BABY ON BOARD

by Huskyteer

I could hear crying from the top flat all the way up the three flights of stairs, which is never a good sign. I knocked cautiously, then again more loudly when it became apparent that nobody had heard me.

Cate answered the door, five foot ten of pure white wolf in a navy dress. In her arms was a small, damp, screaming, wriggling lump.

"Look, here''s Max!" Cate said to her bundle, brightening visibly as she passed it from her care to mine with indecent haste. "Hi, Max, here's your cub!"

"Oh, sure," I said, jiggling him. "When you want a day off he's my cub. The rest of the time I'm just the sperm donor." I grinned to show I didn't mean it, and flattened my ears submissively just to make sure. Rowan paused to draw breath for another scream, focused his milky eyes on my worried expression, and broke into giggles instead.

"There! You've got the knack. You'll be fine. Jess!"

The clouded leopard bounded in from their bedroom.

"Max! Has Cate filled you in?"

"Why, is there something I ought to know?" I leaned over the cub's head to kiss my best friend's cheek. "He's still a wolf, is he? Still got all his limbs? Hasn't taken to drink, drugs or organised religion?"

"Not yet," said Cate, "but after a day with you all bets are off. Don't fuss, Jess! Max and Simon have had him loads of times."

"Not for a whole day. I wonder if..."

"You are not backing out of this now." Cate showed Jess a hint of fang. "Today is just for us. We've waited for it, we deserve it and we're going to have it. Anyway, in an emergency Max's pack instinct will kick in. They are related, after all." As she talked, Cate had taken the cub back, manoueuvred his flailing arms into the sleeves of his jacket, and packed an alarmingly large cloth bag with bottles, cloths, nappies, wipes, toys, and everything else this tiny creature required for a day out with his two best uncles. "Max, I've filled four bottles, but he's started eating solids now too, so you can have a go at that if you like. Just purée whatever you and Simon are having."

"What, pizza and crisps?"

She ignored this in favour of giving me a steely smirk. "It tends to make his nappies a bit...interesting."

Thanks, Cate!

"He'll be all right," Jess put in. "Max's sense of smell is appalling. He was bottom of the class in tracking, every term."

Thanks, Jess!

Cate's eyes had narrowed and I sensed the latest in a series of lectures on the suitability, or lack of it, of my genetic material, but it was Jess's turn to be impatient.

"Let's go, Cate, the taxi's here! I'll help you with the pushchair, Max. We really must move somewhere with a ground floor before this one starts walking."

We bumped slowly down the stairs, Jess holding the handles of the pushchair while I lifted the front wheels, and its owner staring imperiously down at us from Cate's arms.

I had the last laugh when Cate had strapped him securely in. He wriggled and squeaked, but I shook my head.

"No, little wolf. I'm not letting you loose until you're safely back at my place." I ruffled the fur between his ears. "What are you two ladies up to today, anyway?"

Jess and Cate looked at each other and smiled. Jess's big, spotted paw curled into Cate's white one, and her ridiculously long tail nudged against her wife's hip.

"We're going shopping," the clouded leopard beamed, "and getting our claws done, and then we're going to a spa for the rest of the day!"

"Just think of it," sighed Cate. "The turquoise pool. The sauna. The jacuzzi. The big, fluffy towels. Nothing to do all day but be pampered and spoiled and massaged and brought champagne."

Jess's amber gaze strayed to the pushchair.

"I'm going to miss him," she said. I knew better than to flatter myself for a single instant that she was referring to me.

"No, you're not," Cate said firmly. "I'll make sure of that. Now come on!"

With a last kiss and pat on the head for me and their son - if you guess which way round you'll probably be wrong - they scampered off together, paw in paw. I could hear them whispering to each other and giggling - my nose might be dodgy but there was nothing wrong with my ears, thank you very much - as they practically skipped to the taxi.

I don't mind admitting I felt a little wistful watching them bounce away in their own little bubble. They were so well-matched, with such similar tastes and the same outlook on life. Even though Jess was my lovely cuddly friend and Cate was a mad scary biker. I had Simon, and Simon was great, but he was just that bit older and more sensible than me, and some days I really noticed it. I'd never seen him skip. I'd love to see him try.

I watched the taxi out of sight, sweeping the cub's limp little paw back and forth in a big wave to Mummy and Mum.

"Come on, Rowan," I said at last. "Want to get on a big red bus? Of course you do!"

We were taking the bus because Simon was out with one of his driving school pupils. I extracted Rowan from the pushchair and held him with one paw while I folded the chair with the other. The bus lurched off while I was still occupied and I almost lost my balance, but at last I had the thing folded and packed away in the luggage section. I staggered to a seat, holding on to poles, and plonked Rowan down in my lap. He grinned round at everyone. My fellow passengers smiled and cooed back.

With his reddish fur, Rowan doesn't really look like his snow-white mum - or like me, the provider of his Y chromosome. I am a bog-standard, greyish brownish wolf. You'd still assume I was his dad if you saw us out together, of course, simply by species. Chances are you'd assume that Cate was his mother, too - and that we were a couple. All reasonable assumptions, but rather tough on Jess.

I still wished I could have magically provided Jess with some clouded leopard sperm, although she always insisted that what I had was a precious enough gift. Jess had missed out on the experience of pregnancy and birth, and rather than count herself lucky like any normal person she actually seemed sorry about it. And although Jess did everything she could for Rowan, dressing him and changing his nappy and getting up in the night when he howled, Cate was the only one equipped to feed him. I'd seen the scary paraphernalia she used to prepare his supply in advance, so Jess could feed him while Cate was off at her high-powered lawyer job, and I'd watched Cate unbutton her top and feed Rowan in their living-room and at meals out in restaurants. I'd seen the glazed, happy expression that came into her eyes when Rowan latched on, and I'd seen the longing in Jess's. Maybe it would get better now he was starting to eat real food - you don't need any biological preparation to get splattered with spoonfuls of mushy peas. I wondered what Simon and I were in for at lunch time.

What with thinking about Jess and juggling her son, I almost missed my stop. I lunged for the bell and leaped to my feet. I was still trying to assemble the pushchair one-pawed when we stopped. I felt my ears flush as a wave of disapproval crashed down on me from the other passengers. At last a kind fox came to my rescue, locking the wheels into place and lowering the pushchair to the pavement while I stepped off the bus. I thanked him obsequiously.

"No probs. I'm a dad too."

I wasn't really a dad, but there wasn't time to explain before the bus whisked him away.

We trundled up the road to Simon's house, which was more suitable for babies than my potential deathtrap of a flat. His car was in the drive, and Simon himself came to the window, floppy ears flapping, to wave at us. He had the door open and Rowan unstrapped before I'd had a chance to say hello.

"Hello, little wolfcub! Hello, Rowan! How's my boy racer today?" he asked, tossing Rowan gently up and down so he giggled. "Kettle's on," he added.

"Thanks, I'm gasping!"

"I meant to warm his bottle, but I suppose there'll be enough for a coffee too. Hello, love." He licked my nose.

"Oh, now he notices me!"

"Sorry, Max! You're just not as fascinating as your charming young companion."

Rowan burped.

"Or as good at conversation," Simon added, wiping Rowan's chin with a tissue.

We had our coffee in the kitchen, in the convivial company of Rowan. We already knew that when you've got a baby in the house, it is next to impossible to do anything other than pay attention to the baby. You'd think it would be easy with the little fellow imprisoned in his own special high chair (bought by Simon, with a play steering-wheel), but they're always up to something: flopping sideways, practising holding their breath, attempting to escape, or just looking at you funny. I took my eye off Rowan for long enough to open a packet of biscuits, only to find him entangled in the chair straps and in serious danger of throttling himself.

"Going to be into bondage, are we?" I asked as I freed him.

"Max! You'll scar him for life! Pay no attention to your bad uncle!"

"I'm a very bad uncle." I put my paws on Simon's hips from behind and squeezed his love handles, pulling his buttocks backwards onto my thighs. Simon wriggled.

"Not in front of Rowan!"

"What? I can't grope my own boyfriend in front of the baby? I know for a fact his mums do."

"They grope their boyfriends in front of him, do they?" He struggled free. "Sorry, Max. It doesn't feel right."

"But if we don't let him see us showing affection, he'll grow up into a big repressed bag of neuroses. Like you."

Simon shook his head. "Thank goodness we're not his actual parents. Or anyone else's, come to that." He crouched down in front of the high chair and commenced pulling funny faces.

Little Rowan must be the one person in the world who loves Simon's rubbery features even more than I do. He chortled and chuckled as Simon perked and lowered his drooping ears, pulled down his eyelids to deepen the red half-moons under them, wobbled his dewlaps, and stretched his jowls out sideways like wings. Then Simon moved his muzzle within the baby's reach and submitted stoically to having his ears tugged and even chewed.

"Basset hounds, the amazing new sensory exploration and development toy! Buy one for your baby this Christmas!"

"You're just jealous," Simon said, moments before Rowan poked him in the eye.

"I thought I was the only one allowed to bite your ears, that's all."

"Maybe he's hungry." Simon retired, blinking, and removed the bottle of milk from the pan where I'd put it to warm. He squirted a few drops on the inside of his wrist to check the temperature, then absently licked it clean.

"You realise that came out of Cate?"

Simon froze, his tongue hanging out and an expression of horror in his red-rimmed eyes.

"You really have got issues, haven't you?" I teased. Really, I was the one with Cate-related issues - she and Simon had always got on well, discussing the relative merits of fast cars and fast bikes - but Simon's attack of squeamishness was priceless.

"You young pups and your 'issues'," Simon snorted.

While I gathered my resources for the next salvo, I looked at Simon properly: his tatty leather slippers, his rolled-up shirt sleeves, his corduroy trousers. When we first met I had loved how masculine and sensible he looked, but it was easy for 'sensible' to tip over into 'boring'. Sometimes the eight years between our ages felt like an entire generation.

My 'sorry, Dad' died on my lips. It didn't seem funny any more. Besides, my own father was actually pretty cool.

Simon was too busy fussing with Rowan's bottle to notice my attack of introspection. He really was good with the little chap, coaxing him to take the teat between his tiny teeth, and not minding how much milk ended up on his shirt or on the floor. Would he like a baby, too, or was he as happy being an uncle as I was? I at least had done my biological duty and passed my family's genes along down the chain, even if the cub wasn't exactly mine. Anyway, Simon and I were nowhere near the baby stage - not like Cate and Jess, who had been together four years and counting. We weren't even cohabiting. Simon had never mentioned it and I didn't want to rock the boat; I knew he had been hurt badly by his last relationship, and besides, Simon had a house all of his own while I, thanks to an extremely feckless period which followed my graduation and lasted longer than the preceding degree course, was stuck in a rented studio flat with no savings. The last thing I wanted was Simon feeling obliged to act like my sugar daddy.

My mobile chirruped and I checked the display. Jess. I padded into Simon's home office to take the call.

"Is everything all right?" Jess hissed in my ear.

"Fine! Is everything all right with you? Why are you whispering?"

"Cate doesn't know I'm checking in! I promised I wouldn't! I'm in the changing-room at Posh Paws. Don't tell her I phoned you!"

"There, there, little leopard." As lifelong Best Friend, I could get away with that sort of thing. Usually. "You buy yourself something lovely and stop panicking. Rowan's all right. Do you want to talk to him? Or maybe gurgle at him a bit?"

She laughed.

"No, that's all right. I'm sorry to be a pest."

"Have a lovely day!"

"I will!"

I grinned to myself and slipped the phone back in my pocket. As I was making my way back to Simon and Rowan, it rang again.

"Hello?"

"Max, it's Cate. I promised Jess I wouldn't call you, but..."

*

A feeling of smug well-being suffused me as I hung up, having reassured Cate that her son, and her secret, were both safe. It wasn't often that I got to hold one over on Cate, and I planned to milk the opportunity for all it was worth. Oh. Nope, not quite ready to think about Cate and milk in the same sentence yet.

When I returned to the kitchen, I found Simon letting Rowan squish his muzzle. Again, I had thought muzzle-squishing was solely my right, but I didn't mind handing the privilege down to the next generation. Especially when the next generation was so handsome.

"You are a cutie, aren't you?" I said to him, not for the first time. "Who's the fruit of Max's loins, then? Is it you? Is it?"

Simon covered Rowan's ears, which had lost their baby flop and were now pert little triangles. "If Cate hears you talking like that, she'll make sure your loins are never in a fit state to bear fruit again." He took his paws away from Rowan's ears. They drooped.

"There. You have traumatised him."

"No, no, he's just trying to grow up into a Basset like his Uncle Simon."

We were both wrong. Rowan was simply making preparations for a world-class, black belt, first division fit of screaming.

"How can so much noise come out of such little lungs?" I asked, flattening my ears against my skull. It made no difference whatsoever.

"What?" Simon was inspecting Rowan for signs of dampness in the nappy department. When his investigations failed to turn anything up, he held him against his shoulder and patted his back. Rowan screamed harder.

"It's not wet and it's not wind," Simon reported.

"Thanks for the weather forecast." I fumbled in Rowan's bag. "Do you want your cuddly badger?"

Rowan snatched the toy from my paw and threw it back at my head.

"OK then. How about your yellow rubber...is this supposed to be a hedgehog?" I squeaked it hopefully. Rowan glared furiously at it and squealed right back. Simon's attempts at soothing rocking and jiggling were having no effect whatsoever and he looked as if his stubby arms might be getting tired, so I relieved him of the wailing lump. I had a few goes at swooping him through the air, and even tried singing, which I normally reserved for the shower, but nothing worked.

"Maybe he's hungry?" Simon barked.

"He's had his milk!" I bawled back.

"Hungry for solids?"

"It's an idea."

It's surprisingly difficult to think when you've got a screaming wolf cub on your paws. Still clutching Rowan, I paced around the kitchen, opening cupboards, in desperate search of inspiration. With Simon's help, I managed to assemble a collection of cub-friendly appetisers that would also meet with parental approval: a yoghurt, a banana, two cheese straws, and a bowl of cold leftover mashed potato from the fridge. Foraging like this reminded me of pre-Simon drinking sessions with my mates at the pub, and raiding the cupboards for two AM snacks. Except I wouldn't have chosen such healthy options, nor would my cupboards have contained them in the first place.

The thing about babies is, they like soft food. The other thing about babies is, they're messy eaters, especially when they're a bit wound up for reasons unknown. And soft food can be very messy indeed. Until that lunchtime, I had no idea just how far across a kitchen mashed potato can be flicked by a [six-month-old], how long it can take to find all the escapees from an upturned bowl of cornflakes (weeks, for the record), or how sticky banana is when it's mushed into wolf fur, cub or adult (or both). My life was not particularly enriched by these discoveries, especially as Rowan, with enviable skills in multitasking he must have picked up from his two mothers, kept up the screaming throughout.

"Life would have been a lot easier in the old days when his mum could just come back from hunting and throw up some semi-digested meat into his mouth," I said.

"And into the babysitter's mouth, don't forget."

I shuddered.

"He'll scream himself out soon," said Simon, with more hope than conviction.

"He'll scream us out first! What are we going to do?" We had released Rowan from his high chair, since none of the food that was coming his way seemed to be the answer to his problems, and placed him on the living-room floor, which seemed the safest place for a small animal bent on thrashing his limbs and rolling around.

"I know it's probably nothing, but I'm getting a little worried, actually," Simon admitted. Rowan wasn't hot and he didn't have a rash, but maybe he had some weird baby ailment we didn't recognise. Or maybe he was having an existential crisis. I certainly felt on the brink of one myself.

"I really don't want to spoil Cate and Jess's day."

"Me neither. They've been looking forward to this so much, and they deserve it." Half-heartedly, Simon dangled a brightly-coloured rattle in front of Rowan's nose. He batted it away and roared.

"On the other paw, we don't want to kill off their only child. Not even a really good paticure could make up for that."

Suddenly, Simon brightened. Either he had been mercifully struck deaf, or he'd had an idea.

"Let's take him for a drive!" he said.

"Great, we can play police cars! Rowan's the siren! Have you gone barking mad?"

"I'm serious. When my sister's youngest was a baby, she used to calm him down by taking him out in the car. It's the motion."

So we strapped Rowan, still stiff and screaming, into the baby seat (another purchase by Simon) and set off down the drive. To my surprise, the cub quietened almost immediately. He gave a small yip as we rode over the speed humps in Simon's road, but his ears were back up and his tail was curling in a pleased way.

"You're a genius," I said. At that, Simon's own ears and tail mimicked his nominal nephew's as best they could. He navigated out of town and I recognised one of his favourite routes, a long, straight country road. I peeped in the back seat. Rowan was playing with his toes, making 'brrm' noises. I rolled down the window, leaned my elbow on the sill, and enjoyed the peace.

I loved driving with Simon. He was utterly competent and made me feel safe, as if I was a cub again being shuttled around by Mum and Dad. More than that, though, I loved watching him enjoy himself. The smooth, confident way he changed gear, short legs reaching down to the pedals as he balanced the clutch and accelerator. The alert, eager expression in his eyes. He was so quiet and self-effacing in everyday life, it was wonderful when his driving personality sneaked to the fore. I'd never been into cars myself, had certainly never fantasised about having sex in one, but there had been a handful of times when I'd jumped on Simon as soon as the engine stopped. Though after one incident with a garage door, I was always careful to let him put the parking brake on first.

Driving instructor! How boring and middle-aged can you get? said the part of my brain that wouldn't be satisfied even if I was simultaneously dating three male models. To shut it up, I said "I'm hungry."

"We didn't manage to have any lunch of our own, did we?" Simon glanced in the rear-view mirror. We'd both been hoping Rowan would nod off, but he was still bright-eyed and bouncy. This was, nevertheless, an improvement on bright-eyed and screamy.

"Not unless you count that spoonful of yoghurt I got force-fed into my ear. Do we risk stopping?"

"I think he's in a better mood now. And we can always make a dash for the car if he starts going all Mr Hyde again. We'll go to Whippets."

Whippets was a transport caff near the motorway, popular with bikers and lorry drivers. Rowan showed signs of protesting as we bumped over the gravel car park, but as soon as he had been lifted from the car he pointed his muzzle upwards and gave a rapturous sniff.

I was liking the smells of deep-frying and coffee, too. My stomach rumbled. Simon veered off course to examine a lovingly restored Austin Allegro, but I tugged at his paw to drag him back towards the food.

"All right, you two puppies!" he said, leading the way in.

The clientele was almost exclusively male. The customers mostly consisted of truckers who, from the look of them, made a habit of fried breakfast, lunch, dinner, and probably a snack or two in between. I was mildly concerned by what they might think of our odd little family, but I needn't have worried.

The queue magically parted to let us through, and a collie waitress whizzed over with a high chair. Within moments, Rowan was ensconced like a miniature king, beaming cheerfully around as he amused himself by shredding a paper napkin into strips. Never can so many burly truckers and bikers have been transformed so swiftly into a bunch of big softies. A pig with tattoos on his face and arms came over to tell us all about his own little ones at home, while a ram in a studded jacket flicked his ears up and down for Rowan's delight.

"Sausage, egg, beans and chips, please," I told the waitress, "and a coffee."

"Tea and a bacon sandwich," Simon said, with an anxious glance at the hog father.

"Something for your little boy? How about a scoop of ice cream?"

"That sounds good. Thank you!" The collie made some indecipherable swirls on her pad and trotted off to the kitchen, on a mission. Tea and coffee arrived a few minutes later, and were everything they should be from a roadside café: the tea brick-red and so strong you could stand the spoon up in it, the coffee pale and frothy. I added two sachets of sugar and stirred. Rowan found this very interesting, so I gave him a sachet of his own. He put it in his mouth, took it out, tore it in half, and poured the sugar into his lap, which at least kept him entertained.

"This takes me back," Simon said, sipping tea. "This is what it used to be like before Starbucks, you know."

"Stop being so old, Simon," I snapped, only half-joking.

Just then, our meals arrived. Simon peeled his sandwich apart, squirted brown sauce inside and began devouring it, while I helped Rowan. He was clearly interested in the ice cream, which was vanilla with a squiggle of chocolate sauce on top, but he wasn't quite at the spoon stage yet, so I had to feed him. His appetite for ice cream generally exceeded his physical dexterity, and I missed his mouth a fair bit. Enough went in to please him, though, and in between I managed a few mouthfuls of my own lunch. Then I allowed Rowan to lick his dish while I got on with my chips.

Simon had already finished. "I think someone's after your chips," he said.

"He's had his! Mine!" I glared at Rowan and showed him my teeth. I was temporarily his Alpha, after all. His wistful face, head tilted on one side, was very hard to resist, though. If the sausages hadn't been so tasty I could never have managed it. Then he gave a little whimper.

"In wolf packs," Simon said, "didn't the adults let the cubs eat as much of the kill as they wanted before they ate themselves? And you didn't even hunt those sausages yourself!"

"All right, all right." I pushed my plate towards Rowan. "But we must never tell Cate and Jess we've got him into junk food. That goes for you too, Rowan."

He liked the beans best, but had a go at everything, though the sausage took quite a bit of chewing. He golluped all of my yolk, rejected the white, and sat in his high chair with a chip sticking out of his muzzle like some tiny tycoon with a cigar. When he'd sucked it until it was soggy enough for him to eat, he grabbed another and repeated the performance. His trucker audience enjoyed it a great deal. Some of them even clapped. Luckily the portions at Whippets are generous, and there were enough leftovers to ensure I didn't feel too hard done by.

Rowan stayed happy and bubbly all the way home, but went very quiet when we were were almost back at Simon's.

"Is he asleep?" Simon asked.

I peered around my seat. "No. He looks sort of...thoughtful."

Simon's nose wrinkled. "I think he's had a nappy event. Oh well - nearly home."

Out of consideration for Simon's more sensitive olfactory apparatus, I took on the job of cleaning and changing Rowan. I'd done it before, but not since chips and beans became part of his diet. I won't provide a blow-by-blow account, but I was very glad to be closing the poppers up the side of Rowan's corduroy dungarees at the end of proceedings. When we emerged from the bathroom, Simon was stretched full length on the bed. (Full length for a Basset is considerably longer than you might think.)

"It's exhausting, this babysitting lark," he said, yawning. He shook his head so his ears flapped. I carried Rowan over and lay down on the bed too, the baby between us.

"Is that safe?" Simon asked.

"We're not going to squash him. I think he'd kick up a fuss if there was any danger of that."

Simon still looked doubtful, but his eyelids were drooping. Rowan, too, seemed to like the warmth and security of being between two furry bodies. He curled himself into a ball, inserted his thumb into his muzzle, and squeezed his eyes tight shut. As I watched, he gave a little shudder and his ears folded against his head. He began to make little snuffling sounds, and his paws twitched.

One of Simon's arms stretched out to drape protectively over the sleeping cub. I took hold of his paw, with its blunt, close-clipped claws and coarse white fur, and gave it a squeeze. I tucked my legs up so that Rowan was nestled against my stomach, and slid my knee over Simon's long back. I felt his tail thump against my calf.

"Nice. Puppy," he mumbled, and I had no idea which of us he was addressing. I shuffled closer on the bed, so that I could rest my chin on the white dome of Simon's head. He nuzzled into my neck, angling his head slightly so one ear fell open. I took the leathery flap between my teeth and bit it gently. My comfort blanket.

"Simon? Are you still awake?"

Snores.

"Rowan?"

No answer, not that I was really expecting one. I wished I'd turned the little bedroom TV on before lying down. If I reached for the remote now it would only disturb everybody, and they looked so sweet - Simon with his body bent in a bow around the sleeping wolfcub, Rowan snuggled up so tightly he looked like a hairy ball, and both of them making an occasional snorty noise or kicking a leg. Rowan was positively roasting, like a little hot water bottle, and Simon was always warmer than me to the touch because his fur was much shorter and sparser. They felt delicious. I laid my arm across Simon's, so the two of us made a living blanket for Rowan, and rested my paw on the basset's shoulder. The sunlight streaming through the window was warm on the top of my head, and Simon's bed was wonderfully soft underneath me. I'd just close my eyes for a moment, I decided. Give them a rest. Then I really ought to slide out from the embrace of Simon's various limbs and do...something...

*

I woke with Simon's leg spasming against me, and sat up with the sense of muzzy disorientation you get when you've fallen asleep in the daytime, only to wake up and find it's got dark. Was it time to go to work? I grabbed the bedside clock to check. Why were the curtains open? Why was I fully dressed and lying outside the duvet? This sort of thing only usually happened when I'd been drinking heavily, and I didn't feel terrible enough for that to be the case.

When Rowan braced his back against my knee to stretch and yawn, I remembered what was going on. I reached across to shake Simon's shoulder.

"Whmm? Going to work already?"

"We've done that bit," I told him. "Sleepytime's over, baby Simon, come on."

"What time is it?"

"Just gone six."

Simon's eyes struggled open beneath their heavy burden of wrinkled brow. "What time's Cate and Jess coming to collect him?"

"Half past."

I stood up and stretched, my arms held above my head, my spine flexing, and my tail rising as if lifted by a wire attached to the ceiling. When I turned on the light, both Rowan and Simon emitted squeaks of protest. I at least had had a chance to narrow my eyes. We all blinked and looked around, Rowan clearly in the middle of deciding whether his rude awakening was worth crying about. Hastily, Simon scooped him upside-down into his arms and commenced bouncing.

"Your cub's in a bit of a state, Max," he observed.

"Oh, now he's my cub!" It was the same trick Cate had pulled earlier. "I don't recall getting a look-in when he was all happy and smiley and clean!"

Simon was right, though. Our charge was rumpled with sleep, his soft, fluffy fur sticking up in all directions, and his dungarees were liberally smeared with evidence of all the exciting things he'd had to eat. Quite probably there was still banana in his hair; I didn't fancy checking.

"We can't give him back like this."

"I'm game if you are. He's happy and healthy - there was nothing in the contract about clean."

"Max. Bath!"

Like a scolded dog, I slunk off.

We didn't have a baby bath, so I ran a shallow bath in the tub and tested the temperature with my elbow the way Jess had shown me. As an afterthought, I popped in the plastic duck I'd stolen from the hotel where Simon and I had spent our anniversary. Simon had told me off at the time but we had both grown very fond of the duck, which we had named Gerald. Simon carried Rowan in and peeled off the dungarees. I removed his nappy, which seemed to please him very much. First he kicked his little legs, then he did a little wee to celebrate.

"Thank you for that, Rowan." I slid him under the water, careful to support his head, and held him in a sitting position. Simon rolled up his sleeves, made Gerald pop under the water and bob up again a couple of times, which had Rowan shrieking with laughter, then got to work with the baby shampoo Cate had included in Rowan's Big Baby Bonus Bag o' Loot. Rowan loved having his fur lathered, especially when Simon styled his fur into a quiff on top of his head and showed him the effect in the mirror.

"I always fancied being a hairdresser," he said, "but my Dad told me I should do something more masculine."

I shot him a sideways glance. Simon didn't talk about his parents a great deal; this was the most he'd ever told me about his father, and it had taken the catalyst of a baby for him to let it slip. He dropped his gaze and made himself very busy rinsing Rowan off with a flannel, splashing himself and me with water in the process. Then I lifted him out, noticeably heavier than when he'd gone in with the weight of the water in his fur, and sat him on a towel fresh from the airing-cupboard. We let him roll around for a bit to dry himself, then gave him a helping paw with the tricky bits, like behind his ears and between his toes. Rowan waited until he'd finished to shake himself from head to tail. We had thought we'd done a pretty good job of drying him off, but he seemed to have kept plenty of water in reserve for emergencies.

Simon dabbed at his muzzle with his sleeve. "Did Cate include any spare togs in his goody-bag?"

"Oh, yes. You forget she knows Rowan even better than we do. Three extra outfits, including this little number." I held up a green babygro with a racing-car embroidered on the front. "I wonder who could have bought him that?"

"Someone with impeccable taste, no doubt!"

Still on my knees on the towel, I took hold of Simon's shoulder to steady myself and leaned over to kiss him. His squeamishness about proper etiquette in front of six-month-olds seemed to have dispersed, because his tongue lapped out against my teeth and he angled his head to the side for a proper snog. Who knows what might have happened if the doorbell hadn't rung, making both of us jump and at least one of us bite their tongue?

I gave Simon the consolation prize of a quick peck on the cheek. "You get Himself dressed while I let them in."

On the day Jess and Cate got married, I'd thought I might never see them looking so happy again. That was confounded six weeks later after Rowan's birth, when Simon and I had tiptoed onto the ward with our ridiculously big bouquet to find Cate already fully recovered from the experience and raring to go home, while Jess snuggled her newborn cub, too full of emotions to do anything other than smile and cry at the same time. But after those two occasions, this was the most joy I had ever seen on my friends' two faces at the same time.

"Good day, was it?"

"Oh, Max!" Cate gave me an uncharacteristic hug until I squeaked - or maybe it was my ribs creaking. "Thank you so much for making it possible. I haven't felt so relaxed in years!" She was wearing a jumper that looked both new and highly fashionable, and her claws, I noticed when she released me, had been filed to points, polished to a gleam, and painted a most unlawyerlike shade of orange.

"Tangerine Dream," she supplied. "Jess's are Purple Passion."

"I don't need to know, thanks. I'm not as gay as all that."

"Where is he?" Jess, there, cutting straight to the chase.

"Where's who?" I put my head on one side, frowning, then clapped both paws to my muzzle in an expression of horror. "Oh my goodness! The baby! We forgot!"

I was saved from two sets of teeth, their owners entirely lacking in senses of humour, by Simon, who chose that moment to appear at the top of the stairs holding a warm, dry, cuddly, sleepy and perfectly safe cub in a racing green sleepsuit. He hoisted Rowan up on to his shoulders and began the descent, arms outstretched, pretending to be an aeroplane. With appropriate noises.

Jess put her arm around my waist, while her tail snaked around my ankles.

"Doesn't Simon look like he's having fun?" she purred.

I looked. Simon was being utterly, unselfconsciously silly, in a way I'd never seen before. Usually when he played with Rowan he was talking and teasing partly for my benefit, but now he was completely absorbed in his own little world. And he was being an aeroplane. It was adorable. He certainly didn't look eight years older than me - he looked maybe eight years older than Rowan. Now I knew he had this secret soft core of ridiculousness, I planned to tease it out of him mercilessly, and to take no notice of his old-dog act ever again.

I noticed something else, too. The expression of pure joy on Jess's face as she watched Rowan come down the stairs was identical to the one he wore himself as he clung delightedly to Simon's ears: whiskers perked, mouth open, eyes twinkling.

"Jess! Rowan's got your smile!"

"So he has!" Cate marvelled, flashing a huge, grateful smile of her own in my direction. "Anybody would know straight away he was yours, Fluffs."

Cate using a pet name in front of me! What a night for firsts.

Simon requested permission to land and brought Rowan in for a perfect touchdown in Jess's arms. He burbled happily away in wolfcubese, no doubt telling his mums all about the brilliant day he had had. Perhaps it was just as well none of us could translate for him.

"He certainly seems full of beans," Cate said.

Simon and I exchanged alarmed looks, but we had washed every trace of tomato sauce from Rowan's fur, and his dungarees could go straight in the wash when he got home. Any further evidence of his junk food binge wouldn't come out until the next nappy change.

"Thanks again." Jess couldn't reach to kiss me, but she wrinkled her nose in my direction. Rowan copied her, further entrancing those of us with a ringside seat.

"We got you a little something," Cate added, ferreting in one of the shopping-bags strewn at her feet. She produced a bottle of wine, which she passed to Simon as the official expert.

"Wow. Your son has quite literally driven us to drink," I said. "I didn't think that would happen for a few years yet."

"Not literally driven, Max," Simon pointed out. "His feet wouldn't reach the pedals."

"Time to go, I think," Jess said diplomatically. She and Cate gathered up their shopping, their son and his paraphernalia, and headed to the waiting taxi.

By the time I'd waved them off, Simon was already ensconced on the sofa, having uncorked the wine and poured out two glasses. I flopped gratefully down beside him and allowed myself to breathe out for what felt like the first time all day. We raised our glasses, clinked, sniffed, then drank. My glass was rather emptier than Simon's when we set them back down.

"Successful day, I think," Simon said.

"Bloody knackering. I don't know how those two girls manage it."

"Ours is not to understand the ways of girls, old chap."

I snuggled against him. "Don't care," I said. Simon laughed and ruffled the fur between my ears as if I was Rowan.

"I love your friends," he said. "It means a lot to me that they trust us with that cub."

I tried to come up with something witty, but I was tired and the best I could do was "I love you."

"I love you, too." Simon reached for his glass and overtook me. He topped us both up before continuing.

"I've been thinking." He must have felt me stiffen, because he gave my knee a reassuring pat. "It really is better for Rowan to come here than to your place, isn't it?"

"Sure."

"So...wouldn't it be more convenient if both his uncles lived here too?"

My mind, slowed by wine and warmth and tiredness, had to chew on that one for a few moments.

"You mean, you want me to move in with you?"

Simon nodded, his expression hangdog. "I know I'm an old fogey, but..."

"You're not!" I bit one dangling, tempting ear. "You might think you've got me fooled, but I know there's a puppy inside that wrinkly old driving instructor who just wants to come out and play."

"Hey, less of the wrinkly! And the old, come to that. And what's wrong with being a driving instructor?" But by the time he'd finished I had Simon pinned to the sofa, and he was scrabbling feebly with his paws and feet to dislodge me, his tail whipping back and forth all the time. I pressed my muzzle down on top of his and finished the kiss that had been interrupted in the bathroom, then went back for seconds, then thirds.

"Is that a yes?" Simon panted when I let him go.

"Yes, Uncle Simon, it is."

"Glad to hear it, Uncle Max," he replied, with a light of pure puppy mischief in his eyes.