Page 156 of ICED
I shrug. “Could’ve flattened you.”
“Could’ve,” he pants, “but didn’t.”
Jonno blows the whistle again. “Alright, cool down. That’s enough for today. Murph, get home to that baby of yours. Rest of you, team meeting room in twenty. We’ve got videos to run through.”
Once the meetings over we all head out to the carpark, ready to head off for the afternoon. Only I’m going to pick my girls up and take them to visit the newest little Raptor. Lila is literally bursting at the seams to see him now.
Dylan whistles low. “Gonna cry when you see him, huh?”
“Only if he’s got Murphy’s face,” I mutter.
“And if the kid’s got any taste, he’ll root for me,” Dylan adds.
“Make sure you get some pictures,” Ollie calls. “At least one of Lila acting like she owns the place.”
Sophie opens the door in pyjama bottoms and a hoodie, hair in a bun, eyes tired but radiant.
“Oh thank God,” she says. “I was about to eat cereal with a baby on my boob and cry into a bottle of formula.”
“You’d cry into the cereal,” Murphy calls from the couch. “Keep it real.”
Maya sweeps past with a foil tray in each hand. “Step aside, I’ve brought carbs and salvation.”
“Are those the famous chicken stews?” Sophie gasps. “Did you do the ones with the thyme and lemon?”
“Batch cooked while Lila narrated the whole process,” Maya says, grinning.
“Daddy Bear grated the cheese,” Lila adds proudly, ducking under Owen’s arm to march straight to the bassinet.
Murphy’s already standing beside it, bleary-eyed and barefoot, with that new-dad twitchiness of someone who’s only slept in ninety-minute increments.
“There he is,” I say, coming to stand beside him.
Finn is a peanut in a knit onesie, cheeks red and round, tiny hands curled into fists. He’s sound asleep, snuffling softly.
Lila leans in close. “He is tiny!”
Murphy snorts. “Extremely.”
She nods solemnly. “I’ll keep him safe.”
“Good,” Murphy says. “We need backup. The kid farts like a grown man and somehow controls our entire lives.”
“What’s his name?” Maya asks, tucking a tea towel under a dish.
Sophie’s the one who answers, glowing. “Finn. Finnegan, technically.”
Murphy slumps into the armchair with a melodramatic groan. “I lobbied for something with flair. Axel. Raptor. Maybe Storm.”
“You wanted to name our baby like he was in a boy band from space,” Sophie says, deadpan.
“And you picked a name that sounds like a poet.”
“Finn isclassic,” she insists. “And also, your family dog is named Pasta.”
“Short for Pasticcio!” he yells.
“Still food.”
