“Hold on,” she said, waving them off. “Just—give me a second.”
The room adjusted around her without discussion. Zane steadied her elbow. Noah leaned in, murmuring something only she could hear. Felix turned the volume down a notch. Thomas checked the time without meaning to, muscle memory kicking in from decades of controlled crises. Atticus lifted his gaze from his phone, also noting the time. He watched Cricket carefully, tensed in case he needed to move quickly.
“I’m gonna need to check your dilation again in about ten minutes or so,” Atticus reminded her.
She gave a stilted nod, breathing in through her nose, then blowing out through her mouth. Thomas bit back a smile as Noah, Zane and Felix all breathed with her. Sometimes he was blown away by how big his family had grown, how much his life had changed.
Zane took a cool cloth, mopping the sweat from Cricket’s brow. Noah straightened the loose bun at the top of her head that had flopped to the side a bit.
Asa and Avi sat on the floor, backs to the wall, knees drawn up, gazing at their husbands with an affection Thomas had once thought they were entirely incapable of. It still caught him off guard sometimes, how openly affectionate they’d become, how easily they wore their devotion now. How fiercely they seemed to love their spouses and their children. They sat pressed together, bodies touching from shoulder to calf, two halves of one whole. Maybe the surprise wasn’t that the four of them had ended up together, but that Thomas and the others hadn’t called it from the start.
The tension drained from Atticus’s shoulders as Cricket’scontraction faded. She gripped the edge of the bed while Noah rubbed her lower back. Zane grabbed ice chips from the corner of the room while Felix straightened the covers on her bed, making sure nothing would be bunched beneath her when the time came. It was busy work but Thomas understood the need to feel useful in a situation with very few variables within their control.
When the contraction passed, Atticus returned his attention to his phone, likely texting his husband. Jericho checked in periodically, drifting between rooms, checking on his older children, making sure they felt welcome and comfortable in Thomas’s home. Thomas noted, not for the first time, how Jericho always seemed to position himself between chaos and calm, like a buffer. He had become a bridge between the oldest in the family and the youngest.
Matty had joined Jericho’s little clique as soon as they’d arrived and they’d welcomed him and Jordan easily. Matty still had no idea that the ‘Lake’ the others spoke of, was the real name of the guy he’d hooked up with during the gala or that he might arrive at any moment. Thomas tried not to involve himself in the drama of the younger ones, but Matty was his brother-in-law, no matter how young he was. And—technically—Thomas hadn’t involved himself, the others had; him and everyone else on comms that Halloween night.
Now, both he and Aiden knew that Matty had slept with Lake, even though Matty and Lake didn’t know they’d slept with each other. It was messy. It would only get messier. But Thomas and Aiden had discussed it at length and decidedagainst telling him. Not for “the plot,” as Jericho’s other kids had said, but because they didn’t want Matty thinking this was some hazing ritual or that everyone had known but him. He wanted Matty and Aiden to have a relationship. Aiden had a huge family here with him, but Matty had nobody. Just Aiden…and Jordan, of course.
With Cricket’s contraction passed, they restarted the video. They were recording for a number of reasons. They were distracting Cricket from her slow-progressing labor, they were documenting the event to the world via social media,andthey were having a good time.
“Wanna join us, Freckles?” Felix called, hitting record on the video, the music queuing up once more. “God knows you can move your hips. My brother never shuts up about it.”
Noah, Zane, and Cricket snickered at that. Atticus just smirked without looking up from his phone. It was astounding how much his eldest son had mellowed since meeting Jericho and becoming a father himself. Things that used to upset him seemed to roll off his back with ease now. Thomas had once worried Atticus’s edges would never soften.
They’d barely made it through the song before Cricket bent forward suddenly, palms braced on her thighs, eyes closing as she breathed through another contraction. The laughter softened instinctively, voices lowering, the music fading into background noise.
Another breath passed. Cricket straightened, rolled her shoulders, and lifted her chin.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m good. Play it again.”
And just like that, the room exhaled.
The children had separated into two clear factions. The tiniest of Mulvaneys—Theo, Allister, Oscar, and West—were currently curled up in the corner of Cricket’s room, buried under blankets, watchingMickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas, somehow oblivious to the chaos just feet away. The TV cast a soft blue glow across their faces, Theo’s socked feet sticking out of the edge of the blanket, knocking against Allister’s leg. Oscar curled around West, sucking his thumb, already halfway to sleep. Allister’s hand rested flat against the carpet, fingers splayed.
The older four—Adi, Ara, Jett, and Jagger—were running wild somewhere within the confines of the mansion, their distant laughter echoing faintly through the vents and stairwells.
Thomas wasn’t worried for their safety. There were adults strewn far and wide across the house, the doors locked, the alarms engaged, and somewhere Ever was making sure everyone survived the night. As long as everyone remained within the house, they were safe.
Thomas had made sure of that.
It was a familiar comfort, control layered beneath care, vigilance disguised as generosity. He’d built this place not just to house them, but to protect them. Every reinforced wall, every quiet security measure, every contingency plan had been an act of love, whether anyone else ever realized it or not. Even now, his mind ticked through redundancies automatically, a background hum he couldn’t shut off.
“Come on, Cricket,” Noah encouraged around a laugh. “You gotta put your back into it. Twerk that baby out.”
“Yeah, create an environment so hostile the baby doesn’t want to stay anymore,” Zane said around a laugh. “He’s too comfortable. Your womb is too hospitable.”
Cricket laughed, then abruptly sucked in a sharp breath, one hand flying to the bedpost. Her knuckles went white as she leaned into it, forehead dropping forward.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Okay. Fuuuu—dge,” she finished carefully, aware of little ears. “That one’s a little spicy.”
The room recalibrated instantly. Someone paused the music. Felix stepped closer. Noah crouched in front of her, murmuring encouragement. Thomas noted the timing again, the gap between contractions collapsing.
“It’s not my fault this kid doesn’t want to leave,” she cried once the tension eased, her hair starting to fall from its bun once more. “He’s got my cervix locked down like Fort Knox.”
“Have you seen rent prices?” Zane asked. “I wouldn’t want to leave either. He’s got free room and board, food on tap, a pool open 24/7.”
A low groan escaped her. “This sucks.”
