Page 107 of How to Rescue Your Surprise Baby

Mav grinned.

Another contraction hit Telos then. He gritted his teeth and leaned into Mav, who rubbed his hip. Then he nodded, and they continued to walk.

When they finished the second lap, all the circles lit up with a faint blue glow. A gust of wind whipped up around them for a heartbeat.

Then it was time for the final lap.

“Three times for a future well-told,” Mav said.

Telos held his breath. When they completed the third lap, every circle flared a brilliant blue, from the outermost to the middle. More wind swept through the cavern, and a swell of energy passed from Mav to Telos. Telos’ heart stuttered, then began to beat in sync with Mav’s.

They turned to face each other; Telos gasped when he spotted a gray hair on Mav’s head. “You grew old. By a tiny bit.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t given me more gray hairs,” Mav said dryly.

“Shut up.” Telos leaned in to smash their mouths together, and Mav smiled against his lips.

As one, their family cheered. The brothers began to throw cookies into the air—dick-shaped fortune cookies, Telos realized. Each with a little piece of paper sticking out of its tip.

When one landed on Telos’ round belly, Mav caught it.

“You should read it,” Telos said.

“I’m almost afraid to.” But Mav plucked out the white slip of paper, and unfolded it. “Today is the day your dicks become one.How?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Telos began to say. Except his belly clenched in the strongest contraction yet, and he staggered. “I think my water broke.”

Mav chasedout the brothers with the fancy video camera, but a number of them—pterodactyl-shaped—were perched on the furniture around his old childhood room. “Are we not going to have any privacy for this?”

Telos snorted. “This is the first addition to our lineage from this generation. I’m surprised my parents are not right next to you.”

“They’re making another of us,” Hong said cheerfully, dressed in his ancient Chinese robes.

“Ew,” the brothers said, cringing.

“I did not need to know that,” Telos added. He gritted his teeth when his body clenched again.

“Will it help if I stretch you?” Mav asked, his forehead furrowed. “I don’t want you to hurt.”

“I could just... alter my muscles,” Telos said. “But then I won’t get to yell at you. This should be like a birth scene from the movies.”

Mav rolled his eyes. “Well, you’re not flying in on a helicopter with the baby halfway out of you.”

“Let’s do that with the next one.”

“We’re definitely filming that birth,” Hex added, his wizard hat flopping over his face. “It’ll be aired on a permanent loop in the ancestral hall.”

Telos rubbed his chin. “I could be convinced.”

Mav groaned. He crowded against Telos as Telos paced, holding his hands out as though he was expecting the baby to fall out any second.

Then Telos sat on the edge of the bed, and pointed at the floor. “Kneel.”

Mav went down on his knees. “A little late to be proposing, isn’t it?”

Telos laughed. And he planted his feet on Mav’s shoulders, leaving his legs open as he pushed.

He made it easier on himself just because he could. He expanded his inner muscles and slowly eased their baby out, breathing hard from exertion.

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