Chapter 46 Finneas
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Finneas
I was on the nursery floor at eight in the evening surrounded by pieces of a bassinet that arrived from Whitebrook in a box with a handwritten note taped to the top: Build it right or I’ll fly out and do it myself. Don’t test me.
Andrea’s grandmother had been shipping things for weeks.
The rocking chair was first. Then baby blankets.
Then a box of onesies she’d apparently been stockpiling since Andrea told her about the pregnancy.
Now a bassinet. In pieces. With instructions in what I was fairly sure was Swedish and screws designed for hands half the size of mine.
The woman was either testing me or trying to break me and honestly it could go either way.
The instructions were useless. I’d been at this for forty minutes. The thing looked less like a bassinet and more like evidence of a furniture crime.
Andrea was in the doorway eating ice cream out of the container with a spoon, watching me struggle the way she watched most of my failures: with visible enjoyment.
“You’re putting the rail on backward,” she said.
“It’s not backward.”
“The curve faces out.”
“This is facing out.”
“That’s facing in. I’m looking at it.”
I turned the rail around. Looked at it. There was a label on the inside that said “this side out” in big block letters. I’d been staring at it for forty minutes and missed it completely. I put my forehead on the floor.
“Say it,” she said.
“No.”
“Say I was right.”
“The rail was ambiguous.”
“There’s a label, Finneas.”
She laughed so hard she snorted, which set the baby off because Alex kicked and she grabbed her side.
We worked on the bassinet together after that.
She couldn’t get on the floor at thirty-seven weeks, so she directed from the doorway, eating ice cream, correcting my technique, occasionally tossing a screw at me when I ignored her directions.
I assembled, she critiqued, we argued about every single step.
It took two hours because we kept stopping to fight about whether the instructions were poorly written or I was poorly reading them.
“Step four says insert dowel A into slot B.”
“There is no slot B. There are three unlabeled holes and a prayer.”
“Try the middle one.”
“I tried the middle one. The middle one is too small.”
“Then you have the wrong dowel.”
“There’s only one dowel.”
“Then you have the wrong hole.”
“Andrea.”
“I’m just saying, if my grandmother can build one of these at seventy-three, you can figure it out at thirty-two.”
“Your grandmother sent this to torture me. She’s testing whether I’m worthy. This is a trial by furniture.”
“She does like you though.”
“She likes me conditionally. The condition is that I build this bassinet without calling for help.”
Andrea threw another screw at me. It bounced off my shoulder. “Less talking, more building.”
When it was done I stood back and looked at it. Solid, level, the curve facing out.
I had one of those moments where the whole thing hits you sideways.
I was standing in a nursery Andrea painted yellow because she refused pink or blue, next to a bassinet I just spent two hours swearing at, and my son was going to sleep in it.
My kid. In a thing I built. My father never built a damn thing with his own hands.
Had staff for everything. Here I was with screws in my pocket, paint under my fingernails, and a woman in the doorway who made me want to be better than what I was raised to be.
“Alexander is going to sleep in that,” Andrea said quietly. She put the ice cream down and walked into the room and stood beside me.
She took my hand. Her fingers were cold from the ice cream container.
“Thank you for building this,” she said. “Even though you put the rail on backward.”
“The rail was ambiguous.”
“It was labeled, Finneas.”
I pulled her against my side. She leaned into me, her belly pressing into my hip, her head against my shoulder. The room smelled like fresh paint and ice cream.
The next afternoon I came home from a council check-in and the estate was in chaos. The Andrea-at-thirty-seven-weeks kind, which was less life-threatening and more patience-threatening.
Dr. Patel was in the hallway of the animal wing pressing herself against the wall as Buddy tore past her at full speed, tongue out, tail wagging, free as hell. Two kennels down, something crashed. A cat yowled.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked.
“Twenty minutes. She wanted to reorganize the supply room. Buddy got out when she opened the kennel block for more shelving space.” Dr. Patel ducked as the gray cat launched off a bookshelf and landed on a supply cart. “I’m a veterinarian, not a zookeeper.”
“Finneas, is that you?” Andrea’s voice came from deep inside the supply room. “I need you to move the shelving unit against the east wall. It’s blocking the light.”
“You’re thirty-seven weeks pregnant.”
“I’m aware of how pregnant I am. Move the shelving unit.”
I moved the shelving unit. Then I went after Buddy, who’d made it halfway down the hall and was sitting in the medical room looking pleased with himself.
I chased him, cornered him, and carried him back while he went completely limp.
Forty kilos of dead weight. The look he gave me said I’d personally ruined his life.
“You’re a pain in my ass,” I told him. He licked my face.
I climbed a ladder to retrieve the cats from the bookshelf while Andrea stood below giving instructions.
“Grab the gray one first. She bites.”
“You could have mentioned that before I was on the ladder.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
The gray cat bit me. Andrea photographed it with her phone, grinning.
I was standing in the supply room with a cat scratch on my hand, dog hair all over my shirt, and Andrea was reorganizing the medical supplies by category while telling me about a conversation she’d had with Mary about expanding the shelter partnership.
She stopped mid-sentence.
“I’m happy,” she said.
I looked at her. Standing between bags of dog food and bottles of antiseptic, hair in a messy knot, belly so big she had to stand sideways between the shelves, ice cream on her shirt, pricing gun in her hand. Gorgeous. Completely, ridiculously gorgeous.
“Happy like I used to be before my parents died,” she said. “I wanted you to know that.”
Fuck. My throat closed. She was standing in a supply room between bags of dog food and she just said the biggest thing anyone had ever said to me.
I crossed the room and kissed her because if I tried to talk right now my voice would crack and I’d never live it down.
She tasted like the ice cream she’d been eating all day and the cat scratch stung when I put my hand on her face and I didn’t care.
She kissed me back, her free hand fisting my shirt, pulling me closer until Alex kicked against my stomach.
She pulled back. “Also. The mating bond. After Alex. After I’ve recovered, after the hormones settle. I haven’t changed my mind. I just wanted to say it again so you know it’s real and not pregnancy brain.”
“I never thought it was pregnancy brain.”
“Good.” She handed me a box of antiseptic wipes. “Now help me sort these. The expiration dates are a disaster.”
I sorted antiseptic wipes with a cat scratch on my hand and dog hair on my clothes.
Andrea directed from between the shelves, her belly bumping supplies off the edges, and I kept reaching across her to catch things before they hit the floor.
The afternoon light was warm through the supply room window.
Buddy was howling softly from his kennel, still upset about the recapture.
The gray cat was grooming herself on the bookshelf like nothing happened.
We finished sorting around five. Andrea’s back was aching so I walked her inside while she leaned on me and complained about the shelving being too close together.
I made her dinner. She ate half of it, fell asleep on the couch with Buddy at her feet, and I carried her to bed at nine because she was out cold and snoring lightly, which she would deny if I ever mentioned it.
I lay beside her in the dark, her back against my chest, my hand on the belly where Alex was doing his nightly gymnastics routine.
The estate was quiet. The gray cat was probably plotting something.
Buddy was asleep in the animal wing. The bassinet was in the nursery, assembled, the curve facing out, the label mocking me from six rooms away.
I fell asleep thinking about ice cream and Swedish instructions.
Then she grabbed my arm.
Her fingers dug into my bicep hard enough to bruise and my eyes snapped open. Her face was pale in the dark, jaw clenched, her other hand gripping the sheet.
“Finneas.” Her voice was tight, controlled, scared underneath. “I think it’s time.”
My body moved before my brain caught up. On my feet, across the room, hospital bag in my hand. Packed two weeks ago, repacked three times since because Andrea kept adding things, removing things, adding them back.
Phone. I called St. Clair’s first, the private wing on the fourth floor that the pack used.
Separate entrance, separate staff, shifter doctors who understood wolf biology and wouldn’t panic if a laboring woman’s partner’s eyes went gold.
I told them we were coming, got transferred once before Dr. Okafor’s night nurse picked up and confirmed a room was ready.
Then Luca. “Alex is coming. I need you at the hospital.” He didn’t ask questions, just said he was on his way.
Then Mary, who screamed so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear. Then her grandmother.
“He’s coming?” Her voice was sharp, awake instantly. Seventy-three years old and the woman slept like a soldier.
“We’re heading to the hospital now.”
“I need to be there. When’s the next flight?”
“I’ll take care of it. Luca will book you on the first one out.”
“First class?”
“Whatever gets you here fastest.”
“I like you, Finneas. Don’t let my granddaughter down.”
She hung up before I could respond. I texted Luca: Book Andrea’s grandmother on the first flight from Whitebrook. First class. Send a car to her house. He replied in ten seconds: Done.
My voice had been calm on every call. Professional.
Inside I was shitting myself. My son was coming.
Holy shit, my son was actually coming right now.
In a few hours I was going to hold my kid for the first time and I had no goddamn idea what I was doing.
I built the bassinet backward. I got bitten by a cat.
I couldn’t read a label that said “this side out.” How the hell was I supposed to raise a child?
Andrea screamed from the bed. Not frustration. Pain. Real, raw, guttural pain that went through me like a knife.
“Can you walk?”
“Does it look like I can walk?” she snapped, and honestly, fair point.
“I can carry you.”
“If you carry me to the car like a damsel I swear to God...”
“I’m carrying you.”
“I hate you. I hate you so much. This is your fault. Your sperm did this.”
“I’m aware.”
“Your sperm and your stupid wolf genetics and your ridiculous...” Another contraction.
She doubled over on the bed, both hands on her belly, and the sound that came out of her wasn’t words.
It was a moan that turned into a scream that turned into heavy panting.
When it passed her eyes were wet. “Oh God, Finneas, it hurts. It really fucking hurts.”
“I know. I’m getting you to the hospital.”
“It feels like he’s trying to claw his way out.”
“He might be. He’s half wolf.”
“That’s not funny.”
“It’s a little funny.”
“Pick me up before I kill you.”
I picked her up. She grabbed onto my neck and pressed her face against my shoulder.
Halfway down the stairs the next contraction hit and she screamed into my neck, her whole body clenching, her nails breaking skin on my shoulder.
I didn’t slow down. She was in pain and I couldn’t fix it and the only thing I could do was get her to a hospital as fast as my legs would carry her.
Buddy barked from the animal wing, upset about being left behind again.
“If that dog wakes up the whole neighborhood I’m blaming you,” Andrea muttered into my shoulder.
“We don’t have neighbors. We have a forest.”
“Then I’m blaming the forest.”
The car. I drove. My hands were still on the wheel. My heart was not. Andrea was gripping the door handle with her eyes closed, breathing in counts between contractions. When the next one hit she grabbed the handle above the window and screamed, loud, raw, the sound filling the car.
“Oh God,” she gasped when it passed, tears running down her cheeks. “Oh God, that one was worse. They’re getting worse.”
“We’re ten minutes out.”
“I don’t have ten minutes.”
“You have ten minutes.”
“Finneas, I swear to God, it feels like my insides are being wrung out like a washcloth.”
“That’s... a visual.”
“Don’t you dare laugh at me right now.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re doing ninety.”
“I’m aware.”
“If you run another red light I’m going to name this baby after my least favorite person.”
“Who’s your least favorite person?”
“Lorraine.”
“I’ll stop at the lights.”
She almost smiled. Then another contraction. The smile was gone. She grabbed my hand on the gearshift, squeezed so hard I heard my knuckles pop. “Finneas, if this baby has your head size I will never forgive you.”
“My head is a normal size.”
“Your head is enormous. You have a king-sized head. It’s genetic and our son is going to inherit it and I’m going to have to push it out and I will hold that against you for the rest of our lives.”
Another contraction. Shorter gap this time. She screamed through clenched teeth, her back arching off the seat, tears streaming. “Oh fuck, oh fuck, Finneas, please drive faster.”
I drove faster.