2. Ryan #2
“I’ve been digging harder since Valentine’s,” I say, and turn the laptop around.
They’ve seen most of the Roman and Tremblay files before, but not all of it. I’ve added folders since — companies, properties, payments, political donations, nonprofits, names that keep surfacing around both men often enough that coincidence stopped being a serious explanation weeks ago.
“I can connect Roman and Tremblay financially. I can connect them both to people we’ve already looked at. There’s money moving between companies that have no business touching each other.”
“But?” Danny asks.
“But I can’t prove what the money’s for. I’ve got the shape of it. I don’t have the thing that makes a prosecutor stand up.”
Kaiden scrolls, jaw tight. “Arthur needs this.”
Iz immediately reaches for his phone, and I say, “Not yet.”
His hand stops. “Why?”
“Because Ally gets to know the boys know before your dad gets a phone call. She doesn’t find out her whole life is moving because you got excited and dialed.”
Iz lowers the phone. “Fair. Yeah. That’s fair.”
Xander looks at me. “Why didn’t you tell us on Valentine’s Day? You’ve been sitting on this alone for a month.”
There it is. “I needed more first.”
Kaiden’s expression goes flat. “Ryan. We already knew about Roman. We already knew about Tremblay. We already knew about Tobias. What, exactly, were you waiting for?”
“Something useful. Something that actually changes the board instead of just proving what we already know.” He stares at me, and I shove the laptop away.
“I knew exactly what happens the second I tell you. You tell Cat. X tells Penny. Danny tells Becca. Iz calls Arthur. Then every parent we’ve got knows, and suddenly there are twenty people moving at once, and if we move before we’ve got enough to actually get Tobias out clean, we blow the only shot we get. ”
“That’s generally the point of having twenty people,” Xander says.
“Not if we move too soon and Roman sees it coming.” Nobody talks for a second. “Ally can leave that house tonight,” I say. “She’s eighteen. Roman can’t legally drag her back.”
“But Tobias can’t leave, and she won’t go without him.” Danny says.
“No. If she takes Tobias without something legal behind her, Roman reports it — adult daughter walks off with a six-year-old who isn’t legally hers.
We don’t know what Jane does, whether she backs Ally or Roman.
There’s no custody order, no documented history involving Tobias that tells us how a judge lands.
We’d be handing Roman a clean legal road to take him straight back. ”
Iz’s face tightens. “So you wanted enough to get Tobias before you ever started the machine.”
“Yeah.”
Kaiden studies me. “And did you get it?”
“No.” I hate saying it out loud. “Not yet.”
“But she’s starting to show,” Xander says.
“Yeah.”
“And Tremblay’s expecting a virgin,” Danny adds quietly.
“Yeah.”
“So your clock ran out.”
“Pretty much on the nose.”
Kaiden pushes away from the table. “We’re involved now. All of us. That’s not a thing you get to talk us out of.”
“I know.”
“No,” he says, and his voice is calm, which somehow makes it land harder.
“I don’t think you do. You don’t have to hand us a solved case, Ryan.
You did the same thing Cat did, and Penny, and Becca — every single time, one of us decides we’re protecting everybody by carrying something alone until it’s almost too fucking late to fix. ”
Xander grimaces. “He’s got you there, man.”
“You’re not special enough to reinvent the same stupid mistake we’ve all already made,” Kaiden says.
“Fuck you.”
“There he is.” Then his expression softens, barely. “We’re involved now. Say it back so I know you heard it.”
“You’re involved now.”
Iz picks up his phone and looks at me with the patience of a man who has waited his entire life for this moment. “Now can I call my dad?”
“No.”
“For the love of God.”
“We tell Ally the boys know. Then the girls. Then my parents. Then Arthur. In that order, so nobody in the middle of it feels like the last to find out about their own life.”
Kaiden looks at me. “Your parents don’t know?”
“No.”
Iz stares. “You’ve known for a month and you haven’t told Walter and Cassandra they’re about to be grandparents?”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what?” I gesture at the laptop. “Oh, right,” Iz says. “Cyberstalking your future father-in-law. Wholesome.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Noted. Deeply noted.”
Danny picks up his phone and turns it over in his hand. “Becca needs to hear it from me. Not in a room. Not in a group. From me, first.”
“You sure?” I ask.
His eyes lift. “No.” Honest. “But she does.” He stands.
“Give me five minutes before you tell Ally we’re doing this — I’m telling Becca first, so it’s not sprung on her when Ally walks in.
And Ryan.” He pauses. “Ally doesn’t apologize.
For any of it. If Becca cries, if I have to step outside — none of that is Ally’s to say sorry for.
Her being pregnant isn’t something she did to us. ”
“Okay,” I say. “Understood.”
Becca wants to see Ally. So do Cat and Penny.
Ally agrees, which surprises me less than it would’ve six months ago, because the girls have become their own thing now — not just our girlfriends, not just people who ended up in the same orbit because the five of us have been attached at the hip since we were kids, but something separate.
Something I don’t fully understand and know better than to get in the middle of.
By four, we’re at Cat’s, and Ally almost turns around the second she sees everyone in the living room. I feel it happen through her hand — the little hitch, the recalculation. “Hey,” I murmur. She looks at me. “You good?”
“No.”
“Want to leave?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Her fingers tighten around mine, and here, in this house, the public rules don’t exist, so I hold on and don’t let go.
Cat stands. Penny doesn’t. Neither does Becca — good, because three girls rushing Ally at once would send her straight back out the door, and all three of them somehow know it. “Hey,” Cat says. That’s all. Not oh my God, not are you okay, not even congratulations. Just hey.
Ally swallows. “Hey.”
Penny pats the cushion beside her. “We have ginger tea. Come sit before it gets cold.”
A tiny smile appears at the corner of Ally’s mouth, and I feel my whole chest loosen a notch.
She walks farther in, and I stay with her until she sits down between Cat and Penny — and then her eyes find Becca in the opposite corner of the couch, curled in with Danny beside her, their hands linked, and the smile disappears.
“Becca,” Ally says.
Becca looks at her, and then her gaze drops. Just once. To Ally’s stomach. There isn’t much to see. She looks anyway, and her fingers tighten around Danny’s, and Danny doesn’t move, doesn’t speak for her, doesn’t rescue her. He just holds on and lets her get there herself.
Ally starts to stand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—“
“No.” Becca’s answer is immediate, and Ally freezes halfway up. Becca stands, lets go of Danny’s hand, and crosses the room. “Don’t do that. Don’t you dare do that.”
“I didn’t mean—“
“I know.” Becca stops in front of her, and for a second neither of them moves. Then Becca says, quietly, “Can I hug you?”
Ally nods, and Becca wraps both arms around her, and Ally breaks — not loudly, just one tiny sound against Becca’s shoulder. Penny immediately starts crying. “Oh, fuck,” she says wetly, and Cat reaches for the tissue box, and Penny points at her. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your face did.”
“My face is neutral.”
“Your face has never once been neutral in its entire life.”
Becca laughs against Ally’s hair, and it comes out wet.
“It hurts,” Becca says. “I’m not going to lie to you and pretend it doesn’t. It hurts, and it’s probably going to walk up and sit down next to me at completely random times for the rest of my life.”
Ally’s mouth trembles. “I know,” she whispers.
“No, you don’t,” Becca says — not cruel, just true.
“And I don’t want you to. That’s the whole point.
I can miss my baby and be happy yours exists at the exact same time.
I can hate that I don’t get mine and still want every single good thing in the world for you.
Both of those live in me now. They’re going to live in me right next to each other, and that’s mine to carry, not yours.
” Behind her, Danny’s jaw tightens. “So if I cry sometimes, that’s not your fault.
If I have a bad day, that’s not your fault.
If Danny has a bad day, that’s not your fault either.
You don’t get to apologize for your baby. Not to me. Not ever.”
Ally’s tears spill over, and Danny gets up, crosses the room, and stops beside Becca, his hand settling at her waist. She leans into him, and he looks at Ally.
“She’s right,” he says. “If it’s hard for us sometimes, that’s ours to hold.
You don’t apologize for your kid.” His voice catches slightly on the last of it.
Becca asks, “Are you happy?”
Ally’s hand moves to her stomach — automatic, she doesn’t even notice she’s doing it anymore. “Yeah.”
Becca smiles. It costs her something; I can see it cost her something, and she does it anyway. “Then I’m happy for you.” She hugs Ally again, and this time she laughs into it, and Penny starts crying harder.
Cat groans. “Now you’re making me cry.”
“Good,” Becca says.
“I hate all of you.”
Danny looks away from the couch, and I move up beside him. “You okay?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
He glances at me. “That’s it? That’s the whole intervention?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Then yeah. That’s it.”
His mouth twitches, and I bump my shoulder into his. He bumps mine back. Done.