Chapter 275: Madeline
We pile into the other SWMRI house like it’s a lighthouse lit from the inside—windows glowing, music low, and the whole place smelling like butter and sugar and cinnamon. Charlie’s gone feral with dessert. There’s a blueberry pie that looks like stained glass, a tray of still-warm brownies with flakes of sea salt melting on top, a lemon tart that shines like polished sun, and a monster trifle layered with whipped cream and berries so lush I could cry. Liam has powdered sugar on his shirt like he lost a fight with a donut; Finn’s already double-fisting forks, absolutely shameless.
“My giiiirl!” Finn crows, scooping me up before I can protest. He spins me once, twice—my hair flying, my laugh breaking loose—until two identical baritones cut through the room at the exact same time.
“Careful,” Jake warns.
“Gentle,” Reid adds, voice low enough to vibrate my bones.
Finn freezes mid-spin like a cartoon caught in a trap. “Right, right. Gentle. I can be gentle.” He sets me down like I’m made of spun glass, palms up in surrender, then immediately tucks a napkin into my hand. “For the drool you’re about to do over the lemon tart.”
Charlie clocks the vibe in a heartbeat—her gaze flicking from the twins’ narrowed eyes to the way I instinctively cradle my belly when Finn puts me down. Her brows jump. “Why are we capital-C Careful?” she asks, already edging closer like she knows and is begging me to say it out loud.
Jake clears his throat. Reid’s fingers find the small of my back. My heart is a drumline.
“Okay,” I say, breath catching, “everyone sit. Please.”
Miraculously, Finn obeys, plopping onto the sofa beside Liam, who’s still holding a whisk like a trophy for some reason. Charlie folds onto the arm of the chair, eyes shining, hands pressed together under her chin.
I step between my men. We don’t rehearse it; we don’t need to. Four big hands find me at once—Jake’s spreading warm and wide at my lower belly, Reid’s covering mine, anchoring, claiming. For half a heartbeat the room goes so quiet I can hear the soft tick of the kitchen clock. Then the world explodes.
Charlie’s on her feet with a sob that turns into a laugh mid-air, hands flying to her mouth. “No. No. Shut up. Are you serious? Are you—holy—” She swears, loudly, beautifully, then barrels into me, careful as a prayer. “You’re—” She can’t finish, so I nod into her hair and now we’re both crying and laughing and she’s saying, “I’m going to buy the baby a leather jacket,” and Reid is groaning because of course she is.
Finn and Liam don’t move at first—like statues trying to compute sunrise. Finn blinks once, twice, brown eyes blown wide. “You—” His voice cracks. “You’re having a baby?” He looks between Jake and Reid, then back to me, like he’s afraid to blink and miss it.
“I’m having a baby,” I say, and it feels like the truest sentence I’ve ever spoken.
Liam exhales a long, shaky breath, then tips back his head and laughs—big and bright and disbelieving. “I knew it,” he says, pointing his whisk at my belly as if it’s some ancient divining rod. “I told Finn two weeks ago you were glowing in a way that was not just back on the water glow.”
Finn finally moves. He stands like he’s underwater, slow and reverent, and hovers, wide hands suspended inches from my middle. The twins make twin warning sounds—two protective groans that rumble against my spine—but I catch Finn’s wrist and press his palm exactly where I want it.
“It’s okay,” I tell all three of them, looking up through my lashes. “He’s family.”
Finn’s face crumples into something helpless. His hand is so big and so gentle it undoes me. “Hi,” he whispers to my not-even-a-bump, voice breaking on the tiniest laugh. “I’m Finn. I’m gonna teach you card tricks and how to win at rock paper scissors and how to ask for extra fries at the diner.”
Liam crowds in on the other side, eyes suspiciously wet. “And I’m going to teach you about cheese priorities, little mozzarella,” he says, which earns a chorus of groans.
“Absolutely not,” Reid mutters, but he’s smiling and he hasn’t lifted his hand from me for a second.
“Settle down, Uncle Mozzarella,” Jake says dryly, though he’s got that look—chest-high pride, a kind of wonder softening his mouth as he watches Finn touch my belly like it’s holy.
Charlie is already rifling through a drawer for candles. “We’re making this official,” she declares, poking three tiny tapers into the lemon tart. “One for each of you idiots and one for the peanut.”
“That’s four,” Liam points out.
“Exactly,” she says, lighting them with a flourish. “Make a wish.”
Reid squeezes my waist. Jake’s fingers trace slow circles over my skin through the fabric of my dress. Finn still hasn’t lifted his hand. Somewhere, a playlist flips to an old love song and the room softens around the edges. The tart smells like summer. The ocean hums beyond the windows. My family looks at me like I hung the moon.
I close my eyes and blow, and when I open them again, there’s a cheer, a crush of arms, sticky-sweet kisses on my temples and cheeks. Someone smears lemon curd on Finn’s nose. Liam demands to be godfather and then immediately argues that Charlie should be godfather because she’s “more chaotic.” Jake feeds me a spoonful of whipped cream. Reid steals the spoon and feeds me another.
“Hey,” Finn says at last, hand still warm over my belly, grin soft and stunned. “Can I—uh, can I feel when it kicks? Like, when that starts?”
“All of you can,” I tell them, voice thick.
The twins answer in the same breath—“We will”—and the way they say it makes something deep inside me go very, very still and very, very sure.
We eat too much. We laugh too loud. And all the while, four hands keep finding me in the quiet between the noise, touching like a promise: here, and here, and always here.