Kyle slides in last, phone out, texting Rider updates. He drops into a chair and announces, "I'm going to be the cool uncle." Nash shakes his head.
East says, "Absolutely not." Kyle grins.
Knox is pacing.
East grabs him by the shoulders. "Hey. Look at me."
Knox does.
"She's strong. You're not going to break her by worrying. Trust her body. Trust yourself."
Knox swallows. Nods. A nurse opens the door and nods him back in. He comes straight to me, takes my hand, and holds on.
Hours later, when our daughter finally arrives, furious and perfect and loud, the world narrows.
Knox is crying. I'm crying.
The nurse places her on my chest, warm and wriggling and alive, and I look down at her tiny, scrunched face.
"Lena," I whisper.
Knox lifts his head from watching her. His eyes go wide. His throat works, jaw tightening, and he looks at me with an expression I've only seen once before: the night I told him who I really was.
"Lena," he repeats. His voice breaks on it. His hand cradles our daughter's head, fingers spanning her entire skull, so gentle it makes my chest ache.
I nod, tracing her tiny hand. "The night we met, that's who I told you I was."
His eyes hold mine.
"It was a lie then," I say softly. "But she was real. The woman who ran. Who survived. Who found you." I swallow past the tightness. "I want to give her this name. So it means something true."
His thumb strokes over Lena's impossibly small fingers.
"It always meant something true," he says, voice rough. "You just didn't know it yet."
Tears slip down my cheeks. He leans forward, forehead to mine, careful, Lena warm between us.
"It's perfect," he whispers. "She's perfect."
My phone buzzes on the bedside table. Knox draws back, easing his hand from Lena's head, and reaches for it. He reads the screen, turns it toward me.
Anna. A wall of exclamation points, a string of hearts, and one line: I'm on a plane. Tell her aunt to save me the first hold.
I laugh. It comes out wet and broken and real.
Knox sets the phone down and puts his hand back on our daughter's head.
We stay that way. The three of us. The room is quiet, the hallway bright, the world outside doing whatever the world does when it's no longer the thing you're bracing against.
Knox
I'msittinginachair that's too small, in a room that smells of antiseptic and clean cotton, with my daughter tucked against my chest.
Lena.
The name Sloane gave me the night we met. When she was running.
Now it's our daughter's name.