Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
COOPER
Evan
Are you sure Cece isn’t actually a twenty five-year-old in disguise?
I laugh at the preview of Evan’s message on my screen, wiping my hands on a dishtowel and picking my phone up from the counter to respond.
Me
I’ve never been sure of that. She has more energy than five twenty-five-year-olds combined. What’s she doing now?
Evan
We’re dress shopping. I was exhausted five dresses ago, but she keeps tossing new ones into my dressing room like she’s a stylist on Say Yes to the Dress and I’m the indecisive bride.
[Picture of dressing room covered in discarded dresses]
I’m just standing here in my underwear wondering how this all went sideways so fast.
Me
Pictures or it didn’t happen, Rhodes.
Evan
I’m not sending you naked pictures while your mom, Cece, Jo, Hannah, and Amelia are all right outside the door. Also, I think my underwear is too small because, pregnancy.
Me
You said you’re wearing underwear which means you are decidedly not naked. Also, too small underwear means I can see more of your ass, and more of your ass is always a good thing, Pictures please.
Evan
Gotta love a guy who uses words like “decidedly” in a text message.
I laugh again, even as my heart thuds at her words. I know she doesn’t mean it when she says love, but my brain and my heart don’t understand that. Those assholes are a runaway train, thinking of a time when Evan will say that word to me and actually mean it. I want it so, so badly.
Me
Gotta keep up with my brainiac girlfriend.
I grin as I stare at the screen, waiting to see what she’ll say to my little bombshell word drop.
Evan
Girlfriend, huh?
Me
Unless you would prefer “mother of my child.”
Evan
I do not, in fact, prefer that. It’s worse than baby mama.
Me
Expecting mother?
Evan
Vomit.
Me
Baby mother?
Evan
No.
Me
My child’s mother?
Evan
I BEG YOU TO STOP.
Whatever, call me your girlfriend if you need to. Just please never use one of those terms ever again.
I laugh out loud, my chest flooding with warmth, because this woman is fucking perfect for me.
Me
Evan Rhodes is my girlfriend. This is the best day ever.
Evan
Why are you more excited about me being your girlfriend than you are about me having a whole entire baby who belongs to you?
Me
Because I don’t know the baby yet, but I do know you, and without you and me there would be no baby. You come first. Today and always. Keep up, Rhodes.
So why are you naked in a dressing room with half my family outside and my grandmother tossing dresses at you?
Evan
I might have mentioned that you were coming with me to the gala where we are hard launching this pregnancy thing to my parents and I had no fucking clue what to wear.
Then Jo said she and Jordan are going to the gala too.
Suddenly Cece’s friend was keeping her fancy dress store open late, and it all kind of spiraled from there.
Dress shopping while pregnant is not for the weak.
Me
Do you need a save? I can make up some kind of work emergency or just tell my mom I need to kiss you every two hours or I wither away. She’ll probably let you go. The rest of the girls will totally understand. Cece will know the truth, but there’s no getting around that.
Evan
Nah. I may not love dress shopping while pregnant, but I do love them. And they promised me cake when we’re done here, so I’m fighting the good fight.
Me
Well, we appreciate your service.
Evan
[Picture attached of Evan, Pam, Cece, Jo, Amelia, and Hannah sprawled on a dressing room couch, laughing]
Clicking on the picture Evan sent, my heart catapults into my throat at the image of her, smiling wide, surrounded by most of my favorite people.
The way she’s right in the center, my mom’s arm around her and Cece holding her hand.
The way the other women lean in so they’re all a unit.
And I can see so clearly how it could be.
My family. Birthdays and holidays. Girls’ nights and weekends for her.
Saturday dinners in the brownstone. All of us weaving into each other’s lives.
And my girl and me, right in the center of it.
Walking out of the kitchen with my phone in my hand, I open the door to one of my mostly empty guest rooms, scanning the space.
Years ago, when we moved into the brownstone, Cece insisted that I take this first-floor apartment—the only one with three bedrooms. I didn’t understand it then, but looking around this third bedroom, I understand it now.
Because I was never meant to live here alone or even just with a partner.
Somehow, Cece knew that I would end up here. That I would be the first of us to need an apartment meant for three.
Now I just have to convince Evan that her place is here with me. With the family we have, and the family we’ll be. I know she isn’t ready for that yet, but she will be, and I’ll be waiting when she is. I’ve already started making plans, and this room is the place where those plans start.
Me
Happy looks good on you, Rhodes.
Evan
Happy feels good.
Smiling, I close the door to the guest room and head back to the kitchen, lifting the towel covering the bread dough I have rising on the counter to check on it, then grabbing the notebook I set on the counter earlier and flopping on the couch.
I flip it open to the place I left off and get to work.
I’m so absorbed in what I’m doing that I don’t register the footsteps coming down the stairs until it’s almost too late.
“Honey, we’re here!” Noah’s voice booms into my apartment as my front door flies open.
Fuck.
Slamming the notebook shut, I shove it under a cushion and catapult off the couch, practically tripping over my feet on my way to the kitchen.
“Ow, fuck,” I mutter when I take the turn into the kitchen too fast and slam my hip into the corner of the island.
I rally fast, one hand reaching for my bowl of dough and the other yanking open the dishwasher.
I shove the bowl into the blessedly empty machine and close it as quietly as I can, standing up and shoving my glasses up my nose, turning just in time for Jordan, Elliot, and Noah to stroll into the room.
It occurs to me that hiding bread dough in the dishwasher so my brothers don’t find out I can make said bread dough is insane behavior, but that’s a problem for later Cooper.
That, and whether I can get my brothers out of here in time to save the dough.
“What’s up, guys?”
“Why is your face kind of flushed?” Elliot asks, studying me.
“Are you panting?” Jordan smirks as he falls into a seat at the island.
“Leave him alone,” Noah says, dropping a couple of grocery bags and a pie plate onto the counter. “His girl is all pregnant and stuff so he can’t get laid. He’s obviously jerking off.”
Elliot snorts out a laugh. “What does pregnancy have to do with whether he’s getting laid or not?”
Noah gives him a duh look. “Because your dick would, like, poke the baby’s eye out or traumatize it or something. Can’t have that.”
Jordan, Elliot, and I look at each other for a beat before we all burst out laughing. We laugh so long and so hard that tears stream down our faces, and I have to grip the countertop to stop myself from falling straight to the floor.
“Jesus, Noah,” Elliot wheezes. “Aren’t you a doctor or something?”
“Dentist,” Jordan says, wiping under his eyes. “Can’t expect a dentist to understand female anatomy or how shit like pregnancy works.”
“I think maybe you need to expand your romance reading repertoire,” I manage, before dissolving back into laughter.
“Fuck you all,” Noah says, sounding insulted. “I read plenty of romance. And I’m not a fucking dentist. I’m an oral surgeon. I know shit.” He swings his gaze to me. “So, you are getting laid?”
I smirk, thinking of exactly how much I’m getting laid.
Evan might hate being pregnant, but all the hormones make her insatiable, and I am so here for it.
I’m pretty sure we’ve fucked on every single surface in my apartment and hers, multiple times.
Now if only I could get her to stay overnight, or let me stay overnight with her, life would be perfect. “You could say that.”
Noah furrows his brow. “So then why were you jerking off in the kitchen?”
“Jesus Christ, dude, I wasn’t jerking off. Why are you even here? Also, knock much?”
Jordan rolls his eyes. “Are you new here? We never knock. And we’re here for guys’ night. Remember? Brother time, Elliot’s cooking dinner, etcetera etcetera?”
I wince. “Shit, sorry, I forgot.”
Noah makes an unimpressed noise. “You know, first it was everyone getting girls and brother time took a real hit. Now you’re having a baby and it’s like we don’t even exist anymore.”
“Give him a break.” Elliot starts unpacking the grocery bags, lining up ingredients for what looks like some kind of beef stir fry. Fuck yes. “None of us have had a kid yet. It’s gotta be a lot.”
This is the second time since I found out Evan is pregnant that I’m realizing I haven’t been as open with my brothers as I typically would be.
It’s a strange thing to have the center of my world shift in such a profound way from them to Evan.
For her to be my first thought in everything.
But sometimes a guy just needs his brothers.
“It is a mindfuck, but not in the way you think.”
“Tell us,” Jordan says simply, crossing his arms over the island.
I shrug, dropping in the stool next to him, realizing just how badly I want to do exactly that. “It took a minute to get my arms around the whole baby thing, but that’s not where my mind is.”
Noah sits on my other side, spinning to face me. “It’s with her. Because your relationship started after she found out she was pregnant, so it’s like you did everything backwards and you’re playing catchup. That’s the mindfuck.”
Elliot lets out a low whistle. “Why does introspective Noah always take me by surprise?”