Page 47 of That Defining Moment

“Sander, I need to —” Stephen’s hand lifted off the blanket in a gesture that didn’t quite finish. “I need to sleep. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare apologise.” Lysander scrubbed the sheet across his eyes again and pulled himself together, or tried to. “Go to sleep, Stevie. I love you. Tell my nephew I’m coming to meet him as soon as I can walk properly.”

“Love you too.” The words were barely there. The camera lurched, and then Ryland appeared, his forehead filling the screen.

“I’ll send you photos,” Ryland said. “I’ve taken three hundred and twelve so far. Some of them are blurry because my hands were shaking, but I’ve kept them all because I read that blurry photos have sentimental value.”

“Send me every single one.”

“Already on it,” Ryland said, and Lysander’s mobile began to vibrate steadily with incoming messages.

The photos arrived in a torrent. Max from above. Max from the side. Max’s hand wrapped around Ryland’s index finger, the size difference so absurd that it looked like a special effect. Max’s foot, five toes fanned out like a starfish against Ryland’s palm. Max in Stephen’s arms, his squashed face pressed to Stephen’s chest. Max from an angle so unflattering that it appeared to have been taken from inside Stephen’s armpit, and Lysander loved that one most of all because it meant Ryland had been leaning over both of them, trying to get closer.

Lysander was scrolling through the photos with his thumb, tears still running freely, when a soft knock came from the bedroom door.

“Come in, Cass,” Hamish said, fully awake now and sitting up with his glasses retrieved from the bedside table.

The door opened and Cassian appeared in his blue robe, his hair sticking up at angles that defied physics. The bruise on his cheekbone had darkened overnight to a deep, mottled purple. He hovered in the doorway.

“Is it the baby?”

“It’s the baby.” Lysander held the mobile out, and Cassian crossed the room in three quick strides and dropped onto the bed beside him, tucking his legs beneath him and leaning in so close that his chin was practically on Lysander’s shoulder. The mattress dipped under his weight and Hamish’s hand came up automatically to steady Lysander’s splinted ankle beneath the duvet.

Cassian studied the photo. Max stared back, red-faced and livid, his skull tapering to its improbable point.

“Oh,” Cassian breathed. His fingers came up to the screen and traced the outline of the baby’s head with one careful fingertip. “Oh, he’s wonderful.”

Lysander swiped to the next photo, and the next, and Cassian made a reverent sound at each one, his shoulder pressed warm against Lysander’s.

“Don’t worry about his head,” Cassian said, settling deeper against the pillows and pulling the robe tighter around himself. “It’ll round out in a few days. The bones haven’t fused yet, so they overlap during the birth to fit through the canal, and then they sort themselves out afterwards.” He tapped the glass gently, right on the peak of Max’s elongated skull. “He’ll look much more normal by the end of the week.”

Lysander turned to stare at him. “How do you know that?”

Cassian looked mildly offended by the question. “I’ve delivered eleven lambs, Sander, and I’ve taken care of plenty of new babies.”

✦ ✧ ✦

The days before the flight passed in a blur of logistics and Cassian’s increasingly creative attempts to be indispensable.

He brought Lysander tea without being asked, appearing at the bedroom door with the mug held in both hands and his chin tilted at an angle that said look how helpful I’m being, please don’t leave me. He’d taken over Lysander’s morning routine with a competence that would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so transparently motivated by separation anxiety. Lysander’s ankle got iced on a schedule. His laundry appeared folded on the bed.

“You don’t need to hover, Cass.”

“I’m not hovering.” Cassian was hovering. He’d positioned himself at the foot of the bed with a lint roller, running it over Lysander’s carry-on bag. “I’m de-linting.”

“The bag is leather.”

“Leather can have lint.”

His ankle was healing, but slowly, and Lysander had been babying it for a week in preparation for the flight. He’d booked business class without flinching at the price, because the alternative was spending twenty-two hours in economy with his foot wedged against the seat in front while some stranger’s child kicked the back of his headrest, and he’d been through enough recently without adding that to the list. He just needed to get home for Max, and his daddy.

Colin had taken a turn.

That was how Diwa phrased it on the phone: he’s taken a turn, Lysander, but there’s nothing to panic about yet. His blood pressure wasn’t coming down. The swelling had spread from Colin’s ankles to his hands, and the protein in his urine had spiked high enough that the obstetric team had started talking about early delivery.

Lysander had started calling Diwa before his check-ins with his dad, because Diwa didn’t perform bravery for his benefit. Diwa said things like the consultant used the word “concerning” twice in one sentence and he threw up this morning and I had to change the sheets while he cried, and Lysander could build an accurate picture from the wreckage of those details in a way he couldn’t from Colin’s cheerful insistence that Gerald the ceiling crack was keeping him company.

The flat in Knightsbridge was gone. He didn’t have a London address anymore, so he’d stay at Diwa and Colin’s in Notting Hill. That was the obvious answer, and it was where he wanted to be anyway. Beyond that, the geography of his future was a problem he wasn’t ready to commit to yet.