Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
EVAN
I’m putting the finishing touches on a motion to compel when my phone dings. Tugging it out, I groan right out loud when I see the text from my mom.
Mom
Evangeline, please let me know if we should save you a seat in the box for your brother’s game next week. Your dad wants to invite the Russels, but if you’ll be coming, we won’t have enough seats.
Sucking air through my teeth, I pray for calm as I type my response.
Me
I can’t make it. I have to work.
I can make it. I was planning on it. I just don’t want to sit in the fucking box.
Mom
Honey, Chris is pitching in the World Series. Surely you can get away from work for a few hours to come and watch him play.
Me
Unfortunately, I can’t. I’m in the middle of the biggest litigation of my career, Mom. It’s important.
I regret the message as soon as I send it, knowing what her response is going to be, and knowing that, even more than the boring as shit motion I just finished, it’s going to set the tone for my entire day. And Kathy Rhodes does not disappoint.
Mom
It can’t possibly be more important than the World Series.
Bingo.
My work is never as important as my brother’s talent and his professional athletic aspirations. It’s a tale as old as I’ve been alive. I should be used to it by now. I should be used to a lot of things when it comes to my family.
Kicking off my heels under my desk, I chug the last sips of my cold latte and pop another Jolly Rancher in my mouth, letting the cherry flavor soothe me. I’m a thirty-year-old woman who really shouldn’t still be seeking out my parents’ approval.
And yet.
Me
I’ll see what I can do.
Mom
Wonderful. We’ll save a seat for you.
My mom’s confidence that she won this round and that come next Tuesday I’ll be sitting right there in the box with her and my dad and their fancy friends, watching my brother pitch in the World Series, has the contrarian in me exiting out of the text thread with my mom and pulling up the one with my brother.
Me
Any chance you can get me a seat behind the dugout for Tuesday?
My phone rings in my hand, and I smile when I see Chris’s name on the display.
“Hey, superstar,” I say when I answer.
“Mom trying to get you to sit in the box again?” my brother asks, a smile in his voice.
I sigh heavily. “Yeah. I hate that damn box.”
My parents bought it when my brother was traded to the Boston Strikers five years ago, and even though it’s a great view of the field and the best snacks in the stadium, I hate it with a passion.
“I hate it too!” Chris’s partner, Rio, yells in the background. He must grab the phone from Chris because suddenly his voice is crystal clear. “I wouldn’t sit in that stuffy, boring ass box for all the money in the world.”
I laugh, leaning back in my desk chair, feeling the tension drain out of my body as I talk to my two favorite guys. “You’re some kind of genius managing director at an investment bank and you live with a professional baseball player. You already have all the money in the world.”
“True. And yet, I still wouldn’t sit in that box. Sit with me, Ev. Save me from having to deal with the WAGs.”
“Shut up, you love those bitches, and they love you right back.” As the only male partner of a Strikers player, Rio is the most popular WAG of the bunch, and those women are a damn good time.
He sighs dramatically. “I do, and they do. But I’d still rather sit with you. Chris will get us prime dugout seats where I can ogle his ass in pinstripes, and you can eat all the hot dogs your little heart desires.”
“I do love a hot dog.”
“I know how you do, honey girl, and I’m buying.”
I grin into the phone. “Throw in a cherry slushie and you’ve got a deal. Want to pick me up? I hate driving to the stadium.”
“You got it, but we’re going early for batting practice.”
I scoff. “As if I would miss batting practice.”
“That’s my girl. See you Tuesday. Here’s your brother.”
There’s some whispering on the other end of the line, and then Chris comes back on. “I think my boyfriend likes you better than he likes me.”
“Of course he does. I’m delightful.”
“I’m glad you’re coming to the game. It’s not the same without you there. But are you sure you’re okay to get away from work?”
“Chris, you’re pitching in the World Series. Nothing could keep me away.”
“Even your little who can make partner faster competition with your extremely sexy fellow associate?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not a competition because obviously I’m going to win. And he’s not sexy.”
He is so sexy. Especially with his pants around his thighs and his shirt in tatters on the floor. And when he makes it clear that he sees what it’s like to be a woman in corporate law. The sheer unfairness of it all.
Shit. No. We hate Cooper. We do not think about Cooper naked. Or being nice to me.
I have thought about him naked and nice more than is probably healthy.
Chris laughs. “You keep telling yourself that. And how about your little side hustle? Still writing the forbidden in your office at weird hours of the morning and night?”
I groan. “I never should have told you about that. Those margaritas Rio makes are, like, a truth serum or something.”
“And yet, you did, in fact, tell me that. So, I take that as a yes?”
“It’s a yes.”
“Jesus, woman, when do you sleep?”
I shrug, even though he can’t see me. “I’ve never needed as much sleep as most people. I’m fine.”
“Just make sure you’re taking care of yourself, okay? Use the undereye masks Rio bought you and make sure you’re drinking water and not just that pumpkin spice shit you love so much. And don’t hate the sexy coworker too much. It’s bad for your complexion.”
The care in my brother’s voice is enough to make my eyes burn.
He’s the only person in my life who has always been on my side, no matter what.
The only person who sees all of me and loves me anyway.
“I swear I will wear the eye masks and drink the water. No promises on the coworker though. He drives me fucking insane.”
“It’s probably sexual tension. Maybe you guys just need to bang it out.”
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from telling Chris that we did, in fact, do exactly that three weeks ago and we’re still the enemies we’ve always been, with a simmering undercurrent of I know what you sound like when you come, and with his sudden turn towards cordial yesterday I have no idea what to think. It’s…uncomfortable.
“I promise we definitely don’t need to do that.” Again. “I’ve gotta run, Chris. I have work to do, but I’ll see you Tuesday.”
“Can’t wait. Love you, Ev.”
“Love you too.”
I hang up the call, and before I set down my phone, I hit the browser icon.
It opens right to the page I’m looking for and I refresh it, grinning wide when I see the stats on the piece of writing I published this morning.
The kudos. The comments. My fingers itch to engage, but with a to do list for work a mile long, I know it’ll have to wait for later.
Good thing I replenished my snack supply.
“Come in!” I call at the knock on my door, setting my phone face down on my desk and pulling a bag of M&Ms out of my desk drawer. The door swings open and Cooper pokes his head in.
“What?” I say flatly, ignoring the way my stomach swoops at how his tie is tugged loose and his top button is unbuttoned, exposing the smooth column of his throat.
Jesus, Ev. Get your head out of the gutter.
“We have a meeting with Pierre Pharma in five minutes. The pre-meeting for Milo’s deposition prep?” He phrases it carefully, like a question, almost like he’s apprehensive about reminding us both about yesterday when he tried to be nice and I bit his head off.
I glance at the clock and bite down on a curse because I completely lost track of time.
Mom drama tends to do that. I frantically sweep my feet around under my desk, searching for my shoes while trying to keep my upper body straight and still.
“Sorry, I was on a call.” My voice is a little strained as I stretch out my leg, still searching for one missing shoe.
Cooper bends down, and when he straightens up, he has one black heel dangling from his finger and an eyebrow quirked up at me. “Looking for this?”
Shit. I forgot the desk has an open front, so attempting to hide my frantic shoe search was a fool’s errand.
I stand with as much grace as I can muster, wishing desperately for a latte.
The more pumpkin spice the better. “Yes, thank you,” I say politely, straightening my skirt and hobbling over to him, taking the shoe and bending to put it on, almost stumbling when I get a whiff of his pine-scented cologne.
He grabs my elbow to steady me, and when sparks erupt from the place he touches me, I yank it away and snap up the legal pad and file folders on my desk, making a beeline for the door.
“You coming?” I bite out, turning back to see his eyes on me.
“Lead the way, Rhodes,” Cooper says, with less sarcasm than usual.
I do. And even though he’s behind me the entire time, somehow I feel the prickle of awareness of his eyes on me, and I wonder why it is that I don’t hate it nearly as much as I should.