Page 83 of Play the Game
“I’m not ready,” I say, blowing out a breath. Maybe it’s wrong to open up this way when I haven’t talked to Cooper about any of this yet, but sitting in this cozy room surrounded by women I am coming to adore has me wanting to open up in a way I almost never do. “I know it probably seems insane when I’m more than halfway through a pregnancy for Cooper and me to not be talking about what comes next. To not be making plans abouthow we’re going to raise a baby between the two of us, where the baby is going to live, and all the rest of it. It feels crazy to me, and yet I’m still not ready. I swear I will be.” I look at Pam, hoping I’m not completely fucking this up. “I’ve never missed a deadline in my life, and I won’t miss this one either. We’ll have it all figured out by the time the baby comes, but I just can’t get my head there yet. I don’t understand why but I just…I can’t yet.”
“You’re a planner, Evan,” Cece says, pouring herself a margarita from the pitcher on the table and taking the seat next to Pam. “And you didn’t plan for this. This is upending your life, and you don’t know what to do with that.”
“I’ll say,” I mutter, shoving a mini hot dog in my mouth and thinking about just how much I don’t know what to do with this.
Cece laughs. “It doesn’t matter what plans you make—babies do their own thing in their own time. For someone who has meticulously plotted her entire life, that’s going to be impossible, and there’s no way around that. And for someone who has a complicated relationship with her own mom, it can be hard to picture being a mom yourself.”
Cece’s eyes hold so much understanding when she looks at me that my eyes burn and my throat tightens. Jesus Christ, what is it about this family that makes me cry and tell all my secrets? I shrug, trying to get my shit together. “My mom sucks. Like, she’s actually the worst. I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to be who she wants me to be and failing every single time. Can’t really know how to be a good mom if you don’t have any models of what a good mom looks like.”
“My mom sucks too,” Jo says. “Like, really, truly sucks. But my sister Hallie is a great mom.”
“She is,” Cece says. “She’s a good mom because she loves her kids. That’s all you have to do, Evan. Just love your daughter. Everything else will work itself out.”
“Daughter?” Jo squeaks next to me. When I turn to her, hereyes are wide, and her smile is brilliant. “Why didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t Cooper? That asshole.”
I laugh at her incredulous tone. “I didn’t think I had to, and I assume Cooper didn’t think so either. Cooper and Cece were both sure it was a girl. I figured you all took their word for it.”
“It’s one thing to hear them say it and another thing to know for absolute sure. A girl,” Amelia says with a little bit of wonder. “This is so awesome.”
Hannah grins. “Somehow, it’s perfect that in a family full of boys, the first baby would be a girl. A tiny new member of our little coven.”
“Are we witches now?” I ask on a laugh, my heart squeezing a little at the way they all treat this baby not as Cooper’s, but as all of theirs.
Cece nods seriously. “Every woman is a little bit witchy. That’s why all the men are so afraid of us.”
“Damn straight,” Pam says. “Gotta keep them on their toes. I’ve lived most of my life in a house with five men, and making them just a little bit afraid of you is the best way to keep the upper hand.”
I consider this. “I don’t think Cooper is afraid of me.”
Cece chuckles. “Oh, sweetheart, yes, he is. You scare him half to death. All of you,” she says, looking at the four of us.
“Why?” I wonder.
She shrugs. “Because you matter to them, more than anyone or anything ever has or ever will.”
“I don’t know. If it wasn’t for the baby, I don’t think Cooper and I ever would have ended up here.”
Pam gives me thatbless your heartlook again. “And how, exactly, did you end up pregnant with that baby?”
Jo snorts out a laugh, and Amelia and Hannah follow. I feel my face heat. “That was a moment of pure insanity between two people who hate each other.”
“Evan dear, that moment of pure insanity was two years in the making, and you and Cooper never hated each other. Youwere going to end up here, baby or no baby. Cooper is going to love that baby with his whole heart because it’s part of him and part of you and that’s the way he’s built, but he loves you first. He loves you before he loves anything else, including this child and any more you may have. You may not have said the actual words yet, but that doesn’t matter. It’s always been you for him. I knew it two years ago the day he came home complaining about the new associate who was coming in and wrecking everything, and I know it today.”
I laugh, remembering the day we met. How I told him he had the filing system of a five-year-old on a sugar high and proceeded to reorganize every single client file in the document management system. I was a pain in the ass, but when I got in the next morning and saw he put it right back the way he had it before I changed everything, I realized he was one too, and our rivalry was born.
And then I feel warm all over thinking about being loved by someone like Cooper. At the thought of someone like him loving every fanfic writing, axolotl infatuated, list making, science obsessed, corporate ladder climbing part of me.
I find myself hoping that Cece is right, and I feel my brain take one giant step forward.
“Cooper offered to come with me to the fundraising gala my parents chair for Boston Children’s Hospital every year. He’s never met them before, and they don’t know I’m pregnant, and the whole thing is probably going to be a complete disaster, but he doesn’t seem to care about that.”
Cece smiles. “Of course he doesn’t care about that. He knows it’s not somewhere you want to be, so he’s going to come with you to make it easier for you.”
“Wait, are you talking about the Boston Children’s Winter Ball?” Jo asks. “The one in a few weeks?”
I nod. “Yeah, why?”
She grins. “Jordan and I will be there too. Apparently having a very attractive, extremely personable hotshot pediatric surgeonin attendance helps donors open their wallets. I can be your backup. If anyone knows a sucky mom, it’s me. And her,” she says, pointing to Hannah. “I won’t leave your side. If your mom gives you any trouble, I’ll tell her exactly where she can shove it.”
