Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
EVAN
With my tongue caught between my teeth, my fingers race over the keyboard. Sitting on my couch in striped pajama pants and a sweatshirt, under a blanket, with my laptop on my lap and a circle of fall-scented candles burning on my coffee table, I’m at peak comfort.
When I woke up fifteen minutes ago and my clock read four a.m., I knew I wasn’t getting any more sleep. I’m an early riser in general, but four is too early, even for me. My body is practically crying tears of exhaustion, but my brain is too busy to rest, which means I don’t get to rest.
Pregnancy fucking sucks, it turns out.
Turning my attention back to my laptop screen, I try to ignore the nausea churning in my empty stomach.
I’m out of bagels, and the bagel store doesn’t open until five.
My kitchen is filled with snacks, but the idea of eating any of them makes me want to throw up immediately.
Instead, I take a sip of the seltzer on the end table next to me and focus on the scene I’m writing, counting the minutes until I can place my delivery order.
My characters want to be together so badly, but I’m doing everything in my power to keep them apart. I’m trying to play the long game here, so I don’t want everything to be sunshine and rainbows too early. It’s way more fun this way, for me and my readers.
Despite feeling like absolute trash, in my cozy spot on the couch with my little amphibians swimming in the dim glow of the muted purple LED lights above their tank, and my fall candles scenting the air, for the first time since I found out I was pregnant two days ago, I feel just a tiny little slice of calm.
Five minutes later, the calm is shattered by a knock on my door.
“Dammit,” I mutter as my fingers falter on the keyboard.
This early in the morning, it can only be one person.
Well, two people, but they kind of come as a package deal.
In fact, I don’t think anyone other than Chris or Rio has ever knocked on my door in the three years I’ve lived here.
I can’t say I’m surprised that they’re showing up now, since I’ve been dodging both of them since the baseball game, which is why I’m absolutely shocked when I open my door to none other than Cooper Wyles.
In glasses.
Cooper Wyles, hated work rival, very excellent at sex, father of my child, is standing in my doorway wearing an extremely slutty pair of black framed glasses.
Fuck me.
He's carrying a paper bag and a reusable grocery bag, and he’s wearing black joggers, a soft-looking blue sweatshirt, and sneakers. The whole look is so cozy hot that, for a second, I’m practically overcome with the wild urge to burrow into him. And that just won’t do.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
He just smiles and strolls into my apartment like he owns the damn place. “Nice sweatshirt.”
I look down at my I dissent sweatshirt, which I wore on purpose because I dissent from this whole fucking fiasco that my life has become, and from the smirk on Cooper’s face, I think he knows it. “Thanks. But why are you here?”
“Brought breakfast.”
“You brought…” I trail off, trying to figure out what is happening right now. “How do you know where I live? And how did you know I would be awake? It’s barely even morning.”
“The firm intranet is a wealth of personal information, it turns out. And you’re usually at work before six. I took a chance.” Standing in front of me, he reaches out and strokes a thumb under my eye. “Didn’t sleep much, huh? Me either.”
Wild butterflies swarm my stomach at the gentleness in Cooper’s touch. The kindness and care in his voice. The concern in his eyes as he studies me like he’s trying to figure out every single thing about me. Or maybe it’s just the unrelenting nausea. Who could say, really?
“Too much on my mind, I guess. And my stomach. I get nauseous when I don’t eat, but I can’t eat anything but bagels, and the bagel store doesn’t open until five, so I’ve just been killing time. Hang on.” I glance around, a delicious scent suddenly invading my senses. “What’s that smell?”
Cooper grins at me like he’s delighted by my reaction and hands over the paper bag he brought. “It’s bagels.”
Glancing down, I almost cry actual tears of joy because there must be at least a dozen sesame bagels in there, and from the feel of the outside of the bag, I can tell they’re still warm.
I look up at him incredulously. “Where did you get fresh bagels at four in the morning? None of the bagel stores open until five.”
Cooper shrugs, taking the bag from me and heading into my kitchen. “I made them.”
By the time I unglue my feet from the floor and follow him into the kitchen, he’s unpacking the grocery bag, setting cream cheese, a zip lock bag of what looks like cherry Jolly Ranchers, and a case of cherry seltzer on the counter.
“Hang the fuck on. You made bagels? Like, from scratch? With yeast and flour and eggs and stuff? And an oven?”
“No eggs in bagels,” he says absently, as he opens drawers and cabinets at random, coming up with plates, knives, and a tall glass. “At least not in any authentic recipe. And you use the stove too. Boiling the bagels before you bake them gives them the best texture and crust.”
“Okay, well, I guess you learn something new every day.” Spinning to face him, I set a hand on his chest. “Cooper Wyles, why are standing in my kitchen at four-thirty in the morning, opening my cabinets and making yourself right at home?”
He covers my hand with his, and my pulse goes haywire.
“Because you’re pregnant and I helped get you that way.
You’re doing the hard work of growing a human, and I can’t do that part, but I can do this.
I can make sure you have everything you need to feel as well as you can.
” He brings his other hand to my cheek, and I think it’s the most caring gesture I have ever felt in my life.
“I know this sucks, Evan. I want to make it easier for you in any way I can.”
It's his soft voice—so different from the way we usually speak to each other—and him calling me by my actual name instead of my last name that does me in. Tears fill my eyes and spill over before I can stop them. I don’t know if they’re hormonal tears or anxiety tears or terrified tears or The father of my child is in my kitchen at four-thirty in the morning and made bagels for me from scratch because that’s the only thing I can eat tears, but whatever they are, they’re not going away.
Cooper drops his hand from my face, wrapping an arm around my waist and tangling his other hand in my hair.
I bury my face in his chest, soaking his sweatshirt in my tears as I breathe in his pine scent like an addict looking for her next fix.
He feels steady. Like I could lean on him if I needed to, when I don’t ever lean on anyone.
“Let it out, Rhodes,” he whispers in my ear as his thumb strokes comforting circles over my lower back. “It’s a lot. You don’t have to carry it on your own.”
I give a watery laugh. “I literally am carrying it on my own.”
He laughs a little, and it’s definitely my imagination when I feel the ghost of a kiss over my hair. “Yeah, but I’m here to help with whatever I can.” He leans back a little, so his eyes meet mine. “I want to help with whatever I can. For better or worse, we’re in this together.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “But you don’t even like me, and I definitely don’t like you.”
He smiles that soft smile of his, and I think maybe I could live on that smile alone for days. Something is definitely wrong with me. “I don’t know, I think maybe you’ve got to like someone who has an aquarium of axolotls as pets.”
I gasp, staring at him like he’s an alien from outer space. “You know what an axolotl is?”
He shrugs. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Uh, no, they don’t.”
“Well, I do. Why axolotls?”
“I’ll tell you, but I think if I don’t get a bagel in my mouth in the next thirty seconds I’ll die. Or throw up. Neither is ideal.”
He grins at me, and it lights up the room. “Go sit on the couch. I’ll take care of it.”
Five minutes later, I’m sitting in my favorite corner of the couch, blanket back over my legs, eating the best bagel I’ve ever had in my life with the perfect amount of cream cheese, and there’s a glass of ice-cold seltzer on the table next to me.
Cooper is sitting opposite me, still wearing those slutty glasses, and we haven’t fought even one single time in the half an hour he’s been in my apartment. I think I’m kind of in heaven.
“It was the gills,” I say with a mouthful of bagel.
“The what?” he asks, taking a bite of his own bagel.
“The gills. Axolotl gills look like feathers, and I thought that was cool. Also, they’re pink and they have this, like, perma-smirk that I thought was the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. I fell in love, and that was that.”
“Do they have names?”
I scoff. “Of course they have names.” I gesture to my aquarium with a flourish. “Meet McDreamy, McSteamy, and Nick.”
Cooper barks out a laugh. “You named your fish after Grey’s Anatomy characters?”
“First of all, axolotls aren’t fish; they’re salamanders. But you’re forgiven because you recognized the names. You know Grey’s Anatomy?”
He takes a sip of the coffee he brought with him and sets it on the table. “You bet. I discovered it in law school. I couldn’t sleep one night, and one of my streaming services fed it to me. Three episodes and I was hooked.”
I nod, taking a sip of my seltzer and sighing as the cold bubbles hit my stomach, settling it immediately. “Same. I’m a superfan. I go where Shonda takes me.”
“So McDreamy and McSteamy I get, obviously. But why Nick?”
I shrug. “I like that he doesn’t try to take Derrick’s place. That he’s okay with knowing Meredith had a great love of her life before him, and he just wants to love her now. And I like that she gets a second love of her life. She deserves it.”