Peyton
Iwake with a dead arm, a stiff neck, and Ryan McAllister asleep against my shoulder.
Not fully against me. He would never permit himself that much collapse on purpose. But sleep has no respect for his control issues, so his head has tipped close enough that his breath warms the side of my throat.
The hallway is still dim. A nurse murmurs at the station. Somewhere down the hall, a machine beeps in a rhythm that makes every other sound seem careful.
I stay where I am.
Ryan sleeps like his body has overruled him. Jaw slack. Hands open on his thighs instead of fists. One knee bent, one leg stretched out, shoulder heavy against mine.
This might be the only thing I can give him right now.
Stillness.
So I sit on the hospital floor and let my arm go numb.
At five-forty, a nurse comes toward Susan’s room. Ryan wakes all at once. One second asleep, the next alert, hand reaching for a stick that is not there.
“Hey,” I say softly.
He looks at me. Registers the wall, the floor, his mother’s room.
His shoulders drop.
“Hey.”
His voice has gone rough. I feel it in places I have no business feeling anything right now.
The nurse slips into Susan’s room.
Ryan rubs both hands over his face. “What time?”
“Almost six.”
He pushes himself up with a sound that says every muscle hates him. Then he offers me a hand.
I take it.
He pulls me up, and my legs immediately forget their job. His hand closes around my arm until I am steady. Warm. Firm. Too brief.
“Okay?”
“Physically? Questionable. Emotionally? Worse.”
He comes close to smiling.
I count that as a victory.
“I’m going to check on her.”
“Go. I’ll be downstairs with the twins.”
The waiting room has changed by the time I reach it. Night has thinned at the windows. The receptionist is new. A janitor pushes a mop down the hall. The twins are still asleep, tangled in a blanket that looks like it lost a fight.
I buy coffee from a machine that commits several crimes against beans and sit near them.
Gil texts while I am trying to decide whether the coffee counts as liquid or evidence.
Gil: Tell me you are not writing the McAllister situation.
Peyton: I am in a hospital waiting room. Good morning to you too.
Gil: Peyton.
I look at the twins. Emma has one hand tucked under her cheek. Lily is frowning in her sleep like the dream failed to meet her standards.
Peyton: I am not writing it.
Gil: There is a photo circulating. You at the arena with Jennifer. No credential, restricted hall, Ryan pulled from the game. People are asking if you influenced him.
They would be.
Peyton: I delivered a family emergency.
Gil: I know. The internet does not.
Peyton: The internet can choke.
Gil: There she is.
I almost laugh.
Then do not.
Gil: I trust you. But I need the line clear.
I stare at the words.
The line is clear.
The feelings are not.
Peyton: Professionally, it is.
Gil: What are you refusing?
Peyton: His family and the hospital. Anything Ryan gave me away from the recorder.
Peyton: The public fact can stand. He left a game for a family emergency. The rest is not mine.
Gil: And the profile?
Peyton: It ran. The private version did not. That stays true.
Gil: Put that in writing before legal asks.
Peyton: I will.
Gil: And personally?
I look toward the elevators.
Ryan is upstairs with his mother. Somewhere in the same building, Bill is trying to be steady for two girls who slept in plastic chairs. I am sitting in the middle of it with coffee I cannot drink and a heart that has stopped pretending neutrality is available.
Peyton: Personally, I am in trouble.
Gil takes longer to answer than he should.
Gil: Yeah. I was afraid of that.
Gil: Keep the two stories apart on the page. The rest we figure out off it.
Peyton: I won’t lie about which is which.
Gil: Didn’t think you would.
Gil: Good. Westwood concussion piece is ready when you are.
The other story. The one about a sophomore wide receiver put back in after a helmet-to-helmet hit. The mother who kept records. The school district that thought booster money was a shield.
The work waiting for me that has nothing to do with Ryan McAllister and everything to do with the person I wanted to become when I left California.
Peyton: Run it.
Gil: You sure?
Peyton: Yes.
Gil: Good. It is clean, and it is going to make people angry.
Peyton: My brand.
Gil: Unfortunately.
Bill comes down at six-fifteen.
He looks like he has not slept and has decided to treat that as irrelevant. Same jeans. Same flannel. Eyes red, posture steady.
“Echo’s later this morning,” he says. “Doctor says the valve is holding. She’ll transfer to Austin for monitoring if the day stays quiet.”
“That’s good.”
“It is.”
He sits beside me instead of across from me.
For a moment, we both watch the twins sleep.
“You stayed,” he says.
Not a question.
“I did.”
He nods like that settles something he had been quietly worried about. Then he pats my shoulder once, brief and solid, and does not explain it.
With Bill, that is the whole sentence.
Then he stands and goes back to the elevator.
Men in this family are impossible.
The twins wake in stages and fold themselves against me before I can think how to stop them. Emma first, silent and warm against my side. Then Lily, who claims she is not scared while gripping my sleeve hard enough to wrinkle the cuff.
I do not correct her.
I hold still.
Apparently that is my job this morning.
Ryan sees it when he comes back with the update: Susan is awake, annoyed, and therefore herself.
He stops just inside the waiting room.
For one second, his face is so open I almost look away.
Emma is tucked against me. Lily has her head on my arm. Bill is by the vending machine pretending to read the side of a granola bar like it might contain medical answers.
Ryan takes in the room.
Takes in me inside it.
I wait for him to joke or step away or put the moment somewhere safer.
Instead he sits with them, knee against mine, and lets the room hold without making anyone name it.