Page 75 of Through the Storm

They aren’t scared.

They aren’t going to change.

It’s time for me to stop waiting for them to do so.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

katy

BABY TBD

The first thingI notice when I go down the stairs is the blue. And the bears. Everywhere. A full-scale, Ella-level commitment to the decorations.

Blue balloons crowd the ceiling. Blue streamers frame every doorway. Blue napkins, blue plates, blue cupcakes topped with tiny sugar bears. And hanging proudly across the far wall, a blue banner that says WE CAN BEARLY WAIT TO MEET YOU BABY TBD.

Of course they couldn’t just doBaby.They justhadto be clever like that.

“Thank you, Ella and Bex,” I murmur, already overwhelmed but weirdly touched.

The two idiots are beaming, looking pretty proud of themselves.

The front door opens again before I can fully process the full number of bears, and suddenly the room fills with… four giant Harbor Point U football players. They’re each clutching a pastel gift bag.

“We brought diapers,” Jason announces.

“And like… baby stuff,” Ethan adds unnecessarily.

Iblink. “You didn’t…”

“Yes, yes, we know. But we wanted to,” Logan says as he walks in, a woman who is clearly his mom following behind him. “Katy, this is my mom, Christina.”

I’m a little taken aback that she’s actually here, but he did warn me she wanted to come. “Nice to meet you, Ms. Miller.”

She shakes my hand and pulls me in for a hug. “It’s nice to meet you too, sweetie. Call me Christina.”

Jason groans quietly. “Moms were invited?”

Ethan mutters, “My mom’s going to kill me.”

Then Mateo joins and greets Logan with that weird man hug they do. “Hey man, what are you doing here?”

Declan inspects the scene in front of him. His eye seems to twitch. “What,” he says slowly, eyes flicking between Logan, his mother, the other three guys, and the growing mountain of gifts, “in thehellis happening?”

Ella doesn’t even look up from straightening a centerpiece. “They’re here just in case.”

Declan freezes. “Just in casewhat?”

“They didn’t want to miss it,” she adds gently. “In case the baby is theirs.”

Declan stares at her like she’s just spoken a foreign language. “I don’t understand,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “What is happening?”

Ethan jumps in heroically. “Hey man, we’re just here to support Katy and our maybe kid. No drama.”

I watch realization hit Declan in stages, and each one somehow makes him paler. Ella is trying, unsuccessfully, to get him to relax.

“Katy?” He looks at me like he can’t believe it.

Honestly, same, Dec.