Page 61 of Play the Game
My mom leads Evan to the house, and before they go inside, Evan glances over her shoulder with a smile and a little shrug. As I watch them disappear through the front door, gratitude for my mom’s habitual easy acceptance of the people who are important to us and for the fact that Evan is here with me tangle together until my emotions threaten to boil over.
“Hey, asshole, you going to just let us do all the work? Get the fuck in here.” I snort out a laugh at Jordan’s greeting, yelled through the open front door.
Noah’s head pops up behind Jordan, and he scowls at me. “I know you can’t cook, but the least you can do is come in and set the table. You know how mom gets about Christmas tables, and she’s ramped up to an eleven because you brought a girl.”
“She wants the Christmas pitcher,” Elliot calls, elbowing Jordan out of the way so all three of my older brothers stand shoulder-to-shoulder in the doorway. “You’re getting it this year. I’m not going back up into that creepy-ass attic.”
“You’ll go up there if I tell you to go up there!” My mom’s voice filters through the door followed by a chorus of female laughter, and I know one of those laughs belongs to Evan. I could pick her voice out of a crowd of a million, and hearing it mixed with the voices of all my favorite people has warmth flooding my chest.
Grabbing the bags from the trunk, I head into the house.The first thing I see is Evan crowded onto the living room couch, surrounded by my mom, Jo, Amelia, and Hannah, grin on her face. As if she senses me watching, she looks up and beams at me.
And with that one single look, and my family around me, I’m home.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EVAN
“Here, honey,” Pam says, handing me a glass with some kind of red, bubbly looking liquid in it.
We’re sitting in the living room, the Christmas tree glowing in the corner and a fire roaring in the fireplace. When I first walked into the house, Pam explained that, for the Wyles family midnight breakfast tradition, the woman relax and the men cook, except for Cooper who, she told me, is a disaster in the kitchen. After I bit my cheek to keep from laughing and Cooper shot me a grin and a wink that had butterflies flapping in my stomach, Pam bundled me straight onto the sofa with Jo, Amelia, and Hannah, telling me not to move. Cooper and his dad and brothers are all in the kitchen, and whatever they’re making has the entire house smelling like apples and cinnamon. Everyone is smiling and laughing, and it’s the happiest, homiest vibe I’ve ever felt.
I glance at the drink in my hand, and when I see the cherries floating on top, I laugh. “Is this a Shirley Temple?”
Pam grins at me, handing glasses to Jo, Amelia, and Hannah, keeping one for herself before settling onto the chair acrossfrom the couch. “Sure is. Cooper told me you’re a fan of all things cherry, so tonight it’s our signature drink.”
Jo snorts out a laugh. “You say that like we often have signature drinks. We don’t,” she says, turning her head to look at me. “Unless you count margaritas. I guess you could call those our signature drink.”
“They were our signature drink,” Hannah says with a grimace. “I still haven’t been able to drink one since Vegas.”
“What happened in Vegas?” I ask without thinking, feeling my cheeks heat. “Sorry, you don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business.”
“Of course it’s your business,” Amelia says, taking a sip of her own drink. “You’re in the smut sisters chat, which means our business is your business.”
Her words have me strangely emotional, the same way I felt when I got that first message from Pam in the group chat last week. The group chat that carried on after that first day like I had been a part of it forever. A part of them. I don’t know a lot right now, but I know that I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere. Not really. But sitting here in this comfortable living room makes me feel like maybe, one day, I could belong here. With these women. With Cooper. With this family.
Jo gives me a wicked grin and bumps my shoulder with hers. “And your business is our business. So first, I’ll tell you that Hannah can’t drink margaritas anymore because she got blackout drunk last summer in Vegas when we were there for my and Jordan’s joint bachelor/bachelorette party, accidentally drunk-married Noah, didn’t realize it until they woke up the next morning, and then she threw up tequila for, like, an hour. And now you can tell us all the dirty details about you and Cooper.”
“You really got accidentally drunk-married in Vegas?” I ask Hannah, because I’m actually curious, not to sidestep the Cooper question. Definitely not. “I didn’t know that was a thing that happened outside of romance novels. I mean, you literally wrote that book. Twice.”
Hannah laughs, glancing down at the wedding ring on her finger. “I absolutely did get drunk-married in Vegas, fell in love with the guy, and then wrote a book about it.”
“And it was your best one yet!” We all turn as an older woman sweeps into the room dressed in flowing black pants and a bright pink shirt, an ankle length rainbow-colored cardigan sweeping around her legs as she walks, a cocktail glass in her hand, and a massive bright blue tote slung over her shoulder.
“You must be Evan!” she says with a grin, coming over to stand in front of me, studying me through her purple-framed glasses. When she lays a hand on my cheek, warmth flows through me from the place where her skin touches mine, and I have the strangest feeling of being completely seen. A familiar feeling because it’s the same one I get when Cooper looks at me. Maybe this entire family is magic. “I’m Cece, and I am so happy to meet the woman who makes my Cooper so happy.”
I clear my throat against the sudden onslaught of emotion. “I don’t know about that.”
“I know,” Cece says firmly, eyes steady on mine. Then she bends down and kisses both my cheeks. “Cooper has been waiting for you. So have we.”
I have no idea what she means and no idea what to say to that, so I say nothing as Cece stands, giving me a knowing grin and taking the seat next to Pam, who glances between me and Cece with an amused expression on her face.
“Yes, she’s always that spooky,” Amelia says in a low voice.
“One hundred percent of the time.” Hannah leans around Jo to look at me. “She knows everything, and she’s always right.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Pam says, smiling at her mom.
“I want to be her when I grow up,” Jo adds, looking at Cece with something like awe.
