She looks over at Riley, smiles and says, "I have 3 uncles."
“Alright,” Wade says after a second, his tone quieter now, but there’s still that edge to it, like he’s trying to decide whether to push or give me space. “You wanna explain what the hell just happened, or are we all just gonna pretend this is a normal Tuesday?”
I huff out a breath, glancing over my shoulder at him while keeping Hadley close at my side. “Still working on that myself.”
“That makes two of us,” Brooks adds, stepping in a little closer, his gaze flicking between me, Riley, and then down to Hadley in a way that isn’t hard or suspicious, just assessing, taking everything in the way he always does. “You good?”
The question isn’t simple.
It isn’t just about me.
It’s about whether I’m about to bolt, whether I’m thinking straight, whether I understand what this means for all of us.
I nod once, slow and deliberate. “Yeah. I’m good.”
Luke watches me a second longer than the others, his expression calm but sharp in a way that tells me he’s reading everything I’m not saying out loud. “You sure about that?” he asks, not challenging, just steady.
I meet his gaze, holding it. “Yeah,” I repeat, more solid this time. “I’m not going anywhere.”
That lands between us, and I see the shift in all three of them, subtle but there.
Relief.
Respect.
And something else that feels a whole lot like backing me up without needing to say it.
Wade exhales through his nose. “Well, good, because you don’t get to disappear on this,” he says, with less bite in it now. “Kind of a lifetime commitment situation.”
I snort under my breath. “Yeah, I picked up on that.”
Brooks shakes his head, a faint smile pulling at his mouth. “You always did have a way of keeping things interesting.”
“Pretty sure this tops everything else,” I mutter.
“Not wrong,” Wade says. “Still, could’ve given us a heads-up before you started a whole family.”
That earns him a look. “Funny. Real funny.”
Luke steps in just enough to break that up before it turns into something else, his tone steady. “We’ll figure it out,” he says, like it’s already decided. “Whatever this is, we handle it together.”
That hits different.
Because that’s the part I don’t have to question.
Not with them.
I glance down at Hadley again, her small hand still wrapped around mine like she’s got it all figured out already, and something in my chest settles a little deeper.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “We will.”
And for the first time since she said the word daddy, the weight of it doesn’t feel like it’s knocking me off balance.
It feels like something I’m bracing for.
Something I’m stepping into.
And I’m not doing it alone.
