Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
COOPER
It’s still mostly dark outside when I stumble down the stairs on Christmas morning.
The rest of the house is still silent, but I’m wide awake.
It makes no sense because Evan and I have never shared a bed before, but somehow, I couldn’t sleep without her.
It’s like being in the same house meant my body knew she was almost close enough to touch and wouldn’t let me settle.
I took advantage of the quiet to get some stuff done, but my need to get my eyes on Evan after hours apart had me impatient to get downstairs.
The clock on the stove says it’s almost five thirty, which is later than I’ve been sleeping lately but still too fucking early.
With a yawn, I turn on my mom’s countertop Christmas tree so I have enough light to see and walk straight to the espresso machine.
But before I can flick it on, movement outside catches my eye.
My mom’s beloved porch swing is swaying back and forth under the glow of the Christmas lights, occupied by a dark silhouette I know immediately is Evan.
I stand there for a second watching her, tucked inside a blanket, head bent low, and my heart clenches at how right it feels to have her here, in my favorite place, with my favorite people. How well she fits. With them. With me.
I have it bad. Really, really bad.
Opening the refrigerator, I blink at the blinding light and then grin at the jars full of coffee syrup lined up on the top shelf, labeled in my dad’s handwriting.
I mentioned to him that Evan was a big seasonal coffee fan, so in addition to the regular vanilla, hazelnut, and assorted other flavors he keeps there so everyone can have their favorites, there are jars labeled Peppermint Syrup and Pumpkin Spice Syrup.
It does something to me. My family’s easy acceptance of Evan.
Of the baby. Of me and Evan when we haven’t exactly decided what we want from each other yet, even though I am more sure of it every day.
I want her. Us.
God, I hope one day there’s an us.
With everyone still asleep, there’s no risk that anyone will catch me in the kitchen—they think I can’t even manage coffee, which is endlessly amusing.
Assembling the ingredients I need, I make coffee for Evan and me and toss a sweatshirt on over my family pajamas, grabbing both mugs and the blood pressure monitor I brought down with me, then heading outside.
Evan is writing something in her pink notebook when I step out onto the porch, but she turns at the sound of the front door opening and closing.
The way she looks at me, her smile, bright blue eyes soft and a little tired, cheeks red from the cold, and hair pulled up into a haphazard ponytail that spills over the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and the women don’t owe you shit sweatshirt she wears over her pajamas has my heart stuttering, falling straight out of my chest and right at her feet.
And I’m gone.
I accept it in an objective sort of way. Casually almost, as if it was always going to be this way and no other. Evan is mine. She’s always been mine. Even when I thought I hated her, she was mine. And as long as she’ll have me, I’m hers.
It’s both profound and wildly simple.
“You’re up early.” Her voice is a little raspy, like this is the first time she’s using it this morning. I like that her first words of the day are mine, and mine hers.
“Couldn’t sleep.” Walking over to where she sits, I set the coffee down on the table by the swing, move her notebook over, and slide in next to her, putting the blood pressure monitor down between us.
“Do we have to?” she asks, anxiety flashing in her eyes like it always does when it’s blood pressure time.
I take her hand and kiss it. “We sure do. I’ll hold your hand.”
She wrinkles her nose but holds out her arm.
I attach the cuff and hit the button on the machine, holding her hand as it does its thing.
As always, her eyes stay right on mine, as if watching me lessens some of her anxiety.
I really like that thought. When the monitor beeps, I give a satisfied nod at the number and reach over and grab her mug, handing it to her.
“Take your blood pressure; get a treat.”
She blows out a breath as she takes the coffee, and I slide back so I’m sitting next to her. “Glad that’s over. Thanks for this.”
My heart gallops when she unwraps herself from the blanket with her free hand, tossing it over me so we can share.
Wrapping my free arm around her, I press a kiss to the side of her head.
We sit like that for a few minutes, enveloped in the pre-dawn quiet as the stars start to wink out, swing rocking lightly, and the winter air cold on our faces as we stare out at the street of my childhood.
The place I became who I am. Where I learned how to be someone who could be a partner.
A father. I realize, suddenly, how much I want to be both of those things with her.
Only with her.
It’s as perfect a moment as I’ve ever had.
Evan takes a sip of her coffee and gives that happy little hum I love so much. “Good call on the peppermint.”
I take a sip from my own mug, stroking my thumb over the soft skin of her neck. “I know you’re still making up for all the pumpkin spice lattes you didn’t get to have when you were sick all the time, but I thought if there was ever a day for peppermint, it’s Christmas.”
Evan smiles, still looking out over the snow-covered front lawn. “You thought right. So why couldn’t you sleep?”
I tug the blanket tighter around her when she shivers a little. “Didn’t like being alone in bed.”
She gives me a side-eye that makes me laugh. “Don’t you pretty much always sleep alone?”
“I do, but I’ve never slept alone when you were right down the hall. I didn’t like having you so close but not quite close enough.”
“Close enough meaning in your bed?”
I grin and kiss her cheek. “That’s exactly what I meant.”
She shifts, turning to face me. “I’m going to tell you this one thing because it’s Christmas, and I feel like on Christmas it’s important to be honest, otherwise Santa doesn’t bring you the good stuff.”
I chuckle, taking another sip of my coffee. “Lay it on me, Rhodes.”
“I had to talk myself out of sneaking into your room at least ten times last night.”
I can feel my grin spread. “Ev, that’s the best news I’ve ever heard. You totally should have. It would have been very high school of us.”
Evan gives me a wicked grin. “I don’t think anything that would have gone on in that room would have been high school appropriate.”
“Shit,” I mutter, shifting a little on the swing, my brain suddenly overrun with ideas of what we could have gotten up to in my bed last night. “Now I really wish you had snuck in.”
Evan bumps her knee with mine. “No way was I having sex with you for the first time in your parents’ house.”
I glance pointedly at her stomach. “I’m pretty sure that baby in there would tell you it absolutely would not have been our first time.”
Her face heats, and if her brain was anything like mine, it just served her an image of the two of us up against the window in that conference room. “Maybe not, but it would be the first time it—” She cuts herself off, slamming her mouth shut.
“The first time it what?”
She shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“No way, Rhodes, you can’t leave me hanging like that.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “You don’t need to know everything.”
I reach up and cup her cheek, rubbing my thumb over her face. “I don’t need to know anything you don’t want to tell me, but if you did want to tell me, I would be here to listen. I always want to listen to you.”
Evan blows out a breath and leans into my touch so slightly it’s almost like it’s not happening at all, except it absolutely is, and it’s the best. “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is the grossest thing I’ll ever say, and once I say it, we forget I ever did.”
I laugh, stroking a hand down her ponytail. “I promise never to speak of it again.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fine. I was going to say that it might not be our first time, but it would be the first time it meant something.”
My heart squeezes at her admission, even as I school my face into a neutral expression, nodding gravely. “You’re right. So gross.”
It’s her turn to laugh, and it’s the prettiest sound I’ve ever heard.
I’m suddenly overcome with the need to kiss her, right here on my parents’ porch, in the cold, semi-darkness of dawn, as night turns to day and the world wakes up to Christmas.
I take her coffee from her hand and set both mugs down on the table next to the swing, sliding closer to Evan and cupping her face in both of my hands.
“What are you doing?” She practically whispers, her warm breath caressing my lips.
I slide my hands around her neck, thumbs stroking over her jaw. “Unless you tell me not to, I’m going to kiss you, right here, right now.”
Her eyes bounce between mine as we hover right on the precipice. “Why does it feel like this will be the first time too?” Her voice is a little raspy and full of questions.
I bend and kiss one cheek. The other. Then I look right into her eyes and give her back her words. “Because I think maybe this time it means something.”
Evan smiles, leaning her forehead against mine. “Touché, Cooper. Tou-fucking-ché.”
I chuckle, tunneling my fingers deeper into her hair. “It’s Christmas, Rhodes. Let me kiss you and make it mean something.”
“Mean what?” she asks.