Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
EVAN
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
My head shoots up at the sound of Cooper’s voice, and I regret it immediately as a sharp stab of pain lances through my temples and my stomach churns ominously.
I hook a foot around the trash can under my desk, surreptitiously pulling it closer to me, so if I have to throw up again, at least it doesn’t end up on the floor.
My threshold for embarrassment has risen dramatically in the last fourteen hours.
Raising an eyebrow at Cooper, I adopt my most convincing I’m fine, how are you? look. “I work here.”
Cooper rolls his eyes and damned if the exasperation on his face doesn’t make him, like, at least seventy percent more attractive.
Hate that for me. “Last night you were throwing up in a trash can and I had to practically carry you out of the stadium and put you into a car. Now you’re sitting in your office looking like you spent the entire night with your head in the toilet.
So, I’ll ask again. What the fuck are you doing here? ”
I lean back in my chair, making a silent deal with my stomach to stay put, at least while the hot, grouchy man is standing in my doorway, staring at me like I’ve personally wronged him by being in my own place of business.
“Jesus, Cooper, you really know how to make a girl feel good about herself.”
Going for casual, I grab the coffee mug sitting on my desk and lift it to my lips. I know immediately it’s a mistake. The acrid smell hits my nostrils, and in a flash, I’m at the edge of my chair, leaning over and emptying the contents of my stomach into the trash can.
“Fuck.” Cooper bites out the curse, and out of the corner of my eye I see him striding over to me.
The thought of him rescuing me twice in less than twenty-four hours has me sitting up straight through sheer force of will, plucking a tissue out of the box on my desk and dabbing at my mouth like I wasn’t just bent over, hurling my guts out. Nothing to see here.
“Go home, Rhodes. You’re sick.”
I blow my nose, tossing the tissue into the trash can.
“I’m fine.” My hoarse, strangled tone is not giving fine, but a girl can dream.
“I have to draft the answers to all those motions today, and we still have hours of discovery to go through. I’m fine because I have to be fine.
I don’t have time to be sick, and you don’t have time to be in here, haranguing me about being sick. ”
“Who’s sick?”
Cooper and I turn to the doorway in unison at Austin’s voice. Cooper glances back at me and I glare at him, silently conveying that if he outs me as being sick to the managing partner of our firm and head of our group, I’ll kill him and laugh over his lifeless corpse.
“No one,” Cooper says, smart enough to get my message. “We were just talking about the case. Evan is drafting the motions to dismiss today.”
“Ah, yes, Evangeline, make sure you send them to Cooper to review before you send them to me. The liability portion of their complaint is tricky, and the motions to dismiss need to be perfect. The judge we pulled is no fan of pharma, and we don’t want to give him any reason to stick it to our client. That won’t look very good for us.”
At the hot rush of anger, I shoot up from my chair, gripping the edge of my desk when my stomach flips, praying to the goddess of female lawyers who work for fuckhead male partners that I don’t throw up in front of Austin.
“With all due respect, Austin, I’m a seventh-year associate.
I certainly don’t need another seventh year reviewing my work. ”
And my name is Evan, you smug, self-righteous, egomaniac.
Austin shakes his head, disappointment all over his face. I hate him so much. “Now Evangeline, that’s not the kind of team player attitude I expect from members of my group. Especially not members of my group who hope to advance, when there are already so few advancement opportunities available.”
The veiled reference to the open partnership position has me seeing red, but I suck it in, because there is nothing to be gained, and everything to lose, by fighting with him in this moment.
If I had been able to get some writing done this morning, I would be so much more centered now, but just like yesterday, I slept through my alarm and then spent so much time throwing up that I barely got to the office in time to start my actual work.
All I managed to do was jot down a few sentences of dialogue in my notebook, and that’s not nearly enough to empty my brain.
“No problem. I’ll send the drafts to Cooper when I finish them. ”
Austin nods, a look of triumph on his face, like he won a fucking Olympic medal for putting me in my place. Asshole. “Excellent. I’ll leave you to it. Have a wonderful day.”
“Shove your wonderful day,” I mutter as Austin walks away.
“You don’t have to send me the drafts,” Cooper says casually. “I’ll just tell him you did. Better yet, why don’t you let me take care of all the first drafts and you go home and rest.”
I toss him another glare, this one the most menacing I can manage. “Don’t do me any favors. I’m fine. I don’t need any special treatment. Not from anyone, but definitely not from you. Just because you saw me throw up in a stadium trash can doesn’t make us friends.”
Cooper smirks at me. Fucking smirks. “What about if I saw you throw up in the trash can under your desk, too? Does that make us friends? Or is the third time the charm? Maybe I’ll see you hurl into a trash can in the cafeteria at lunchtime and then we can really be besties.”
The noise of frustration I make is somewhere between a groan and a scream, and without thinking about what sudden movement currently does to my equilibrium, I shove up from my desk and sail out of my office.
It’s a good thing I work mere steps from the bathroom, because thirty seconds later, I’m slamming a stall door shut and puking into the toilet, regretting all my life decisions.
The bathroom stays mercifully empty until I’m standing at the sink washing my hands, staring at my pale reflection in the mirror and thinking longingly of the makeup bag in my desk drawer. All my money for a highlighter stick right now.
“Hey, Evan!” The bathroom door swings open, revealing Cindy, the chattiest assistant at the firm. “Any chance you have a tampon on you? I’m positive I just got my period and of course I forgot to restock my emergency supply.”
I open my mouth to answer Cindy, but then a loud buzzing fills my ears as reality slams into me so fast at her innocent question that I get dizzy. Only this time, it has nothing to do with being sick.
Tampons.
Periods.
Fuck.
Cindy is still talking, but I don’t hear a word she says as I rapidly flip back through the last month in my head. Two months? Three? When was the last time I needed a tampon? I have no fucking idea.
Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit.
I need to get the fuck out of here.
I think I say something to Cindy, or maybe I say nothing.
I have no idea. I also have no idea how I end up with my bag over my shoulder or my finger stabbing at the elevator button over and over, as if I can make the car appear through sheer force of will.
I don’t snap back into focus until I’m standing in a pharmacy on Boylston St. staring at a wall of pregnancy tests, wondering what the fuck is going to happen next.
Hairbrush to my mouth like a microphone and wearing nothing but a white tank top and underwear, I sing along with Taylor at the top of my lungs and dance around my bedroom like being in constant motion will somehow distract me from the fact that I just peed on nine different sticks which are currently lined up on my bathroom counter, timer on my phone counting down to my doom.
“I Did Something Bad” indeed.
I shake the thought away, dancing it out with a vengeance, determined not to panic until there’s something to panic about.
I spin. I twirl. I drop to my knees and channel my best inner angsty pop star. My stomach cooperates for once, as if it knows I need a win right now.
It could be nothing. I could actually have a stomach bug. It could just be a coincidence that I know for sure I fucked up my birth control pills in August when I did four all-nighters in a row and then had condomless sex with Cooper at the beginning of September.
The first sex I’d had in over a year.
The best sex I’ve ever had in my life that may be about to ruin said life.
God fucking dammit.
My phone timer rings as the song fades out and then it’s just me, my silent apartment, and a line of white plastic sticks about to decide my fate.
I walk slowly, cautiously to the bathroom, as if making too much of a stir might change the outcome.
As if whatever is going to happen hasn’t already happened.
I squeeze my eyes shut as my feet cross the threshold of the bathroom, gripping my lucky, good hair day brush in one hand as if its luck might translate to this moment, too.
Might make that line of pregnancy tests on the sink say No, Evan, of course you’re not pregnant with Cooper Wyles’ baby; what a positively ridiculous notion.
When the front of my thighs bump the sink, I take a deep breath and steel myself, opening my eyes and looking down at three plus signs, two sets of double pink lines, and four tiny digital screens screaming pregnant, one of them even helpful enough to include “4+” as if to say, How stupid could you possibly be that you didn’t realize you were pregnant even though you’ve been pregnant for more than four weeks already.
Turns out even pregnancy tests can be assholes.
My stomach churns.
My head throbs.
My boobs are suddenly killing me.
There is literally nothing I don’t hate right now.
Turning my back on those disloyal pieces of plastic, I make a beeline for my living room, sinking into my favorite chair and staring into the aquarium that houses my beloved pet axolotls. The three of them are lined up in a row, faces pressed up against the glass, and I swear they’re glaring at me.
“Sorry, guys.” I sigh. “I don’t hate you. You know you’re my favorites. But I’m, like, eighty percent sure I’m pregnant right now, and that just fucking sucks.”
They keep staring, their smirking faces calling bullshit.
“Ugh, fine,” I groan out. “Nine pregnancy tests don’t lie, so I’m definitely pregnant. I was just hedging to make myself feel better, but there’s no feeling better from this,” I grumble, dropping my head back and closing my eyes.
In the stillness of the moment, my brain kicks into high gear.
I’m pregnant. With a baby.
Panic swamps me as all the implications of this hit me at once.
I need to do so many things. I need to make so many plans. I need to decide if I want to have a baby. That should be the first thing I do, right? Or should I tell Cooper first?
Cooper.
A fresh wave of panic hits me at the thought of Cooper.
The way I told him to fuck me without a condom like it was no big deal.
I should know better. I do know better. But weird things happen at two in the morning after too much work, not enough sleep, and a near constant caffeine drip.
Weird things that lead to me being pregnant and my biggest competition and most hated work rival being the father.
My most hated work rival who did unholy things to my body that night. Who put my hair into a ponytail and rubbed my back while I threw up over a trash can and then offered to take a whole bunch of work off my hands so I could go home and rest because I’m sick.
Except it turns out I’m not sick at all.
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, another message 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.