Page 42 of Play the Game
“You are.” Amelia contemplates the pies on the table and digs into the chocolate chip cookie pie that Noah didn’t put nearly enough vanilla in, but I keep my mouth shut about that. “What’s Evan doing for Thanksgiving, Cooper?”
“She’s with her parents. Why?” I say with what I hope is a casual tone. I know I don’t quite get there when Elliot smirks at me.
“So, you know her schedule, huh?”
I shrug. “We were texting earlier. I was just making conversation.”
Noah raises an eyebrow in my direction. “What were you texting about?”
I choose my words carefully and tell a half truth. “She had to take her blood pressure at home, so I wanted to see how she was.”
“Is everything okay?” Hannah asks, concern in her voice.
“It’s fine. She gets anxious about blood pressure, so it’s usually high at the doctor’s office. The doctor wanted her to start taking it at home.”
“White coat syndrome,” Jordan says.
I turn to him. “Huh?”
“It’s a thing. People get anxious at the doctor, so their blood pressure shoots up. It’s pretty common. Taking it at home is a kind of immersion therapy, and it’ll also help the doctor spot when it’s actually high and when it’s artificially high.”
I nod. “That’s what the doctor said.”
“You went with her to the doctor?” Noah asks.
Hannah backhands him in the chest. “Of course he went with her to the doctor. It’s his baby too.”
Noah shrugs. “I don’t know how these things work.”
“Join the club,” I mumble. “I’m just trying to do what Dad said. Take care of her. Make sure she has everything she needs. This is new territory for both of us, but especially for Evan. I want to do what I can to make it easier for her.”
“Oh my god, you like her.” Every head in the room turns to Jordan, who is grinning at me like a maniac. “And not in theWe have to work together because we accidentally made a babyway. In theI want to be together foreverway.”
“Fuck off, no I don’t.”
Do I?
“Why are you all blushy then?” Amelia asks, studying me.
I shove a forkful of apple pie in my mouth to avoid answering. I have no fucking idea what to say because I kind of think they’re right, and I have no idea what to do about it.
“Seriously, Coop. Even your ears are red,” Noah says with a smirk, and I just barely resist the urge to throw my fork at him.
“It’s okay, you know,” Hannah says in that quiet way she has. “You’re allowed to have feelings for her that have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you guys are having a baby together. They can be mutually exclusive.”
“Can they?” I ask, setting my fork down on my plate, appetite suddenly gone. “We hated each other until, like, a month ago. Maybe we still kind of do. I don’t fucking know. How am I supposed to figure out whether I like her for her or because we’re suddenly tied together for the rest of our lives by ababy neither of us expected?” I didn’t mean to say all that, but as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize the utter truth of them.
Elliot leans forward, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Coop, you’re the best person I know, and you’ll take care of Evan because that’s how you’re built. And you’re also the most intuitive of all of us. So, what does all that intuition tell you?”
I look around my living room at my older brothers, at the women they love. My family.
And I think of Evan.
For the first time since she told me she was pregnant, I think only of her. The exasperated look she gives me when I do something at work to piss her off. The way it felt when she held my hand in the doctor’s office like I was the only thing keeping her grounded in the spinning vortex our lives have become. The late-night texts. The sounds she made when I was inside her. The smell of cherries. The way I kind of wish I could have invited her here. How she would give my brothers shit and talk romance novels with the girls and occupy the space next to me that I’m beginning to suspect is shaped exactly like her.
“Shit,” I mutter. “I really like her.”
“Fuck yeah, you do,” Noah says with a grin. “Now what are you going to do about it?”
