Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EVAN
“Nice sweatshirt.”
My head snaps up at the sound of Cooper’s voice as I casually close the laptop in front of me and flip my pink notebook shut.
He’s leaning against the door of my office dressed in another pair of joggers and a soft-looking sweatshirt and those damn glasses, holy hell.
A to-go coffee cup dangles from his fingers, and the smile on his face as he takes me in does wild things to my insides that have nothing to do with the fetus currently wreaking havoc on my digestive system.
I glance down at my Let Women Run Shit sweatshirt, mostly to avoid looking at Cooper’s face. “It’s one of my favorites.”
“Approximately how many feminist sweatshirts do you have?”
He sets an icy glass of what I’m sure is cherry seltzer in front of me that I desperately wish was coffee. I also wish everything caffeinated didn’t make me want to throw up.
Pregnancy is really stealing all my joy.
Cooper sits down in the chair across from mine, leaning back and stretching out his long legs, taking a sip of his coffee.
I have to actually restrain myself from getting up off my chair and curling up in his lap.
When you’re having someone’s baby, does that person, like, imprint on you or something?
That’s the only reasonable explanation for the wild thoughts currently racing through my head.
“So many. All the feminist sweatshirts, really. Because that way you can be cozy and say fuck the patriarchy at the same time.” I look back up at him, and something stuck to his face catches my eye. I lean forward, confused at what I’m seeing. “Uh, Cooper?”
“Yeah?”
“Why are you all…sparkly?”
He groans and scrubs a hand over his face. “My brothers glitter bombed me yesterday.”
“I’m sorry, they what?”
“They sent me a Congratulations on your super sperm glitter bomb full of rainbow glitter and confetti shaped like tiny dicks. I’ll probably be sparkly for the next ten years.”
I look closer and see that, yep, he has little flecks of rainbow glitter stuck to his face and his neck where it peeks out of his sweatshirt. I cackle out a laugh. “It’s a good thing it’s the day after Thanksgiving and no one is in the office. You’re basically glowing.”
He rolls his eyes. “I know. Obviously, there will be some kind of retribution. I’m just hoping I can get it all off before we have to argue the motion to dismiss in court on Tuesday.”
“You mean before you argue the motion to dismiss.” Austin made it clear earlier this week that Cooper would be handling the argument.
Cooper shakes his head. “You drafted the motions. You crafted the arguments. You really should be the one to argue before the judge. It’s not right.”
I shrug. “No, it sure isn’t. But Austin doesn’t think women can law well. I might get my period and yell at the judge in a fit of female hysteria.”
Cooper glances at my stomach and smirks at me. “No chance of you getting your period.”
I huff out an extremely unamused laugh. “Yeah, but Austin doesn’t know that.”
Cooper studies me. “Speaking of that. When do you think you’re going to tell people?”
I get a shot of panic at the mere thought of anyone at the office knowing about this.
“Let’s not rush that day. Your family knows, and Chris and Rio know.
That’s enough for me for now. I’m not telling my parents until I absolutely have to, and I’m definitely not telling anyone here until I can’t hide it anymore. ”
Cooper shrugs. “It’s your call, Rhodes. You should just know that I’m ready whenever you are.”
“You don’t mind if people know?”
Cooper leans forward and crosses his arms over my desk. “I’m not ashamed of it. It might not be what either of us planned for our lives, and we still have a lot to figure out, but I’m in this with you.”
Cooper’s eyes stay on mine, and the words I’m in this with you ping around my brain.
It takes everything I have not to hit him with a barrage of questions.
In this how? As the father of this child?
As someone who brings me bagels and holds my hair back when I throw up?
As…more? It scares me a little how much I suddenly don’t hate the idea of more.
So much that I change the subject immediately because I still have no idea what to do with feelings about Cooper that aren’t irritation and annoyance.
“One of these days, it’s going to be obvious what’s going on.” I gesture to my stomach that I know won’t look like this for much longer. “That’s the day I’ll decide how to tell everyone here.”
Cooper grins and my stomach swoops. “Seems reasonable. I brought you some things.”
I press a hand to my stomach. “I hope one of those things is a bagel because I’m starving.”
“First thing’s first.” He leans down and picks up the bag he set down on the floor, reaching in and pulling out…a blood pressure cuff.
I narrow my eyes at him. “That doesn’t look like a bagel.”
He stands and walks around the desk, kneeling in front of me. “Remember—take your blood pressure; get a treat. Arm out, Ev.”
I roll my eyes, even as the nickname makes my stomach do a little shimmy. “How do you know I didn’t already do it this morning?”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Did you?”
I huff out a frustrated breath. “No.”
“Figured as much. You seemed anxious to do it yourself yesterday. I bought the same one you have so we could do it here together in the morning if you want to. Or I can come over to your apartment at night and do it there. Anything you want. But we’re both here, so let’s do it now. Arm out.”
I close my eyes, letting his words sink in, trying, and failing, to pinpoint how they make me feel. All I can settle on is, they make me feel some kind of way, but I’m not ready to let him know that.
“Fuck. Fine.” I pull one arm out of my sweatshirt and hold it up, a shot of anxiety tightening my spine as Cooper attaches the cuff. My eyes are glued to the little monitor. My heart thuds, and my hand shakes where I rest it on the arm of my chair until Cooper covers it with his.
“Look at me, Rhodes.”
I take a deep breath and raise my eyes to his. “Eyes on me, not on the numbers. Together, okay?”
I nod, curling my toes inside my fuzzy pink slippers. Together. “Okay.”
He presses the button on the machine and never moves his hand from mine or looks away as the machine does its thing.
The moment stretches out, his calm somehow seeping into me until my heartbeat slows, and my breathing matches his.
When the machine beeps and the cuff loosens, we both glance down at it, and Cooper smiles broadly. “Not bad at all.”
I take another deep breath and let it out slowly, my eyes still fixed on the lowest blood pressure I’ve ever had as I pull off the cuff. Seriously, Cooper Wyles might really be magic. “That was the worst. Please tell me you have a bagel in that bag.”
He smiles and stands, rounding the desk and retaking his chair. “Do you really think I would come here at five thirty in the morning without a bagel?” He reaches into the bag again and pulls out a parchment paper wrapped bagel, handing it to me.
“Oh my god, it’s still warm,” I mumble, unwrapping it and taking a big bite. “Seriously, you’ve ruined me. I can only eat homemade bagels now. Every other bagel is officially the worst.”
Cooper gives me a look that I can only describe as smoldering, and I have to sit on my hands to keep from fanning myself.
Jesus, no one should smolder that well before six in the morning.
“That can definitely be arranged.” Reaching back into the bag, he pulls out a candle and sets it on my desk, then lights it with a lighter that also comes out of his magic bag.
“You brought me a candle?”
He smiles, sliding it over so it sits next to the pumpkin spice candle I already have lit. “You had a whole bunch of fall candles lit in your apartment when I was there a couple weeks ago, but I noticed you only had one here, so I brought another one. This is apple pie.”
I lean over to catch the smell. “It’s great. I love fall. I’m, like, the most basic bitch around. Give me all the pumpkin spice everything.”
Cooper chuckles. “I knew you didn’t really like the black coffee you drink at the office. You’re a pumpkin spice latte girl, aren’t you?”
I don’t know if it’s the cozy vibes of being alone with him in my office when it’s still dark outside or my lowered defenses from no caffeine and too little sleep, but the truth comes tumbling out of my mouth.
“Through and through. Black coffee is gross. I started drinking it when I was a first-year associate because I thought it made me seem like one of the guys, or something disgusting like that, and it got to be habit. The truth is I never actually drink it. Seasonal coffee is my jam. Pumpkin spice in the fall, peppermint mochas in the winter, iced literally everything in the summer. I drink them here before anyone gets in.”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “And what is it you’re doing here in your pajamas with your pink spiral notebook and that laptop that definitely isn’t firm issued before anyone gets in?”
I hesitate, and Cooper reaches across the desk and strokes a finger over the back of my hand. My pulse goes haywire. “You can trust me, Ev.”
“I do trust you,” I whisper, and the absolute truth of those words has my second truth of the morning spilling from my mouth. “I write fanfiction.”
He chuckles, and his whole face lights up. “Seriously? That’s so awesome. What’s your fandom?”
“You know fanfiction?”
He grins. “Sure do. I read a lot of Marvel fanfic. I love the ones that bring the X-Men and the Avengers together, or when characters like Deadpool or Daredevil join the Avengers. Oh! Or Jessica Jones. A lot of characters ended up in the Avengers in the comic books, but never in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I think that would be so fucking cool.”
His enthusiasm is contagious, and I can’t help but grin. “Mine is a little more…niche than that.”
“Lay it on me, Rhodes.”
“Don’t laugh.”