Riot novel · Chapter 24 of 24

Chapter 24: The Name

The question hung over the steps, and every microphone swung toward me.

I stood there in a hospital cardigan with my hair in a knot, and I had never been so tired in my life.

I looked at the baby asleep on Rhys's chest.

"Her name is Hattie," I said. "Hattie Riot Ambrose."

The reporters murmured and scribbled.

Rhys went completely still.

"Ambrose," he said, very low.

"In your lobby, I told you I didn't need your name on this baby," I said. "I was wrong. She does."

"Joss."

"It's hers," I said. "Not yours, and not your mother's. Hers."

His eyes were bright.

He leaned down in front of every camera in Chicago and kissed me.

The flashes went off all around us, and I did not care.

Hattie woke and began to scream.

It was the same furious wail she had given the delivery room.

The whole crowd flinched.

"What did you say her middle name was?" a reporter shouted over it.

"Riot," Rhys said, grinning. "Listen to her."

Six weeks later, I stood at my station in the bakery at four in the morning with my sleeves rolled to the elbow.

The ovens were warm.

The street still smelled of rye.

Hattie slept in a carrier against Rhys's chest.

He stacked flour sacks by the back door, and he used the right shoulder every time.

"You're holding it correctly," I said.

"I've had practice."

He had gone back to the tower three days a week.

The other four he spent here, with a baby on his chest and a bag of rye on his shoulder.

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