Page 386 of Wicked Brutal

I smile. “I can do that.”

“Good.” He kisses my forehead. “Want the bed?”

“Not yet.”

“Ball?” I glance at the giant blue ball Darla brought over earlier.

“No.”

“Keep walking?”

“Yeah.”

He threads our fingers together again, and we walk.

Cassandra sits near the window with one of my blankets from home folded across her lap — she brought it because hospital blankets are terrible, and apparently I complained about that enough during one of my appointments for her to remember. Walter is beside her, his phone in his hand, though he hasn’t looked at it for more than thirty consecutive seconds all day. They’re trying not to hover. They’re terrible at it. I don’t mind. Darla follows a few steps behind, giving me room while staying close enough that I know she’s there.

The room feels full. But not crowded. There’s a difference. I’ve spent most of my life knowing exactly how many people were in a room because I needed to — where Dad was, where Victor was, where Tobias was, how close the door was, whether I could leave. Today, I know because I want every single person here.

“You’re thinking,” Ryan says, his thumb moving over mine.

“I do that sometimes.”

“I’ve heard.” I bump my shoulder gently against his, and his mouth curves. “What about?”

I look around the room. “You guys. You. Cassandra. Walter. Darla.”

“Happy to make the list,” Darla says from behind us.

I smile back at her, then look at Ryan. “I wanted you here.”

“I know.”

“No. I mean—“ I stop walking, and he stops with me. “I got to decide.”

His fingers tighten around mine. “Yeah, baby.”

I look toward Cassandra. Toward Walter. Darla. Then back at him. “I got to decide who was in the room.”

Something passes across his face — pride, pain, love, all tangled together. “You did.”

I look down at our hands. “I like that.”

Ryan lifts mine and kisses my knuckles. “So do I.”

_

The baby has apparently become the most heavily debated person in Edgewood without technically being born yet. Walter is the one who tells me. I’m sitting on the edge of the bed now, Ryan beside me, his hand rubbing slowly over my back, when Walter looks down at his phone and smiles.

“Tobias changed his guess again.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Both.”

I laugh softly. “He can’t pick both.”

“Catherine told him that.”