24. Ryan
There are ten people in the guest house. Eleven, if I count the baby under my hand.
Ally is curled into my side on the couch, shoulder tucked against my chest, her fingers threaded through mine over the little curve of her stomach. Every so often her thumb moves across my knuckle. Every time it does, mine moves over her stomach. Neither of us mentions it.
Everyone else has been here for hours. Walter and Cassandra took Tobias to the park after lunch, which means the guest house is temporarily safe for conversations involving prom, sex, and whatever the fuck Xander has decided to tell everyone.
Across the room, Cat is sideways in Kaiden’s lap, stealing pepperoni off his slice while her own sits untouched.
He catches her wrist on the third one. “You took all the pepperoni off yours.”
“I changed my mind.”
“Then put it back.”
She leans in and bites the pepperoni straight off his slice instead, chewing, entirely too pleased with herself.
Kaiden’s grin comes slow. “Fucking brat.”
“You love me.”
“Unfortunately.”
He catches her chin and kisses her long enough that she forgets about the pepperoni. Almost.
When he pulls back she reaches blindly for his slice again, and he starts laughing. “Jesus Christ, Kitty Cat.”
On the loveseat, Penny’s legs are draped across Xander’s lap while she scrolls her phone, his thumb tracing lazy lines along her ankle.
Then her smile spreads. “Oh. Bella hasn’t seen Frog Bitch.”
Xander’s hand stops. “No.”
Penny’s already turning the phone around. Bella takes one look and laughs — a real one, not the sharp little sound she makes right before she says something designed to draw blood. “Is that green marker on your eyebrows?”
“Delete those,” Xander says.
“Never.” Bella swipes. “He was Frog King’s loyal servant.”
“His frog bitch,” Penny corrects.
“You’re Frog Princess. Watch yourself.”
Bella’s eyes flick to Penny. “You were Frog Princess?”
“Against my will.”
“Bullshit,” Xander says. “The crown’s still beside our bed. And the Frog Princess liked riding the Frog bitch last night.”
"XANDER!"
Penny goes pink and shoves his shoulder; he catches her around the waist before she can get away, kissing her burning cheek while the room laughs.
Ally buries her face in my chest, shoulders shaking, and I fail not to laugh into her hair.
I look around and it hits me, the way it does sometimes.
Not bad weird. Just — a year ago, Bella Whelan sitting in this guest house while Penny showed her pictures would’ve been impossible.
A few weeks ago Penny added her to the girls’ group chat during prom shopping and Bella demanded to be removed.
Nobody removed her. She didn’t leave. Now she’s barefoot in one of Cassandra’s chairs, arguing about prom dresses like she’s been doing it forever.
She hasn’t. Nobody’s pretending she has.
But somewhere between prom shopping and everything after, she started folding into them — slowly, carefully.
And every so often I think she notices it happening.
Like now, when her laugh fades because she catches a few people looking at her, and that old instinct flickers across her face.
Brace. Sharpen. Strike first. Nothing happens.
Penny just turns the phone back around. “Anyway, ignore him. This is Ally’s dress.”
And Bella settles back into the chair. Just like that.
Ally shifts against me. My hand follows automatically.
Bella points at the screen. “We’re waiting to alter it.”
“For what?” Ally asks.
“You’re still growing. The dress is fitted through here.” Bella gestures at her own waist. “You’ll have more of a bump by prom. Take it in now and they’ll just have to let it back out.”
“I still can’t believe you noticed before the rest of us,” Penny says.
“You were all staring at her face. I was staring at the dress. It stopped falling correctly.” Ally laughs softly, and Bella shrugs. “I notice clothes.”
“You notice everything,” Iz says from across the room.
Bella doesn’t look at him. “Not everything worth noticing.”
His eyes narrow. There it is. Ally’s fingers squeeze mine once.
Becca looks at Ally, and the room quiets just enough. “Your bump — do you want the dress altered to hide it a little, or do you want to show it?”
No judgment. No assumption. Just a question. Ally looks down at herself, at my hand still there, and covers it with hers. For a second she doesn’t answer. Then she looks up at me.
I lower my mouth to her ear. “It’s up to you, baby.” Her eyes search mine. I kiss her temple. “Whatever makes you feel beautiful.”
The smile starts small, then grows. “I want to show it.”
Something in my chest pulls tight. “Yeah?”
“I spent so long making sure nobody knew. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
Bella’s expression changes, just slightly. “Then don’t. Wear the fitted dress.”
Becca smiles. Penny’s already scrolling. “Okay, then we need—“
“Shoes,” Ally says.
I look down at her. “No.”
“I haven’t even said anything.”
“You’re thinking about heels.”
“I am wearing heels.” She sits up to look at me properly.
“Baby, you nearly ate it walking from the bedroom to the kitchen yesterday. In socks.”
“That floor is slippery.”
“You walked into Tobias’s backpack.”
“He left it in the middle of the hallway.” I just look at her. “I am wearing heels to prom.”
“I was thinking something that doesn’t involve balancing you on four inches of attempted homicide.”
Becca snorts. “Bring flats.”
Bella looks over at her. “Flats?”
“For prom. Wear the heels for pictures, then change when your feet start hurting. Trust me.”
“That’s what you should do,” Danny says.
The problem isn’t what he says. The problem is that the dumb fuck looks directly at Becca when he says it.
Her head turns toward him. Slowly. I already know where this is going.
“Excuse me?”
Danny looks up from his phone. “What?”
“What did you just say to me?”
“I said that’s what you should do.”
“I heard you.”
“Then why the fuck did you ask?”
Becca stares at him. Danny stares back. I don't intervene. I've known him long enough to recognize a man actively choosing his own death.
Becca points down at her shoes. “Are you suggesting I bring flats to prom?”
“I’m suggesting you bring flats everywhere.”
Her mouth falls open. “Why?”
“Because you wear those fucking torture devices and then complain your feet hurt.”
“They’re heels.”
“They’re stupid.”
“They’re Louboutins.”
Danny shrugs. “Cool. They’re expensive stupid.”
Cat makes a strangled noise beside me.
Becca's eyes narrow. “You did not just call my Louboutins stupid.”
“They hurt your feet.”
“That is not the point.”
Danny finally puts his phone down. “Pretty sure being able to walk is the main fucking requirement for shoes.”
“You are so painfully uncultured.”
“And yet I'm the one who ends up carrying your ass upstairs every time you decide functioning ankles aren't fashionable enough.”
“I have never asked you to carry me upstairs.”
“You don't have to.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don't.” He leans back, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “You get to the stairs, take your shoes off, and look at me.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely fucking do.”
“What look?”
Danny widens his eyes and pitches his voice up. “‘Danny, my feet hurt.’”
Becca's jaw drops. “I do not sound like that.”
“‘Danny, the stairs are so far away.’”
“Fuck you.”
“‘Danny, carry me because I made another terrible footwear decision.’”
“I have never said that in my life.”
“No. You just stand there holding your shoes like a fucking Victorian orphan until I pick you up.”
I snort. Becca's eyes snap to me. I immediately look away. Not my fight.
“That has happened, like, twice,” she says.
Danny grins. “Three times last week.”
“Bullshit.”
“Tuesday, Friday, Saturday.”
“Saturday doesn't count.”
“Why?”
“I was drunk.”
“That makes it count more.”
“Fuck you, Rorke.”
“There she is.”
And there it is. That fucking grin. Becca sees it too.
She crosses the space between them, grabs the front of his shirt, and kisses him hard enough that the back of his head cracks against the chair.
“Jesus fucking—”
She kisses him again.
Danny's hand catches her around the waist automatically, and just like that, an argument about shoes becomes whatever the fuck Danny and Becca consider foreplay.
Nobody even looks over. That's how I know they're okay.
Not because Danny stopped being Danny. Not because Becca stopped meeting every ounce of his bullshit with twice as much of her own.
Because they're fighting about shoes. Because she's kissing him to shut him up. Because ten minutes from now he'll probably be carrying her upstairs while bitching the entire fucking way about the shoes she'll be dangling from one hand.
Normal, stupid bullshit.
After everything they've been through, I'll take it.
Bella snaps her fingers. “I have the perfect pair. Lower than what you’re looking at, but they don’t look low. Wider heel, straps that actually support your ankle.”
She’s already reaching for her phone when Iz makes a sound. Not quite a laugh. Not quite smart enough to leave alone.
Bella’s head lifts. “What?”
“I’m just wondering how you turned somebody else’s prom into a personal styling emergency.”
“And I’m wondering how you make being insufferable look so effortless.”
“Natural talent.”
“Talent requires skill.”
Iz’s smile disappears. “Funny, coming from someone whose greatest accomplishment is convincing everyone she’s interesting.”
The air changes. Bella’s mouth curves, cold. “You spend an awful lot of time watching someone you find so uninteresting.”
“Hard not to watch a train wreck.”
“You’ve spent months making sure everybody knows exactly what you are,” Iz says. “Don’t get pissy because I finally believe you.”
Bella goes very still. Then she smiles — the dangerous one. “That’s rich, coming from a boy who built an entire personality around saving people, so he never has to wonder whether anyone would choose him if they didn’t need something.”
Iz’s face changes. Fuck.
“Isaac.” One word from Ally, in the exact voice she uses when Tobias is about to launch himself off the back of the couch.
Calm. Exhausted. Finished.