Page 95 of Play the Game
Before I can respond, I feel a hand on my arm and turn to see Chris and Rio, mutinous expressions on their faces. “I’m so sorry, Ev,” Chris whispers, pressing a kiss to my temple. “I got waylaid and didn’t think you would run into them so soon.”
“It’s okay,” I whisper, not trusting my voice.
“It’s not,” he says, before he stands straight, facing down my parents.
“Chris!” my mom says, tears seemingly forgotten as a brilliant smile spreads over her face. “I’m so happy you’re here. I have some people I need to…”
“Save it,” Chris says tersely, cutting her off, and I would laugh at my mom’s stricken expression if this whole scene wasn’t so fucking awful. “I heard what Cooper said to you, so I assume you were your usual asshole selves to Evan.”
“Chris, you don’t have to,” I say, laying a hand on his arm, about to tell him, for the millionth time in our lives, that he doesn’t have to blow up his relationship with our parents because of me.
“No, Ev,” he says, voice hard. “This stops now.” He turns back to my parents, standing straight and staring them down. “I’ve spent years watching and listening to you cut Evan down in a hundred different ways, each one more horrible than the last. Shenever wanted me to get involved, but that ends tonight. I’m done with both of you. I don’t need to lay out for you all the ways you’ve been awful to her because neither of you is stupid, and you know exactly what you’ve done. But I’m here to tell you that Ev and I are a package deal. If you can’t treat her with the love and respect she deserves, then you’ll have lost me too. Cooper isn’t the only one who protects what’s his. Evan is mine, and I’ll be goddamned if you ever hurt her again. If she decides she wants you in her life, I’ll be there too. But until then, I’m gone.”
“You can’t mean that,” my mom says, her face set in hard, angry lines.
“Oh, trust me, I do,” Chris seethes.
“He absolutely does,” Rio says, stepping up and taking Chris’s hand. “I find it’s best to trust Chris when he gets his serious face on, and since the two of you have been total fucking assholes for the entire time I’ve known you, I think it’s about time you faced some consequences. And you can save your righteous indignation and telling me to know my place.”
Rio drops Chris’s hand and wraps an arm him, reaching all the way over to lay a hand on my shoulder, and after everything, it’s the feel of Rio’s hand that has the pressure in my chest squeezing tighter, my breathing growing shallow. “My place is right here, and no one fucks with what’s mine either.”
My parents stand side-by-side, drinks still in hand, gaping at the four of us. I want to laugh at their dumbfounded expressions, but my entire body starts to shake with the force of my emotions trying to break free. My head whips around, looking for an escape route as everything that has transpired in the last twenty minutes crashes down on me.
I need to get out.
Now.
I turn to tell Cooper exactly that, but he’s moving before I can say a word. He exchanges a glance with Chris, who lays a hand on my arm, squeezing. Then, without sparing my parents asingle glance, Cooper wraps an arm around my shoulders and leads me straight out of the ballroom.
“Hey, guys!” Jo’s cheerful voice cuts through the noise in my head, and when I look up, she and Jordan are heading right for us. Whatever she sees on my face has her expression turning serious, and she makes a beeline for me, wrapping me in a tight hug. “I love you,” she says simply. “We’re all here if you need us.”
How everyone in this family always knows exactly what to say and what I need I’ll never know, but as she pulls back, I can’t do anything except for nod. Jordan looks at Cooper, and they do that wordless communication thing all four brothers are so good at before Jordan bends and kisses my cheek, heading into the ballroom with Jo.
My lungs are in a vise and my heart pounds in my ears as Cooper slides an arm around my waist. “Come on, baby,” he says, leading me to a dim, quiet corner of the empty hotel lobby. Sitting down in a chair, he pulls me into his lap and frames my face in his hands. “Pretty girl,” he murmurs, his thumbs ghosting over my cheeks. “Brave girl.” He leans in and presses a kiss to my forehead, and every muscle in my body aches with the effort of holding myself together. “My girl.” I close my eyes and take a shallow, gasping breath, feeling the first tear leak out.
Cooper wraps his arms around me and holds me tightly against him as more tears start to fall. “Let it out, Rhodes. It’s okay to let go now. I’ve got you.”
I’ve got you.
Knowing that he does, that he will, for the first time in my entire thirty years of living, I lay my head on someone else’s shoulder, and with a shuddering gasp, I break.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
EVAN
“Let me,” Cooper says, kicking off his shoes and dropping to his knees in front of me. Running his hand down my calf, he lifts my foot and slides off my shoe, then repeats the gesture with the other one. With my feet flat on the floor, I let out a sigh of relief as Cooper stands, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it onto the chair in the corner of his bedroom before loosening his tie and tugging it off.
He runs his hands down my arms, linking our fingers together. His eyes stay steady on my face, so intense that I swear they can see right through me. Cooper held me for what felt like hours in the quiet hotel lobby while I soaked his shirt in my tears, crying out what felt like decades of frustration and sadness. Years of wondering why I’m not good enough for my parents and trying my hardest to get them to see me even when I knew it was an exercise in futility. A promise to be better—to do better—in a few months when it’s my turn to be a parent, because even if I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m sure I can do it better than them. And the whole time, he didn’t say a word. He just sat in it with me, a quiet source of strength bearingwitness to my turmoil as I fell to pieces. A love so fierce it put those pieces back together for me when I couldn’t do it for myself.
I could feel it without even a single word.
I understood it, because I felt it too.
“Did you mean it?” I ask.
Cooper leans in and presses a kiss on my forehead, lingering there and inhaling, a gesture that never fails to make my stomach flip, my soul quiet. “Mean what?”
“What you said to my parents. That I’m your family.”
