Page 38 of Wicked Brutal

She turns her head slowly toward me. “Ryan. I have been inside this house for forty-five seconds.”

“That’s plenty of time to answer a yes or no question.”

Ally groans. “He’s been like this for a solid month.”

“I assumed,” Darla says dryly.

“I’m sitting right here.”

“Wonderful. Then you’ll hear me clearly when I say Ally isn’t describing a single thing that makes me think she needs emergency care tonight, and that we will arrange real prenatal care somewhere Roman can’t get near it. The details we’ll discuss privately.”

“How privately?”

She looks at me. “Privately.”

Iz pats my shoulder. “You’ve been outplayed. Accept it with dignity.”

“I’ll kill you.”

The door opens again. Kaiden comes in first, Cat behind him, then Callum and Saoirse with Thomas right on their heels, arriving exactly the way they arrive everywhere now, one weird sprawling household moving as a single unit.

Mom appears in the kitchen doorway. “You.”

Cat stops dead. “What did I do?”

Mom holds up her phone. “I need you later.”

“For what?”

“Spreadsheet.”

Cat’s entire face lights up like Christmas. “Oh.”

I point at her. “No.”

Mom just smiles. “Baby shower?”

Cat crosses the room like she’s answering a calling. “I’m in. Fully. Deploy me.”

Kaiden looks at me with something like pity. “You thought she wouldn’t find an accomplice inside three minutes?”

“I had hope.”

“That was your first mistake.”

Gideon and Alice come next with Penny and Xander, then Clifford and Louise with Danny and Becca, and finally Theodore and Katya.

Becca sees them, and her whole face softens for Katya, who opens her arms without a word. Becca goes into them. “My little butterfly,” Katya murmurs against her hair. Theodore hangs back a step, not intruding.

Becca finally pulls away she looks at him. “Hi, Dad.”

“Hi, princess.”

By seven-thirty, my parents’ living room looks like somebody accidentally scheduled a summit for Edgewood’s most overqualified adults. Arthur and Darla. Callum and Saoirse. Thomas. Gideon and Alice. Clifford and Louise. Theodore and Katya. My parents. The five of us. Cat, Penny, Becca. And Ally, at the center of all of it — not literally, Mom makes sure of that, and so do the other women. Ally starts on the couch beside me, and that lasts about thirty seconds before Saoirse settles on her other side, Mom takes the chair directly across from her, Darla perches on the arm, Alice and Louise claim the other couch with Cat and Penny and Becca, and Katya comes in from the kitchen with tea and takes the last open chair near Ally’s knee. The dads are mostly left standing.

Iz surveys the arrangement. “Wow.”

“What?” Xander asks.