2. Ryan #3
The girls spend another half hour with Ally after that.
Cat wants to know if she needs anything, anything at all, and starts a list. Penny wants a full inventory of which foods don’t make her want to die.
Becca asks whether she’s sleeping. Ally answers more than I expect her to, and eventually she starts laughing — really laughing, the loud one that almost nobody gets — and for a little while the baby isn’t a threat or a countdown or a problem to be solved. It’s just a baby. Ours.
Then I check the time. Six. I look at Ally, and she reads it off my face. “Your parents?”
“Yeah.”
The smile goes out of her.
We're in my car, sitting in my driveway. Ally is staring at my house with tears in her eyes.
I reach across the console and take her hand. Her fingers are freezing. “We need them,” I say. “And if Arthur’s getting looped in tonight, I am not letting my parents find out they’re going to be grandparents because Iz calls his dad and the news travels up the parent phone tree.”
That gets a tiny laugh out of her. “Is there a parent phone tree?”
“Absolutely there’s a parent phone tree. Our mothers have a group chat and I refuse to know what’s in it.”
“You’re making that up.”
“You’ve met our mothers.”
“...Fair.” I rub my thumb across her knuckles, and she looks out the window for a few seconds. “Your dad knows you like me.”
“Yeah.” That part’s unavoidable — Dad knows more about the original reason I started watching Ally than I ever wanted a parent to know about my romantic life.
He knows I noticed her. He knows I cared enough to notice too much.
What he does not know is that somewhere between the lake and October, noticing turned into kissing, kissing turned into sneaking around, and sneaking around eventually turned into me putting a baby in her. That’s going to be a fun update.
“Your mom doesn’t know anything,” Ally says.
“No.”
“Does she know we’re even—“
“She knows we’ve known each other our whole lives. She knows I don’t hate you.”
“Very reassuring.”
I squeeze her hand. “They’re going to be shocked, Ally. That’s all it’s going to be. Shocked is not the same thing as mad.”
Her head turns. “You promise it’s not the same thing?”
“I promise.” She doesn’t answer, and I can feel exactly what she’s doing — waiting for the other shoe, waiting for the adult in the room to look at her differently, to see eighteen and pregnant and their son’s baby and decide the girl is where the blame goes.
“Ally,” I say. She looks at me. “My parents are going to love this baby.” Her eyes fill immediately.
“And they’re going to love you. They already do. ”
“Your mother barely knows me.”
“My mother has known you since you were little, and she already likes you, and when she finds out why we’ve been hiding all of it, she’s going to be furious.
” Ally goes tense. “Not at you,” I say, hard enough that she blinks.
“Never at you. Not for one second of this.” I lift our joined hands and kiss her knuckles. “Okay?”
She looks down at our hands. “Okay.” And this time she almost sounds like she believes me.
We walk in through the kitchen. Mom’s at the island with her laptop open and her reading glasses on; Dad’s at the counter with his jacket off and his tie loosened, scrolling his phone.
Both of them look up, and Mom’s eyes go to me, then to Ally, then to our hands — and stay there.
Dad notices too, his eyebrows going up a fraction. Not much. Enough.
“Okay,” Mom says slowly. “That already answered one question I didn’t know I had.”
“What?” I ask.
She points at our hands. “That.” Ally immediately tries to pull hers free. I tighten my grip. “Oh, honey, no,” Mom says, catching the movement. “I didn’t mean it like that. Please don’t do that.” Ally goes still.
Dad sets his phone down and looks at me, then at Ally, then back at me, and because he already knows enough to be dangerous, I can watch understanding start assembling on his face faster than I’d like. “How long?” he asks.
Mom turns toward him. “How long what?”
I sigh. “Can everybody sit down?”
Mom takes her glasses off. “Ryan Harrington asking people to sit down before he speaks is genuinely one of the most frightening things that has ever happened in this kitchen.”
“Mom.”
“I’m sitting. I’m sitting.”
Dad doesn’t — he leans against the counter instead, arms crossing. Ally stays glued to my side, and I can feel her pulse going in her fingers, fast. I rub my thumb across her hand, and Mom watches that too, and her whole expression softens.
I had versions of this planned. Several. Every one of them sounds fucking stupid now, so — fuck it. “Ally and I are together.”
Mom blinks. Dad doesn’t. “Together,” Mom says.
“Yeah.”
“As in, together together. Dating.”
“Yeah.”
“Since when?”
“Summer. Sort of.” Ally makes a tiny noise, and I look at her. “What?”
“That’s a terrible answer.”
Mom’s mouth twitches. “Okay. I already like her,” she says, and Ally turns pink.
I try again. “We got close over the summer, at the lake. We started actually dating once school started. We've been hiding because of Roman…"
Mom looks between us. “So you’ve been hiding your entire relationship from her father, ince the summer, and you didn’t think to tell us.”
“The fewer people who knew, the safer it was,” I say. Mom opens her mouth, and I cut her off before she can build momentum. “And that’s not even the important part.”
Her eyebrows go up. “There’s a more important part?”
“Yeah.” Ally’s hand starts shaking in mine, and I look at her. “You want me to?” She nods. I turn back to my parents. “Ally’s pregnant.”
Nothing. For one full second the kitchen just stops. Mom stares at me. Dad’s arms come uncrossed. Ally stops breathing entirely beside me. Then Mom whispers, “Oh my God” — not angry, not horrified, just knocked flat — and her eyes fill instantly. Ally sees the tears, and hers do the same.
“Mom,” I start.
“I’m fine.” She stands, looks at Ally, and then visibly stops herself before she can close the distance. “Can I hug you?”
Ally nods so fast her hair moves, and Mom crosses the kitchen, and the second her arms go around her, Ally breaks — not because Mom said something wrong, because Cassandra Harrington wraps her up like the answer was always, obviously, going to be yes.
Yes, you’re welcome here. Yes, this baby is welcome here.
Yes, you’re still a girl someone gets to hold when she’s scared.
Mom’s crying into her hair, Ally’s crying into her shoulder, and Dad looks like somebody hit him in the chest with a truck.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom murmurs. “Oh my God.”
“I’m sorry,” Ally says.
Mom pulls back so fast I almost laugh. “No. No, no, absolutely not. We are not doing that.”
“I just—“
“You do not apologize to me for this baby. Do you hear me?” Ally nods, her face crumpling, and Mom cups her cheeks in both hands. “This baby is not bad news. Are you happy?”
Ally’s hand moves to her stomach. “Yeah.”
Mom smiles through her tears. “Then congratulations, honey.” And that’s it — the word Ally has been terrified to hear from an adult. Not what are you going to do. Not how could this happen. Congratulations. Ally sobs, and Mom hugs her again. “I’m sorry,” Mom says.
Ally laughs into her shoulder. “You just told me not to apologize.”
“Different rules. I’m the grandmother. I get to.”
I close my eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
Ally pulls back. “Grandmother?”
Mom looks at her like she’s said something insane. “Obviously.” Then her own words catch up to her, and her whole face changes. “Oh my God. I’m going to be a grandmother.”
“Here we go,” Dad mutters.
Mom turns back to Ally. “When are you due?”
“October, we think.”
“We think?”
“We haven’t been to a doctor yet.”
Mom’s entire posture changes, going from soft to operational in a heartbeat. “Okay. Darla. She’s discreet, she’s family, and Roman will never know her name went anywhere near yours.”
“Already on the list,” I say.
“Good. Vitamins?”
“Yes,” Ally says.
“Nausea?”
“Mom.”
“Fine. Fine.” She takes a breath, and then her eyes light up like a struck match. “Oh my God. A baby shower.”
I stare at her. “Mom. We are currently hiding this baby from a dangerous fucking family situation, and you have jumped straight to a baby shower.”
“I am aware of the situation, Ryan. Planning is private. Planning hurts no one.”
“Planning is insane at ten weeks.”
Mom looks genuinely offended. “Planning is never insane.” Ally laughs through her tears, and Mom turns to her, delighted. “Do you want one?”
Ally’s laughter dies into confusion. “A baby shower? I’ve — I’ve never thought about it. Nobody’s ever—“
“Well, don’t think about it right now,” Mom says briskly, already picking up her phone. “I’ll just make a preliminary spreadsheet.”
“No,” I say.
She ignores me completely. “Cat likes spreadsheets,” she says, and Ally starts laughing again, actually laughing, and Mom’s already typing. “I’m texting her.”
“You are not texting Cat about a baby shower while we are standing here in the middle of the actual pregnancy reveal—“
“Why not? She already knows.”
“How do you—“
Mom stops typing and looks at me. “Does she?”
“...Yes.”
“Then we’re fine.”
I look at Dad. “Help.”
“Nope. I’m enjoying myself for the first time all week.”
Mom mutters as she types. “Venue can wait. Theme obviously waits. Guest list—“
“Mom.”
“I’m making categories, Ryan, not reservations.”
Ally wipes her face and says, quietly, “I like spreadsheets."
Mom’s head snaps up like a hawk spotting movement. “Oh.” She reaches for Ally’s hand. “Come sit by me.”
I point at both of them. “This is how cults start.”
“Go talk to your father,” Mom says.
Dad pulls me toward the other side of the kitchen, and for the first time since I walked in, it’s just us.
He looks at me — really looks at me — and then he hugs me.
No joke, no warning, just one arm around my shoulders and the other hand at the back of my head, pulling me in.
I hug him back. His voice, when it comes, is low enough that only I hear it.