Page 21 of Play the Game
Pregnant.
I’m pregnant.
I, Evan Rhodes, unapologetic workaholic still trying to prove to my parents that I’m worthy of their time and attention, am maybe going to be a parent. With Cooper Wyles.
Holy shit.
My heart thunders in my chest and I turn to the aquarium, watching my pink, smirky-faced salamanders with their funny, feathery gills meander around the tank and taking slow breaths, trying to get myself under control. Except before I can get there, my phone buzzes on the seat next to me. I pick it up, fumbling it a little in my shaking hands as I unlock the screen.
Chris
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.
Before I can ask my brother what he’s sorry about, anothermessage pops up, and then I don’t have to ask because I know immediately that he told my mom about last night. I’m one hundred percent sure it was an accident, but the damage is done.
Mom
Evan, what’s this I hear about you leaving the game early last night? First you don’t show up in the box like you specifically said you would, and then you leave your brother’s game before it even starts? His first World Series game? That’s not what family does.
The guilt hits like a tidal wave, dragging me down until my head is almost under water, and suddenly I can’t deal with any of it. Not Chris’s apology or my mom’s guilt trip or the fact that I suddenly find myself growing a human.
I snap to my feet then grip the back of the chair, closing my eyes and gritting my teeth against the sudden wave of dizziness, the nausea that rolls through me.
No. Definitely not. Not now.
Swallowing hard, I make a beeline for the bag I dropped on the floor when I barreled into my apartment earlier, grabbing my laptop, my pink notebook, and my bag of Jolly Ranchers. Detouring to the kitchen, I pull a cherry seltzer out of the fridge and then light my pumpkin spice candle and settle back into my chair, popping a Jolly Rancher in my mouth and wrapping myself up in a fuzzy blanket.
Maximum comfort achieved, I open my laptop, navigate to the document I have in progress, flip open my notebook, and lose myself in words for a while.
CHAPTER SEVEN
COOPER
Why is her door still closed?
It’s the only thought on my mind as I sit at my desk, staring across the hall at Evan’s office, at the door that has remained stubbornly closed all day.
She’s in there. I know she is. When I walked into the office at six this morning, she was sitting at her desk in front of her laptop, pink spiral notebook at her side, dressed in a pair of pajama pants with purple hearts on them and an electric blue sweatshirt that saidChoice, fuzzy pink slippers on her feet. She glared at me like I had somehow wronged her by once again seeing her in her pajamas at work, and then she got up, messy blonde ponytail flying, and slammed the door shut so hard it rattled the walls.
That was the last time today I laid eyes on her.
Not only that, but she also hasn’t sent a single email, given me her narrow-eyed glare when I don’t work fast enough for her liking, or called me from her office to ream me out for something instead of walking across the hall to tell me in person—something that drives me fucking insane on a daily basis but Ifind myself wishing for today for reasons I don’t want to admit to myself.
I glance at the clock on my desk, watching it flip from six fifty-nine to seven o’clock. I’m supposed to be on the rooftop patio of the Back Bay brownstone I share with my brothers and their girls in an hour for a surprise book party Noah is throwing for Hannah, who is releasing her first traditionally published novel tomorrow, but I can’t make myself get up from my desk.
I cast another look across the hall. I assume Evan has to have left her office at some point today to go to the bathroom or get coffee or talk about a pending case with one of the partners or any one of the other millions of little reasons we all have to be walking the halls of this firm at all hours of the day. But either I’m wrong and she has been sitting behind a closed door for thirteen straight hours, or she somehow managed to avoid me all day for the first time in two years.
I’ve been telling myself that I’m just wondering how she is because I saw her throw up at the baseball game and then again yesterday morning, and then she left the office in a rush after our little interlude with Austin and didn’t come back.
The thing is, I’m self-aware enough to know it’s more than that, and it’s driving me insane. I wish I still hated her all the way. I wish I didn’t know how warm and smooth her skin was under my hands or the way her hair felt when I pulled it back from her face or what she looked like with that shadow of vulnerability in her eyes while I wiped the tears from her face in the crowded stadium concourse.
I wish I didn’t get the sense that there’s a softer side of her—one that wears pajamas at work for some reason and carries a pink notebook everywhere and pretends to like black coffee and loves her brother enough to go to his baseball game when she’s feeling terrible. One that a part of me deep down kind of wants to get to know.
For the first time in my life, I wish I wasn’t so damn intuitive all the time.
I wish a lot of things.
But mostly, I wish Evan would open her fucking door.
