“Yes ma’am.”
I drove home in the afternoon light. The road was empty, the radio off, and I sat with the quiet the way Pete had been teaching me to sit with things—not filling it, not running from it. Just letting it be what it was.
Six months. Half a year of building something I couldn’t see clearly while I was inside it. I didn’t know what it would look like when it was finished. I didn’t know if Bea would ever see it, or if seeing it would change anything.
But the coffee had been good this morning. And Lindsay had laughed. And Danny’s roses were fresh on the stone.
That was enough for today.
Chapter 32
?
— Holden —
The group text came at two in the morning. I was awake although I had been sleeping through most nights for a while now — Pete called it progress; I called it not drinking.
Colt.She’s in labor.
My phone lit up with replies before I’d finished reading. I pulled on my boots and grabbed my keys.
The waiting room was already half-full when I arrived. Dutch and Indira in the corner, talking low. Glitch on his phone, laptop by his side. A handful of old ladies clustered near the vending machine, some excited, some just quiet. Brothers stood around or sat wherever they’d landed — the kind of organized chaos that happened when the whole club showed up somewhere at once.
Handful came through the doors carrying a tray of coffees, handing them out to anyone in reach. He had his book tucked under his arm — the betting book, the one he kept for everything from poker nights to football season. He set the coffees down and flipped it open.
“Final call,” he said, keeping his voice low enough for a hospital but loud enough to carry. “Who had tonight for the due date? Glitch, that’s you. Don’t spend it all at once.” He ran his finger down the page. “Last chance on names, weight, sex — anyone want in before it’s too late?”
“Do they even know the sex?” Indira asked.
“Lilac said she wanted to be surprised. Colt agreed, and then bought four of everything — two in pink, two in blue.” Handful grinned. “The nursery looks like a baby store exploded.”
Dutch shook his head. “He’s going to be busy returning a lot of baby shit tomorrow.”
“Or,” Handful said, “they get busy and make another set of twins, and then nothing goes to waste.”
Indira threw a balled-up napkin at him. He caught it without looking.
“I’ve got three-to-one on two boys, five-to-one on two girls, even money on one of each. Last chance.”
“One of each,” Dutch said.
Handful wrote it down with the seriousness of a man conducting important business.
I found a chair in the corner and sat.
Betty arrived forty minutes later with Luca and Knox. The whole room went tense when they walked in. We thought they’d be at home until breakfast but apparently Colt had called Betty and said to bring them now, and nobody knew what that meant.
“Calm down, all of you,” Betty said before anyone could ask. She had a bag over one shoulder, packed with everything — juice boxes, granola bars, a deck of cards, coloring books, crayons. “It’s twins. A second set. They’re coming fast, that’s all. Lilac’s doing fine.”
The room exhaled.
Knox and Luca flanked her, both in matching Best Big Brother t-shirts that someone — Lilac, probably — had bought for exactly this occasion. Knox’s was on backwards. Neither of them had noticed.
Betty guided the boys to seats, set the bag down, and started unpacking like she was setting up camp. Knox was wide-eyed but buzzing, the kind of nervous energy that came out as movement — his legs swinging, his head turning to take in everycorner of the waiting room. Luca was quieter, his face serious, watching the doors that led deeper into the hospital like he could see through them to wherever his mother was.
“Is Mama okay?” Luca asked Betty. His voice was steady but his hands weren’t.
Betty crouched down to his level. “Your mama is tough as nails and she’s done this before with you two. The doctors are with her and your daddy’s right there holding her hand. She’s going to be just fine.”
