Page 402 of Wicked Brutal

He gives Tobias a dollar. Tobias looks at Becca. “You said it.”

“We share finances,” Danny says.

Tobias accepts this. Then Danny takes another dollar from his wallet and puts it in Tobias’s hand. Tobias looks confused. “You didn’t say one.”

“Advance payment.”

Becca laughs harder.

I take the blanket from Ally and unfold it. “Put her in it?”

Becca’s expression goes soft. “Yeah?”

I lay the blanket across my lap, Danny brings Piper over, and together Becca and I tuck it around her — butterflies across her chest, a little rainbow near her tiny fist. Becca touches it, then her butterfly bracelet. Danny stands behind her with both arms around her waist, his chin resting on the top of her head. Piper sleeps.

Becca looks at her for a long time. Then at Ally. “She’s perfect.”

“She is.”

Becca looks at me. “You know we’re all going to spoil the shit out of her.”

“One dollar,” Tobias says.

Danny reaches for his wallet again. “I’m going to need more cash.”

And for a while, nobody moves. My daughter sleeps wrapped in butterflies and rainbows from Danny and Becca. The pelenashka Katya made from Jane’s clothes and blankets rests with Piper’s things. Tobias sits beside the bassinet, keeping watch like it’s his job. Kaid and Cat are arguing quietly over who won the betting pool. Penny is tucked beneath X’s arm. Bella is leaned against Iz. Our parents fill every spare chair and half the hallway. Ally is beside me, her hand in mine.

Piper Jane has been alive for less than a day. She has no idea who any of these people are yet. She doesn’t know how far they drove, or how many flights they took, or how long they sat in that waiting room, or how many of them cried the first time they held her. She doesn’t know what it cost some of them to get here, or what they’re carrying while they love her. Someday she will. For now, she just sleeps. Safe. Wrapped in pieces of all of us.

Four Years Later

Ally

There is a penny in Piper’s birthday cake. Not on it. Inside it.

I know this because my four-year-old daughter is standing on one of the kitchen chairs with both hands tucked behind her back, staring at the suspicious hole in the green buttercream like she’s never seen this cake before in her life. Her copper-red hair is already escaping the braids I spent twenty minutes fighting it into this morning — one hanging on through sheer determination, the other mostly surrendered, leaving half her hair loose around her face. There’s frosting on her cheek. I haven’t cut the cake.

“Piper Jane.”

“Yes, Mommy?”

“What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

Tobias snorts from the other side of the island. I look at him, and he immediately shoves another strawberry into his mouth. The strawberries are for the party. He’s eaten at least ten.

“Something funny?” He shakes his head while chewing. “Then stop eating those.”

He reaches for another one, and I slap his hand away. “Ally.”

“They’re for the party.”

“The party is here.”

“That doesn’t make them yours.”

“I live here.”