23. Alison #6
Oh. Roman. Victor. All that poison they put in his head. Cassandra’s face crumples. Walter closes his eyes.
I cup Tobias’s face. “Tobias. You are staying with me when the baby comes.”
“And Ryan?”
“Yes.”
Ryan nods. “Can’t get rid of me, Frog King.”
Tobias looks back at me. “And the baby?”
“Yes, we generally have to keep that one.” Ryan chokes on a laugh. Walter actually snorts behind us. I grin. “Actually — I’m going to need you.”
His eyebrows pull together. “For what?”
“The baby. Babies are a lot of work.”
His eyes widen. “They are?”
“Oh, they’re terrible.”
“Ally,” Ryan says.
“They cry. They poop. They don’t even know how to hold their own heads up.”
Tobias looks horrified. Ryan crouches beside us. “She’s making babies sound defective.”
“They kind of are.”
“Our child is going to hear about this.”
“Good. Maybe it’ll try harder.” Tobias giggles. I poke his stomach. “Our baby is going to need Uncle Tobias.”
His smile fades into something smaller. “Me? To help?”
“So much help.”
He thinks about it. “I can teach it frogs.”
“Obviously.”
“And fishing. And how to make wands.”
I glance at the cardboard stick lying in the grass. “We may workshop that one.”
His little face turns serious again. He looks at Ryan. Then at me. Then Ryan again.
“Ally?”
“Yeah?”
“If you’re like my mom now…” My chest tightens. Behind us, Cassandra inhales sharply. He frowns, hunting for the words. “Is Ryan gonna be like…” Ryan goes completely still. Tobias looks up at him. “Like my sort-of dad?”
Oh.
Ryan breaks. I watch it happen. So do his parents. His face crumples before he can stop it. He looks down, one hand coming over his mouth. Behind him, Walter’s eyes fill instantly. Cassandra doesn’t even try to hide her tears.
“Ryan?” Tobias asks, sounding worried.
Ryan shakes his head fast. “No, buddy. I’m okay.”
Tobias studies him. “You’re crying.”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Ryan wipes his face. Then he reaches out and fixes Tobias’s crooked green cape, taking a second to get his voice back.
“You know what, Toby? I don’t have a fancy word for what I’m supposed to be to you.” Tobias waits. Ryan’s voice cracks. “But I can tell you the part I do know.”
He gets down all the way, so he’s eye to eye with him.
“I love you.” Tobias goes still. “I’ve loved you since you were little enough to ride around on my shoulders and pull my hair.
You’re not my sort-of anything. You’re mine.
And your sister’s. And I’m gonna be right here — every single day — loving you and taking care of you for as long as you’ll let me.
” His eyes are streaming now and he doesn’t bother wiping them.
“And that defective baby your sister’s growing. ”
“Hey,” I say, laughing and crying at once. Tobias giggles wetly.
Ryan smiles through the tears. “So you can call me Ryan. You can call me your sort-of dad. You can call me the idiot who lives upstairs. I don’t care what the word is.” He touches the tip of Tobias’s nose. “The part that matters is that I love you, and I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s a lot of words,” Tobias says.
“Yeah, it was.” Ryan huffs a wet laugh. “The short version is: I love you, and you’re stuck with me.”
Walter laughs once behind us, broken.
Tobias reaches for him. Ryan doesn’t even get the chance to prepare. Both arms wrap around his neck, and Ryan folds — eyes squeezed shut, arms locked around him, face buried in that stupid green cardboard crown, and he cries.
“I love you too,” Tobias says into his shoulder, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Then he pats Ryan’s back. “It’s okay.” That only makes Ryan cry harder.
Behind them, Cassandra turns into Walter. He wraps his arms around her, but he’s staring at his son — crying too, like maybe he’s watching eighteen years happen all at once. His baby. Holding Mom’s baby. Promising to stay.
I crawl into them. Ryan catches me with one arm without letting go of Tobias.
For a second, it’s just us. Me. Ryan. Tobias.
The baby. With Walter and Cassandra right behind us — the people Mom chose six years ago to keep us safe if she couldn’t.
The people who somehow ended up doing exactly that without ever knowing she’d asked.
Then Xander’s voice comes from behind us. “Your Majesty?” Tobias lifts his head. Xander holds up the green marker. “The frog escaped.”
Penny’s eyes go wide. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Tobias gasps. “GET HER!”
He tears out of Ryan’s arms, snatches his crown off the grass, and charges after Penny.
Xander takes off behind him. “FOR THE FROG KING!”
“XANDER!”
Cassandra laughs through her tears. Walter puts an arm around her.
I lean into Ryan. He wraps an arm around me and presses a kiss to my temple, still wiping his face with the other hand, laughing and crying at the same time.
We watch our six-year-old Frog King chase a screaming Penny across the yard while Xander, still covered in green marker, supplies battle cries.
Walter and Cassandra stand behind us. Mom chose them. I chose Ryan. Tobias gets all of us.
Good chaos. Safe chaos. Home.