Page 87 of Play the Game
“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 aduhlook. “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 howbadly 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?”
Noah rolls his eyes. “It really shouldn’t. I’m introspective as fuck.”
“And right,” I say, taking the beer Elliot slides across the island to me and twisting off the cap. “I think maybe some people find out they’re going to be a dad and it’s, like, instant love or whatever. That’s not what happened to me. The baby was an abstract thing for me. Something I knew intellectually was going to happen, but I actually didn’t have any kind of feelings about it one way or the other.”
“When did it change?” Jordan asks.
“Christmas. Early Christmas morning, I walked outside where Evan was sitting on Mom’s porch swing. She turned around and looked at me and that was it. I swear I could feel the shift like it was an actual, tangible thing instead of just a feeling.”
“You love her.” Elliot drizzles oil into a pan and flicks on the burner. “That’s when you realized.”
I nod, smiling at the memory. “Yep. Then, that same morning, I felt the baby move, and suddenly, I was someone’s dad. But it was like I had to fall in love with her before I could fall in love with the baby. Does that make any sense?”
Noah nods. “All the sense. But what’s the problem?”
I shrug. “It’s not a normal kind of relationship, you know? Like, you guys could take your time with your girls and figure everything out. Be in love and decide where you’re living and what you’re doing and how it’s all going to work. But because of the baby, we kind of have a deadline.”
