Chapter 6: Embracing a Family

          Finley’s second child stubbornly stayed inside her longer than anyone expected. She decided to take advantage of the extra preparation time she’d been given. With Manu present to witness the event, she allowed her baby son to age into a child. The transformation didn’t sit well with her. Something was missing, but she had no idea as to what. Eddie did not give her time to enough to think on this and she soon lost the thought, but gained her son in her arms.

          After he hugged his mother back for the first time, Eddie ran off to give an even more passionate embrace to the stuffed unicorn in the corner of the room. He snickered as his parents noted this out loud. “He is going to be a little hell raiser,” Finley thought to herself as she watched her mischievous son.  

          Eddie ran around the house several times and then grouped back up with his parents in the living room. He made jokes about adults and took glee from his father’s upset reaction to this. When Manu barked at the boy to have more respect, Eddie happily gave him a warm hug. In the end, Eddie loved his family, Finley supposed.

          Seeing him with his son made Finley’s fading feelings for Manu spark up again. She whipped up a lovely lunch for her family from the fish Manu had recently brought home. Eddie exclaimed that it was stinky and ran into his room to keep himself occupied with the toy box. Manu said nothing about her meal, instead making himself macaroni and cheese. At least he sat down to eat with her though.

          After he licked his bowl clean, he decided to give Finley’s lunch a try. By that point, she’d already moved on to tending her main source of income. “This isn’t the worst I’ve seen done with one of my catches,” he commented with his mouth full. As much as she wanted to stay home with her son and experience his first day of childhood with him, Finley needed to get out for a bit after that. Manu had ranked higher with her that day than he had in some time, and she didn’t want him to ruin that.

          Brandon picked Finley up and took her to his favorite place, the local gym. She found herself having to concentrate on her pregnancy discomfort to keep herself from ogling his shirtless body.  If he noticed the pregnant woman checking him out, he was kind enough not to mention it. Instead, he helped her train on the treadmill for a bit.

          Finley watched him work at a punching bag for twenty minutes. It was both frightening and exciting to see how hard he could hit the thing. He must have been close to busting a seam once or twice. Once that phase of his workout was complete, he took a break to rub her pregnant stomach, going so far as to speak in a baby voice to it. She sucked in a breath too quickly and nearly coughed. “Sorry Finn, I just love babies so much that I get all caught up in my excitement!” It was hard to think of him as the army man who could almost break a punching bag when he was happily chattering away about his dreams of one day having a large family. He mentioned that he wanted mostly daughters.

“Couldn’t help you there. I have Eddie and Manu was saying that I’m walking like I’m carrying another boy,” she said without thinking too much about her words.

Brandon’s cheeks took on a soft rose color very quickly. “Huh?” He forced a laugh and she did the same. He returned her home soon after that.

          Finley enjoyed some one on one time with Eddie just before she went into labor. They spoke about his incoming sibling. For whatever reason, she expected him to be upset about the new baby, or at least having to share a room with it. He wasn’t though. In fact, he was quite happy, expressing his desires for a brother over a sister.

          Young Eddie could not be left home alone while his parents went to the hospital. The only person she could think to call was Brandon, who complied without any hesitance, despite the embarrassing turn their previous conversation had taken. All Finley could remember about the reality of that night was kissing Eddie on top of his head, asking him to be good for Mr. Bowman. Her labor must have been much longer than the previous one, because Manu had gotten tired and gone home at some point. Eddie told her about how much fun he had watching the two men argue.

          While life went on as she was bringing in a new one, Finley was once again transported into her creator’s arms, mind, and soul. This time, Finley was able to retain more knowledge than just their love for her. Vaguely, she’d been able to ask about why they wanted her to have so many children. They’d told her that they only had enough fertility to give to one. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but she clung onto it as the cries of her second son pulled her back into the delivery room.

           Quinn Harper returned home with Finley that night. She found herself able to be more enthusiastic about the new baby boy this time around, but not anywhere near as much as Eddie was. Nobody was as eager for Quinn as Eddie.