up her coffee cup for a drink, and once she put it down again, she grinned at both her husband and her husband's mistress. "You don't know how happy I am that you both could be here today," she said with a happy sigh. "And we are not giving up today until all three of us have new digs for this wedding." Or until Lis got bored. Whichever one came first.

"Babydoll, I'm getting the shopping itch. I tried to spend a lot of money downtown today to see if that would help satisfy my cravings, but after doing that I realized the cravings continued. And then I realized - what I really need is to shop for a dress to wear to the wedding! With you! I need to shop with you. This will be an all-day event, like I told you, so you better let me know when you'll be able to devote a full day to this quest as soon as possible! Should we invite Larabar too? I think Mormons all shop together, don't you think? Toodles!"

Lis was invited to a wedding! One of her old college friends was tying the knot with another one of her old college friends, which was awesome. Why? Well, a wedding was a perfect chance for Lis to show off her fancy husband. So she called him up, hoping that Lara didn't grab him as her plus-one first, since she was probably also invited. There was going to be a problem if that was the case.

It had been a week or so since J had started feeling the baby moving around and there was only one person who was more disappointed that they couldn't feel the movement yet thank Cotton was Lis. J found this amusing. Regardless it was the middle of the night when it happened. J couldn't sleep and had kicked Cotton by accident, which caused him to shift and then he'd gotten a little kick to his arm, which had startled him awake. She'd given him a total of ten minutes of groping at her stomach to feel the movement before she'd grabbed her keys, slipped on some shoes and headed for Lis' place. See, she cared.

( J lets Lis feel the baby kicking! )

The heat just came on in the vent by Lara's cafe table overlooking the river, so she pulled her hoodie off the back of her chair and slipped it on until the air coming out of it warmed up. She was waiting for Lis and J to show up so they could participate in one of their usual lunches, although this one would be more somber than most. It was the day before Gibson Hawthorne's funeral, and stuff still sucked. It was kind of amazing how someone's non-depressing death could make apartment 476 so depressed.

( Alterna-Lara, Lis, and J have lunch and talk about J's baby and Stone's daddy issues. )

Stone was in his office. He'd finished everything he'd needed to get done an hour ago and was currently thumbing through the Rutherford information book and writing down some questions as he thought of them on a legal notepad next to the book on his desk. He was waiting for Lis to arrive so he could call Henry in and give him the bad news. He'd talked to the other guys in the band and they'd all been prepared - eager even - to let Henry go so Stone was going to be delivering a one-two punch of firing Henry from the store and the band. He did feel kind of guilty about it but Henry was only making Stone's life more difficult in the long run so it was time to cut the ties in the work/band places.

Well, Stone had told Lis she needed to open up her store in January, and she had certainly done it. On January 31st, to be exact. And now the City's newest vintage clothing store was officially in business. With tons of help from Stone, Lis hired some managers and employees and whatnot. She didn't want to be in there all the time, after all. She so wasn't like Lara and her place. So hopefully the people that had been hired were competent enough to take care of Lis Rhodes-Hawthorne's first business venture.

But as it happened, Lis was in the store on this particular Sunday (three days after the store opened) just to take a look around at the offerings. She already knew about almost all of the clothes, accessories, other little doodads and whatnot as she had definitely participated in acquiring them all, but it was still fun to look stuff over again. And to know that anything that really caught her eye was totally up for grabs to take home. Very convenient.

She was just looking through a rack of dresses when she saw someone approach out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head up to see who it was.