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And he nods.

Just once.

Like that’s all he needs to hear.

A little while after they take Evie and Maddox back, the entire Wilder clan fills the waiting room like a flood. Vic, Lucien, and Allie come in behind them, voices hushed, faces drawn tight with anticipation. It’s the room they reserve for family—but even with all the space, it feels like the air has been vacuumed out. Too many hearts beating too loud in one place.

We all sit on edge, held in a kind of fragile stillness, like if we move too much or speak too loud, we’ll break the spell.

Henry and Mercy are keeping the boys—Charlie, Bash, and Dallas—entertained in the corner with a spread of Legos and playing cards. Henry’s voice is low and steady, laughing with them, patient as ever. He looks so good like that. Natural. Like a father.

It twists something deep inside me.

Sophie, sweet as always, shows up with a cardboard box stuffed with cinnamon rolls, danishes, and two trays of coffee. She passes them around like communion, planting herself between Mags and Aunt Joe while I drop to the floor at her feet, cross-legged, sketchbook balanced on my knees.

My pencil moved on instinct—capturing Joe’s pinched brow, Mags leaning in close to Sophie, Vic pacing like a caged animal, Allie pressed against the wall looking more rattled than usual. It helps. Drawing always helps.

But nothing can quiet the ache under my ribs. My chest tightens with the brutal fact I can never give him this. A baby crying down the hall. A waiting room full of people who love you. A tiny hand curling around your finger for the first time.

As I let my eyes roam across every face in this room—the rough hands, the tired smiles, the way their eyes hold me like I am already theirs—I feel it hit me deep and sharp. Evie was right. How fucking lucky am I to be chosen? To be wrapped up in something so raw, so messy, so impossibly beautiful?

This family that doesn’t give a single fuck about blood or biology.

Fuck tradition.

That cold, dead old shit never held me. Never touched me. Never made me feel like I belonged or mattered.

What had Aunt Joe said the night Maddox proposed? Not born from my body, but from my heart. I can almost hear her voice, soft but sure, cutting through the noise in my head.

Holy hell—what a God damn idiot I’ve been.

So stubborn. So terrified to see the truth blazing in front of me like a bonfire that threatened to burn down everything I thought I knew.

I’m not less. I’m not broken.

I’m the fucking dream, and he has been mine from the very start.

My chest pulls tight, breath catching as I look at him—really look at him. Henry, sitting back against the wall like he hadn’t just rearranged the bones of my heart by showing up, steady as hell. His sleeves are rolled to his elbows, calloused hands wrapped around a coffee cup he hasn’t touched. Jaw tight, eyes soft—like he already knows the war I’ve been fighting inside myself. Like he’s been waiting for me to stop swinging and finally see him.

This time I do.

God, I see him.

My fingers hover for just a second—just long enough for my pulse to spike—before I reach out, trembling, and hook my pinkie around his.

It’s small. Soft. Almost nothing.

But the second our skin touched, it feels like my whole damn body lights up—hot and sharp and grounding all at once. Like coming up for air after being underwater too long.

His eyes snap to mine, and just like that the Fort Knox I have been building for all these years between us, just blows up. I feel it in my chest, in my stomach, in the base of my spine. That unspoken thing that has always been there.

His pinkie tightens around mine, just enough to say I’ve always been here.

The buzz of the waiting room dulls—muffled voices, chairs creaking, Mercy’s soft laughter with the kids. But it’s background noise. The real thing is right here.

I don’t need a baby in my arms to feel whole. I don’t need blood to make a family. I never fucking did.

I have this.