Chapter 7 #2
“Stay here,” I say, standing up and striding down the hall to the kitchen, grabbing the tallest glass I can find and filling the whole thing with ice.
I walk back to Evan’s office and take my seat again, pouring her drink over the ice and swirling the glass enough that the seltzer gets cold but not so much that it goes flat.
When I slide the glass across the desk, she’s staring at me like she’s never seen me before.
“So, what did you think my first question would be?”
She shakes her head, as if she’s trying to reorder her thoughts, and takes a sip of the now-cold seltzer, letting out a little hum that sounds like relief. “I thought you would ask me if I’m sure you’re the father.”
“I don’t need to ask you a question I already know the answer to.”
“Other men might ask.”
I run a hand through my hair, trying to decide how to respond to that. Not much is out of my depth, but I think I’ve found one of the things that is. “Have any other work enemies you’re fucking in a conference room at two in the morning?”
She shrugs, making an attempt at casual, but I can tell she feels about as casual as I do, talking about our conference room interlude for the first time since it happened almost eight weeks ago. “You don’t know. Maybe I’m having sex all over this law firm.”
“You could be, but you’re not.”
She gives me that narrow-eyed glare, and in this moment, something about it is oddly settling. I’m not sure if I like that, but here we are anyway. “And how do you know that?”
I smirk at her. “Because when I touched you, you moaned like it’s been years since someone fucked you properly.”
Evan scoffs, taking another sip of her seltzer. “Maybe I just really, really like sex.”
“You should like sex. And damn, are you good at it. Doesn’t change the fact that I was the first person you had it with in months. Maybe a year.”
She looks at me for a long time, like she’s trying to figure me out, and somehow, despite the fact that I just found out she’s pregnant and I’m the father, and at any other time except for this one Evan and I spar like fighters in a ring, this moment is oddly comfortable.
“You’re kind of spooky, Cooper. Like, you just know things. ”
“I always have,” I say, leaning back in my chair and kicking my legs out in front of me, wondering why I feel like opening myself up to her, letting her see who I am beyond the guy at work she likes to fight with.
“I take after my grandma. She likes to tell everyone she’s a little bit psychic, but I think it’s mostly just intuition.
” I shrug, trying to figure out how to explain it.
“I understand people. I think it’s as simple as that. ”
“Simple, huh?” When she presses her mouth into a line and drops her eyes down to her stomach, I know we’re not talking about my intuitive side anymore. I choose my next words carefully.
“Not always, but I’m pretty good at figuring things out and pivoting when necessary.”
“This is one fucked up pivot,” she mumbles.
For some reason, I chuckle because I guess when you find out your work rival who has made your life hell for the last two years who you kind of, sort of sometimes hate is pregnant and the baby is yours, you either laugh or scream. “I’ll say.”
Evan leans forward, face suddenly changing to something resembling exasperation.
She slams her hands on her desk and stares at me.
“How are you not freaking out?” she demands.
I open my mouth to respond, but she plows on ahead.
“I’m pregnant. With a baby. A baby that’s mine and yours, and we don’t even like each other.
We had a one-night stand in a damn conference room, and now we’re going to be tied together for the rest of our lives.
I’m dizzy all the time, so exhausted I could die, and I can’t stop throwing up.
The only things I can eat right now without my stomach rebelling are sesame bagels with plain cream cheese, cherry Jolly Ranchers, and cold cherry seltzer—the weirdest combination of foods on the planet.
I’m a goddamn lawyer up for partner next year right around the time I’m probably going to have this stupid baby, and I don’t know what to even think about that.
I have a shitty mom, which means I don’t know how to be a mom, which means this baby is probably already doomed before he or she is even born.
I don’t even know how pregnant I am. Did you know they measure pregnancy by the date of your last period?
I didn’t know that, and now I can’t figure it out since I have no fucking clue when I had my last period because I fucked up my pills with all my all-nighters and then forgot that little detail, which is why we find ourselves in this delightful little nightmare scenario.
I don’t have the PhD in the female reproductive system that you evidently need to figure out all this shit.
I’m a lawyer. I know how to do that. I’m good at that.
I’m not going to be any good at this. Everything is horrible about everything, and I don’t know how you can be so calm right now when the sky is fucking falling. ”
Evan’s rant is abruptly cut off when she slaps a hand over her mouth and slides off her chair onto her knees, throwing up in the trash can. Standing quickly, I grab the box of tissues off the desk and kneel down next to her, gathering her hair up like I did at the stadium.
We stay like that for a few minutes until her stomach calms down.
Handing her a tissue, I reach up and grab one of the Jolly Ranchers from her pile and hand that to her too.
She mutters a thank you, unwrapping it and popping it into her mouth before sitting right down on the floor, her back against her desk and her legs stretched out in front of her, feet bare and eyes glued to the ground.
“I don’t want to be pregnant,” she whispers.
I sit back on my heels, considering my next words. “You don’t have to be if you don’t want to. It’s your body, Evan. It gets to be your choice.”
She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.
“I can’t. I thought about it all night last night.
I didn’t sleep at all. I came into the office at four thirty this morning because I couldn’t stare at my bedroom ceiling anymore, contemplating the fact that I’ve spent my entire life as a champion of a woman’s right to choose and yet I, myself, don’t want to make that choice.
I always figured I would but I just…I can’t. ”
“So, the Choice sweatshirt you were wearing when I saw you this morning was…”
She sighs heavily. “A twisted sort of irony?”
I let out an honest to god laugh. “You’re a weird one, Rhodes.”
Her lips quirk up on one side. “I know.”
I test us both out by taking her hand in mine, waiting until she looks at me to speak.
“Believing in choice means believing that every pregnant person gets to make their own. Not a partner or a doctor and definitely not a politician who couldn’t identify a uterus if he was literally looking at a labeled picture of a reproductive system.
There’s no moral superiority to making one choice over another.
Wear the sweatshirt, Rhodes, with no irony at all, twisted or otherwise.
You believe in choice, and you’re making a choice. That’s the whole damn point.”
She stares at me for a long moment. “That makes me feel…oddly better.”
I feel a shot of warmth, like I achieved something by helping her. I shove that to the back of my brain to contemplate later. Much, much later. Sitting back against the wall across from her desk, my legs stretched out alongside hers, I study her. “So, what happens now?”
She huffs out a laugh. “I have no fucking idea. I guess I should probably make a doctor’s appointment or something.
” She pauses, and I can see the gears turning in her brain, emotions playing over her face like she’s arguing with herself over something.
“Would you maybe, like, want to come with me? You don’t have to,” she says quickly.
“But I don’t want you to think I’m leaving you out or anything. ”
The way she says it feels less like she doesn’t want to leave me out and more like she’s telling me she doesn’t want to go alone, and that understanding burrows right into my chest. “Just tell me when and where, Rhodes, and I’ll be there.”
When something that looks a whole lot like relief crosses her face, I know I made the right call. Then in a split second, relief is replaced by panic. “Oh my god! I just realized I’m going to have to tell my parents I’m pregnant.”
Oh, holy shit. Because, same. My mom is going to freak the fuck out, in the Oh my god let me do all the things and buy all the things because I’m going to be a grandma except why aren’t you giving me a daughter-in-law to go with the grandchild? kind of way. It’s going to be a real journey.
“They won’t be happy for you?”
“I sincerely doubt it,” she mumbles. Then, as if nothing happened, her face clears of all emotion and she stands up, gripping the edge of the desk like standing made her dizzy. “I have work to do, so I’m just going to get to that.”
I stand too, watching as she pulls herself together. It’s admirable, really, seeing her flip so quickly from vulnerable to badass. “You sure you don’t want to go home? You were fast asleep when I found you in here.”
“All the more reason to work now. I had a power nap, so I’m all good. I assume you have work to do too, so you can go do that. I’ll let you know when I schedule the doctor’s appointment.”
“Actually, I was heading out. My sister-in-law is releasing a book tomorrow, and my brother is throwing her a little family book party like, right now.”
“Oh my god, I would kill to be at a Hannah Evans book party.”
“Want to come?” The words are out of my mouth before my brain catches up.
“To your family party? Um, no.”
I shrug, feeling…disappointed maybe? This day is a real minefield of emotion.
“You’ll get to know them all eventually. At some point we’ll be sharing a kid.”
“Oh, holy hell,” she mutters. “A kid. With you. What the actual fuck is my life right now?”
“Rhodes, I literally could not agree more.”