by Cee Bowerman
“They’re going to look like this for weeks?” Tavin asked, outraged. He reached out and touched the blanket covering little Bellamy, and his face softened. “Hi, Bella. I’m your favorite Uncle Tavi.”
“That’s bullshit. You’re only saying that because they know I said they look old.” He leaned down and stared at little Dylan. “I’m your favorite, aren’t I boy?”
None of the Conner’s were paying any attention to me, and that was good. I was using my phone to capture this moment. Taking a video of the uncle’s first interactions with their little charges. I would go over the video later and find some still pictures to print, but for now, I needed to get all their words down for posterity so that someday these little ones could see that even though today was sad, it was also one of the happiest days of their uncle’s lives.
I fell in love right then. I already knew what I felt for Finn, but now I realized that I loved his brothers like they were my own family. As I looked down at the faces of the sleeping infants, I realized that I loved them too. I had known about them for less than two hours, but they were part of Finn. Part of his history and all of his future.
Just like I wanted to be.
9.
“We fucked this up, huh?”
Finn to Lena
LENA
“Thank you so much, Shirley. Knowing Lily will be there with the dogs makes me feel better, and I’m sure Chess will appreciate it too.” I paced across the hall and turned around when I hit the end. I’d been doing this for ten minutes as I gave Lily instructions about the dogs. “Keep your phone handy, I’m going to need some girl talk in a little bit.”
Once Shirley hung up, I stopped pacing and stared out the window, watching the puffy white clouds as they slowly passed across the horizon. I heard someone walking up behind me, but before I could turn around, I felt arms come around my middle, and Finn’s breath on my ear.
“Are you okay, babe?” Finn asked me softly.
I turned in his arms and rested my head on his chest, my arms going around his waist.
“Finn, are you okay?” I leaned my head back to look into his eyes. “I had no idea, honey. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t.” Finn cleared his throat and stared out at the clouds. “You were the only bright spot in my life and I didn’t want reality to darken it. When I was with you, I could forget about what was going to happen.”
“I’m so sorry, Finn.” I whispered. “My heart hurts for you.”
“Belly and Dylan were my best friends, you know. Of course, Bellamy and I were close. Did you know we didn’t spend a night apart until my parents built their house and made us take separate rooms? We were about eight then, I think. Belly always snuck into my room at night anyway, and my Mom would find her there when she came in to wake us up.” I rested my head on Finn’s chest and he put his cheek down on the top of my head. He took a few deep breaths, trying to hold himself together, and then he continued, “Dylan and I met when we were in the ninth grade. He was a foster kid at a house down the street and spent every minute he could at our place. Everyone in the family loved him, and he became one of us. When we graduated, he went into the Navy and came home to visit every chance he could. We all wrote to him, and Mom and the girls sent him care packages. But Bellamy wrote to him every day. She was in the dorms at school, and lonely as hell. It was the first time that she and I ever lived apart. So, she spent the time she wasn’t studying writing to Dylan. They fell in love.”
“And he became an official member of the family.”
“He always was, but then he and Bellamy got married, that kind of made it legal. After they’d been married for a few years, one of Dylan’s friends from the Navy was in an accident with his wife, and the two of them died. They didn’t have a will or anything, and the kids went into foster care until arrangements could be made for a family friend to take them in. Dylan and Bellamy learned from that and went just a week or two later to meet with a lawyer. Then, as soon as they found out they were pregnant, they changed their will to include any children that came from their marriage, on the off chance that both died. They put me in charge.”
“Oh, honey. You’ve made her medical decisions this whole time?”
“I have. I decided to keep her on life support to give the babies a chance to grow. We found out a few weeks after the accident that it was a boy and a girl, just like Bellamy and I had been. Then, I met you and you know the rest.” Finn sighed. “I came up to see her every day for weeks, then the doctor suggested that I start tapering off, letting the other guys come each day, and I would stay away. He thought that would make it easier for me to adjust after she was gone.”
“It doesn’t help, does it?”
“No. Not at all. But the last few weeks with you have been easier, almost happy. That makes me feel guilty, so I’m fighting that demon right now. But I want to spend my time with you, all my time. I really do love you, Lena, and I hope you’ll stick by me.”
“I’m not going to just stick by you, Finn. I want to help you with them, wake up in the night with them, snuggle them and feed them. I want to watch them grow with you if you’ll let me.”
“Will you live with us?”
I chuckled. “I kind of already have been.”
“I mean forever, Lena. Not just for a little while.”
I leaned back and looked into Finn’s eyes.
“I’m not going to propose today, we’ve ridden a fucking emotional roller coaster for the last six hours. But I am going to propose to you. I want you to help me raise the twins, and I want to watch you grow with my baby inside you. I want to be there when you give birth, on a joyful day, not one that is half sad like today is.”
“Okay. Just so you know, when you do ask, I’ll say yes.” I smiled up at him and he leaned down to kiss me softly.
“They are going to have the babies in the nursery for at least another two hours. They want to observe them and make sure neither one has any lasting effects from the wreck, or from these last few months. I thought you and I could run home and pack a bag, grab some stuff for the twins, love on the dogs for a little bit.”
“That sounds good. Lily is going to stay at our house with them until we get to come home for good. She’s got Tank with her too; I’ve got to let Chess know.”
“Okay, Chess and Tavin are both going to stay up here and wait. They’ll give us a call as soon as the babies come back to the room and then you and I can spend the evening with them. Mace and Angus will be here around eleven, Royal and Ronan will relieve them around six.”
“You guys already worked out a schedule?”
“We did. And while the babies are small, one of the guys is going to sleep in the guest room and take care of them with us when they wake up.”
“Wow.”
“They belong to all of us, although legally I’ll be their Father.”
“Do you have the nursery ready for them?”
“Yeah. It’s painted and the bed is in there.”
I nodded and slipped my hand into his as we walked down the long hallway to the elevator. We stopped at the nurses’ station and checked in with them, letting them know that we were headed out but two of the brothers would stay here while we were gone.
“They’re wearing their bracelets?” The nurse asked.
It had been an issue earlier when there were only two bracelets available for the ‘parents’ of the twins. Finn spoke to the head nurse, explained his plans to her and she was able to speak to the powers that be and get more matching bracelets for each of the brothers and me to wear, matching us to the twins for the duration of their hospital stay.
“We’ll all keep them on until you let us bust out of here with the kiddos.” Finn smiled at her and she gave him a soft smile back as she reached out to touch his arm.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Conner, but then again, I’m happy that you’ve gained two healthy babies. Their Mama did her job and got them into this world safely, and she’ll watch
over you and your brothers as you take it from here.”
Finn smiled but didn’t say anything to the nurse. I could tell that her words affected him by the set of his jaw.
The ride home was uneventful, and Finn and I were silent most of the way. We pulled into the driveway and parked next to Lily’s car, and I was happy to see her sleeping on the couch, the puppy that Chess had named Tank under one arm, Josie in the other. Wyatt was laying in front of the couch, and his head came up to watch us as we walked in through the garage door.
“Trained guard dog we’ve got there.” Finn chuckled, and took my hand to lead me back into the bedroom. “We’ll come back in the morning, but we should get something comfortable to relax in while we spend the night with the babies. The nurses brought in two cots, so we might be able to get some sleep here and there.”
I packed some yoga pants and a long sweatshirt to wear tonight and a change of clothes for the morning. I had washed my hair this morning, so I could braid it tomorrow morning and wear it that way until I was home for a while and able to wash and dry it again. I took off my boots and put on a pair of tennis shoes that I could easily slip on and off if I decided to lay down.
Finn added his clothes to the bag I had packed and then walked with me to his office. He grabbed a box and set it on the dining room table next to our bag, then took my hand and led me to the nursery he and his brothers had already set up.
Once we were inside, he shut the bedroom door so we wouldn’t wake Lily and waited as I looked around.
The nursery walls were painted a pale yellow and had gray trim around the windows and doors. Large pictures of Bellamy and her husband hung on the walls, and I walked closer to study them, Finn moving up by my side as I looked at the stunning couple.
“This was Dylan when he came home for good after he got out of the Navy. This one was the day that Dylan proposed to Belly.” Finn reached up and ran his hand over the glass of the picture frame. “I had never seen her smile so big.”
“She was beautiful, Finn. You two looked just alike, but she was softer.”
“Yeah. These Conner genes run strong, I guess.” Finn pointed to another picture in the center of the wall, and I saw Bellamy in a beautiful wedding gown, her arm linked with Dylan’s as they walked down the aisle after they were married. Another picture showed the bridal party, and I recognized all the brothers dressed in their tuxedos. Each one had a beautiful woman on their arm, the dresses on the women coordinating with the colors of the flowers in Bellamy’s bouquet. Finn moved us over and pointed to a picture that I could see had been taken in his dining room. The family was all seated at the table, and every one of them looked happy. Bellamy was standing up, her arms around her Mom, and they had their heads back, smiling at each other. Dylan was a few feet away, and Mr. Conner’s arm was around his shoulder as they watched their wives embrace. “That was the day she told all of us that they were going to have twins. She kept her pregnancy a secret until she was right at three months. She said she was afraid something ‘catastrophic’ might happen and she didn’t want to break everyone’s heart if there was a problem with the pregnancy. But the doctor pronounced her fit as a fiddle, and she called us all together for a family meeting to announce that she was having twins.”
Finn pointed to another picture. This one was of a beautiful auburn-haired woman. From the people around her in the picture, I could tell she was small. She was covered in mud, her hands high in the air, one of them holding a trophy.
“That’s Greer. She loved to run and entered races all the time. That one was a mud run with an obstacle course. It was to raise money for the NICU at the hospital.” Finn cleared his throat. “Greer and her twin Aiden were born too early, and Aiden didn’t survive. Greer was in the NICU for a little over three months, so we all have a fondness for that part of the hospital. Greer was the only one of us without a ‘match’ as Mom called it, and damn that girl was a feisty little thing. She made it through the accident but was in a coma. On the third day, a blood clot went to her lungs and she died. We were able to donate her organs like we did Bellamy’s today. She was twenty-four when she died, almost twenty-five. She was the next one up from Tavin and Chess, the youngest in the family.”
“And these are your parents?” I moved over to stand in front of a large picture. I could see the resemblance to Finn in both parents, but he most definitely had his Father’s smile. The couple were standing side by side in front of a large house, the two of them pointing at a sign that read Conner House. “What is this place?”
“Mom and Dad built a huge house for parents whose kids were in the hospital for extended periods of time. It doesn’t have to be NICU, although that’s why they did it, but for any kid who is in the hospital overnight. Their families can stay at the Conner house for as long as they need to so that they can be near their kiddo.” Finn reached up and ran his finger over the bottom of the frame. “That house was Greer’s baby. She drew up the plans, made all the arrangements, everything that needed to be done. Then once it was open, she quit working at the office with Mom and Bellamy and ran the place. Greer’s assistant, Cholie, has taken over now, and when I stopped by the other day, she was handling things fine.”
Finn’s phone made a noise, and he pulled it out of his pocket. He smiled at the screen, and then showed it to me.
It was Chess with his shirt off, and the babies lying together on him with a blanket over their backs. They were snuggled together on his bare chest, getting the skin to skin time the nurses had told us all about earlier.
“Looks like they are back in their room. We should get going. Look around and see if there’s anything else we need.”
“There’s only one bed. Is there another nursery?”
“Nope. Mom always put the twins in bed together. That crib is the one she used on all of us. It was mine and Bellamy’s and all of the rest of the kids slept in it when they were born.”
Finn walked over to the dresser and pulled out drawer after drawer as he pointed out that he had five sheets, twelve blankets, ten little boy sleepers, ten little girl sleepers, a box of special detergent, four packages of wipes and a case of diapers.
He was so proud that they had all of the ‘necessary items’ that it hurt me to have to question him.
“Do you have car seats?”
“We’ll just keep them home for a while. We can get them car seats later.”
“How will you get them home from the hospital, babe?”
“Well, fuck.”
“Can I have a pen and a pad of paper?”
Finn looked up at the ceiling and groaned. “We fucked this up, huh?”
“No. You have the basics. The very, bare minimum, basics.”
I took the pad and paper from him and started to write, his breath tickled my ear as he leaned in and looked over my shoulder. Once I was finished, I ripped the sheet off the pad and folded it up.
“Hold on to this, and we’ll add to it if we think of other things. I’m ready to go if you are.”
Finn took the paper and put it in his back pocket. As I walked past him to the bedroom door, he hooked his hand into my elbow and spun me around. My back came up against the bedroom door, and before I could even react, Finn’s mouth was on mine.
His kiss was intense, wild, full of emotion. His hand reached up and fisted in my hair, moving my head where he wanted it, helping him to slant his mouth over mine. His tongue invaded my mouth and warred with mine until we were both breathless.
“I fucking love you, Lena.” Finn growled into my neck once he had pulled away from me. “I’m so glad I have you.”
I knew that Finn had already experienced a riot of emotions today, and I wanted to help him forget, even if it was just for a few minutes. I pushed him away from me and took his hand as I turned and opened the nursery door. I led him across the house to his, now our, bedroom and then shut the door behind us. I climbed up onto the bed as I unbuttoned my pants. I pushed my jeans and underwear down to my knees and then b
ent over to rest my elbows on the bed.
I heard Finn move closer to the bed and felt him behind me for a minute before he touched me. He ran his hand up the back of one thigh and then ran the tips of his fingers along the edge of my sex before he pushed a finger inside me. He drew it out and then pushed in two. He held them still for a second, and then I felt his thumb on my clit. He worked me gently at first, and then as I became more excited, he moved his hand faster, bringing me to the edge of orgasm before he pulled his hand away.
Before I could protest, Finn was behind me, sinking his hard cock into me until he bottomed out. With a long groan, he pulled back until he was almost out and then slammed back into me. The orgasm that had been so close took over, and I put my head down on the bed as I fisted the sheets. I let out a long, keening moan, as my pussy clenched around him, feeling him drawing back and slamming into me over and over. As my orgasm crested, I felt him start to pulse inside me, and I milked his cock with my walls until he groaned.
Finn leaned down and kissed my spine and then laid his head on my back as he caught his breath.
“Fuck, baby. You undo me.” Finn whispered.
He pulled out and I scrambled off the bed, holding onto my jeans and pulling them up my thighs so I could rush into the bathroom. I sat down on the toilet and cleaned myself up as I listened to him laugh. I heard him at the sink and just a few seconds later he opened the door to the toilet and handed me a warm wash rag.
“Here you go, baby.” He smiled at me and stood there.
I decided to punish him, so I let him watch as I cleaned his fluids off my bare pussy, making sure to give him a show as I did it before I folded the washrag over and handed it back to him. When I looked up into his eyes, I saw that they were hungry again, so intense that I knew I had worked his cock back up.
I stood up from the toilet and reached down to pull my panties and jeans up. Finn watched me as I fastened them, and stood there staring at me, blocking the door.
“Jesus, you’re so fucking hot.”
I shrugged and said nonchalantly, “I do what I can.”
