Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EVAN
“Fucking finally,” I mutter, tossing my phone onto the coffee table littered with drink glasses, the remains of seven different kinds of takeout, assorted snacks, and the sparkly Happy New Year hats and glasses that Jo bought for everyone.
The movie is long over, New Year’s Rockin’ Eve plays in the background, and we’re all sprawled around Jordan and Jo’s living room, pillows and blankets everywhere and the lights on low.
It’s the coziest New Year’s Eve I’ve ever had.
“Everything okay?” Cooper asks, sitting down and handing me the bowl of candy popcorn he refilled for me in the kitchen.
I reach in and grab a handful, the salty sweet of the popcorn and M&Ms the most perfect snack.
I went from not being able to eat anything to wanting to eat everything, so that’s been a real flex.
“Yeah, just Austin being his normal asshole self. The first draft of the memo I sent him wasn’t good enough, so he demanded a rewrite. ”
Cooper rolls his eyes as Elliot walks by the couch, slapping him on the back of the head before plopping down on the floor and tugging Amelia into his lap. “You’re making your girl work on New Year’s Eve? Do it for her, dude. Don’t you work on the same team or whatever?”
“I’m not his girl,” I say automatically, immediately met by seven grinning faces, Cooper’s included.
“I remember saying something like that once.” Amelia grins at Elliot, who grins right back and kisses her like there aren’t six other people in the room.
“Yet,” Cooper says with a smirk. “You’re not my girl yet. Although there has been a lot of kissing, so maybe we can renegotiate?”
I roll my eyes because I would rather die than admit that my chest warms and butterflies swarm my stomach at the thought of all that kissing.
Since Christmas, Cooper hasn’t let it go any farther than that, almost like he’s been winding me up, holding us on edge for what we both know is going to happen later tonight.
It’s fucking working, especially since pregnancy hormones are doing weird things to my sex drive now that I’m feeling better, but I’m not admitting that either.
“I don’t know, Cooper…what are the terms of that renegotiation, exactly? ”
The heated look Cooper gives me has arousal pulsing between my legs. Dammit.
“I’m not sure we can discuss those terms in a room full of my brothers. They’re very confidential.”
Cooper’s eyes are dark, and I get so lost in them that, for a second, I forget we’re sitting in Jo and Jordan’s living room surrounded by his entire family. Noah’s amused voice breaks me out of my trance.
“This is some strange fucking foreplay, you guys.”
My head snaps up, and I feel my face heat as Hannah elbows Noah and Amelia snickers. “God, lawyers are really weird.”
Cooper smirks at her. “Ames, I love you, but I know what you and my brother get up to at night after one of your little code-a-thons. I’m not so sure you should be calling us weird.”
Amelia just shrugs, smile on her face. “Well, aren’t we all just a bunch of weirdos.”
“Bet your ass, Mystery Girl,” Elliot says, smile in his voice as he wraps his arms around her.
“So why was your boss demanding that you work on New Year’s Eve?
And why couldn’t Cooper do it? It’s a holiday and you’re pregnant.
They shouldn’t be asking you to do one damn thing.
” Jo nods, like that’s that, and I kind of love everything about this night.
I was nervous about it, but within the first ten minutes, I realized I shouldn’t have been.
Just like on Christmas, Jordan’s brothers and these women treat me like I’ve been a part of them forever.
Even though Cooper and I are still a nebulous, undefined sort of thing that came out of a one-night stand and an accidental baby, no one here seems to care.
Cooper wants me here, so they want me here. It’s as simple as that.
I think briefly of my own parents, sailing around the Mediterranean like they don’t even have a daughter because the child they actually care about isn’t home for the holidays.
How they would never be so easily accepting of anyone I brought home.
The disappointment I know they won’t even try to cover when I tell them I’m pregnant.
I can’t help but compare that to the people sitting in this room—and to Cooper’s parents and Cece—and I feel a sudden, aching kind of sadness.
I didn’t realize families like this existed.
Shaking it off, I give Cooper a bland look. “Cooper couldn’t do it because he knows I would turn him down if he offered.”
He laughs, tossing an arm around my shoulders. “Turn me down? Rhodes, if I offered to do your work for you, you would probably throat punch me and tell me to mind my own fucking business. As a matter of fact, you have done exactly that before.”
I frown. “I’ve never throat punched you. I have told you to mind your own fucking business though.”
“A lot,” Cooper says with a wry smile. “You’ve told me that a lot.”
I grin at him despite myself. It feels harder and harder to hold onto anything resembling irritation with this man who seems to understand me better than I even understand myself.
Who somehow knows what I need without me having to say any words at all.
The feelings I’m starting to have for him feel as terrifying as they do inevitable.
I feel a little knock in my stomach, like the baby somehow agrees with me. I suck in a breath at the feeling, still not entirely used to the fact that there’s an entire human growing inside of me. Still not at all sure how to feel about it.
Cooper strokes a finger over my neck and lays his free hand lightly on my stomach, like he knows that what’s going on in there has me all twisted up.
I don’t do one single thing to push him away as I explain myself to his family.
Instead, I lay a hand over his, my stomach doing a little flip at the soft smile that spreads over his face.
“No one at work knows I’m pregnant. I’ve been doing my best to hide it as long as I can, although I think my time might be running out.
” I gesture to my stomach, hidden for the time being under my I do not yield to disrespectful men sweatshirt, and think of all the orders I’ve been placing for maternity clothes that I hate already.
“The partner we’re working with on this case is king of the misogynistic assholes, and he already thinks women don’t have brains big enough for BigLaw.
Or law in general, probably. So, I’m sure he’ll do his best to sabotage my career, all under the guise of concern, of course, because no woman has ever had a successful legal career and a baby. That’s just not logical.”
I roll my eyes, feeling the low, simmering rage that always hits me every time I think about the choices I have ahead of me.
The fight I’m sure I’ll need to face to have this baby and also keep my career on track.
The one no man would ever have to battle.
The unfairness. “I hate him so much, but I want to make partner, and he has the future of my career in his hands. So, when he asks me for something, I’m sure as fuck not passing it onto a man, even if what he needs is something as ridiculous as a memo on New Year’s Eve that a baby lawyer could write with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. ”
“That’s badass,” Jo says, taking a sip of her drink and looking at me thoughtfully. “Even though it’s stupid and unfair. There’s almost nothing that gets better when a man gets involved.”
“Hang on,” Hannah says, reaching over and grabbing a handful of my popcorn. “You just drafted a memo from your phone at eleven o’clock at night on New Year’s Eve?”
I shake my head, reaching for the cherry seltzer on the coffee table.
“I drafted it yesterday in the office. I actually drafted two versions because I knew he would hate the first one on principle, and I would need a second version to use to pretend I considered all of his very thoughtful and profound comments on my first draft.” I roll my eyes again because nothing that comes out of Austin’s mouth is ever profound or even the least bit thoughtful.
“He never accepts my first drafts of anything—it’s a little power move of his—but his critiques are always the same, so at least I can be prepared. ”
“That’s fucked up,” Jordan says, frowning at me. “You’re obviously brilliant. It’s stupid that you have to do what essentially amounts to busy work to placate an asshole. Imagine what you could do if you didn’t have to waste that kind of time.”
Jo stands up and plops herself in Jordan’s lap, kissing his cheek and grinning. “That’s why I married him. He’s king of the non-assholes.”
Jordan laughs and wraps his arms around Jo’s waist, and I can’t help the smile that spreads over my face, looking around the room at these men and the women who love them. “I don’t know—I think it might be a four-way tie in this room for king of the non-assholes.”
“I’m definitely a non-asshole,” Noah says, grinning at me as he brings Hannah’s hand to his mouth, kissing her knuckles. “It’s because of all the romance novels I read. If every man read romance novels, I think they could all be non-assholes.”
“You read romance?” I ask.
He nods seriously. “Sure do. I started reading Hannah’s after I met her for the first time, and then it kind of all spiraled. I think I’ve read all the romances at this point. They’re fucking great.”
I shake my head. “You are all really something. Your mom and dad should write parenting manuals or something.”
Elliot groans, but he’s smiling. “Don’t tell my mom that. We’ll never hear the end of it.”
Cooper tugs me closer to him, pressing a kiss to the side of my head. “Rhodes, I think calling me a non-asshole is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I give him a side-eye. “Don’t get used to it. It’s a holiday. I’ll be back to kicking your ass around the firm on Monday.”