16. Cobb

CHAPTER 16

COBB

I was beginning to wonder if Monroe even wanted to be here with me.

We'd talked about this. Game, dinner, hang out. I'd drive her home. But she walked beside me with her spine so straight that I wondered if she'd hurt herself in some way.

The game had happened. We'd won. She seemed to be having a good time with her dads in the stands, but when I'd come out of the clubhouse, something in the air had been different.

Everyone else had left the room, but I'd had to call the lawyer back. He'd left a message asking me to tonight, no matter how late it was.

I didn't think that'd be a good sign, but he wanted me to know that his office had received the documentation showing the pregnancy and timeline that he'd requested of the lawyers in New York. He talked a little about what was going to happen from here and I was done.

It was an irritating call because anything to do with that situation pissed me off, but at least I'd get to spend some time with Monroe. After looking over at her in my car, I had to add a maybe to that. She was sitting straight up with her hands in her lap.

"Are you hungry for anything in particular?" I asked, hoping it'd start a conversation.

"No." And her fucking tone.

What the fuck had changed? I was acting normal. She'd been gone when I'd woken up this morning, which had irritated me, but I'd figured it was better to just get over it.

Mayb it was regret. Did having sex with her ruin my chance at having her in my life? It wasn't supposed to be now it sure seemed like it.

"OK." I sighed. "Want to make something at my place?"

She shook her head but kept her eyes on the road in front of us.

"What do you want to do, then?" I asked her.

Finally she looked over at me, but the fire in her eyes was more anger than anything else. "I'm fine with just going home."

"Want to cook at your place?"

"Not really."

I sighed. This was not part of the plans for tonight, but if she was any other friend, I would've already dropped her off. So, I turned at the next street to get to her apartment. We didn't talk the rest of the way and when I pulled into her driveway, she had the car door open before I had brought the car to a full stop.

"Thanks for the ride." She smiled, but it wasn't real. Clearly, she was pissed about something.

"No problem."

She slammed the door harder than she needed to, leaving me to get dinner alone. Which I was fine with, but I would much rather have hung out with her for a while. Instead, I sent Brooks a text asking if he wanted to meet me.

He responded pretty quickly, telling me to come to his house. So that was where I went.

Brooks had bought this house not long after he'd been drafted. Since he'd gone right to the Knights, he'd known he'd be staying in Kalamazoo for his entire career unless something dramatic happened. So he'd bought this huge house, not like the one we'd grown up in, but big enough for him and quite a few kids if he decided to have them.

He pulled the front door open before I'd knocked. When I stepped in, the house smelled like he'd already started cooking.

"Something smells good," I said.

"It'll be done soon. Come help make salad."

I stepped in and chuckled. "You need help with that?"

"No," he called over his shoulder. Brooks was a good cook. Excellent, really. He enjoyed it. "But I figured it'd give you something to do until you decide to tell me why you wanted to get dinner tonight."

"Can't I want to hang out with my big brother?" I went over to the sink to wash my hands before chopping the vegetables.

"Of course you can. I'm actually pretty awesome, so that would make sense." He stirred something on the stove. "But you said you had plans with Monroe tonight and friends or not, there's zero chance you'd pass that up to hang out with me." He pushed the cutting board my way. "Start chopping."

I shook my head but did what he'd instructed.

It wasn't until after dinner—a delicious salmon and rice, but let's not forget the salad—that we were sitting on his couch drinking coffee and watching a sports show recap what had happened at the game we'd won that it came up again.

"So really, what happened to your plans?" he asked.

"I don't fucking know."

"How can you not know." He adjusted himself so that he was sitting facing me. "I get it that you're lying to yourself that you and her are just friends. It's what you need to do right now. Fine, but there's no chance you wouldn't be at her place right now if you could be."

"We're just friends," I told him, though some of the things we'd done the night before flashed through my mind. "Good friends." I decided to add that last part because I'd seen her naked. We had to be good friends.

"Yeah, yeah." He brushed his hand through the air as he said it.

"I don't know. Seriously. Everything was fine, but when I came out of the clubhouse, met her dads, something was different. She's pissed at something. I don't know what."

"Has to be you," he said. I was about to protest when he added, "Or something to do with you. So what'd you do?"

"Why would I have had to do something?" I asked. He cocked his head to the side and looked at me, making me sigh. "We had sex last night."

His loud laugh filled his house. "How bad was it for her to be literally angry about it?"

I lifted my middle finger at him. "It wasn't bad, asshole. It was good. Really fucking good. She was gone when I woke up this morning and I hadn't seen or talked to her all day, so I don't fucking know."

"You're an idiot. Don't you know you're supposed to talk to the woman the next day unless you don't want to see her again?"

I shook my head. Sure, he didn't get my relationship with Monroe and he didn't need to. "It's not like that."

Against my better judgement, I told Brooks everything that had happened the night before. Or really the last couple of days. Why I'd had her stay at my apartment. Her falling asleep, but then not being able to sleep because "I made her hormones crazy." The fact that we both insisted it wouldn't mean anything and we'd be friends after. Only friends.

"Maybe she doesn't want to be only friends," he said.

"I don't think so," I told him.

"And why can you only be friends?" Brooks took a long drink of his coffee, watching my every move as I attempted to answer.

"I can't bring someone else into the bullshit New York situation. I have to get that done first. She doesn't want anything, either, but I suspect it's because of that dickhead ex."

Brooks set his coffee cup on the table then sat back. "You're both idiots, then."

"You know…" I pushed to my feet and set my own mug down. "You can fuck off. If I want to be told I'm an idiot over and over, I'd hang out with Dad."

Brooks snorted. "I'm just saying. Neither of you are being honest with yourselves or each other. You've been all tied up over her since the beginning." Now he pushed to his feet and stomped over to me until he was invading my space. "If you ever fucking compare me to Dad again, you're going to land on the DL."

I snickered. That was one thing sure to piss any of us off. "I didn't mean to do that. I just meant that he tells us we're idiots whenever the topic of a woman comes up and you know it."

Brooks stepped back. "I do know it." He sighed and put his hands on my shoulders. Brooks was just barely taller than me, but his shoulders were much wider. It was what made him an excellent catcher. There was a lot of target behind the plate when he was there. "Listen, if you wait for everything to be right or for your life to be settled and in order, you're going to lose that woman. Our lives are never settled. It fucking sucks to be the wife or girlfriend of a professional athlete. And I know you want Monroe. You shouldn't wait."

My stomach clenched and turned, making me a little nauseous at the idea of how he might answer the question I was about to ask. "If I tell her and she thinks I'm the asshole in this situation, she'll never talk to me again."

"Why would she think that?" He stepped back and let his arms fall to his side.

"Because it doesn't really put me in the best light. You know that's why we're trying to keep it out of the press. It makes me sound like a deadbeat dad."

Brooks shook his head. "You two haven't known each other long, but I'd be willing to bet she'd believe you." He went back around to his place on the couch. "At the very least, you should find out why she's mad. It might be a simple fix having nothing to do with your non-baby mama. Besides… If Silas can get over the fact that he felt like he killed Amity's brother and they can be together… I think you should be able to do that with Monroe."

"To stay friends."

He chuckled. "Sure. Whatever."

My big brother was right in that regard. What a fucking dumbass I'd been to drive away knowing that Monroe was angry.

I left Brooks's house and headed back to her apartment. Maybe she wouldn't be mad anymore, but I was about to find out.

I pressed the doorbell and waited. It had a camera on it, so she'd know it was me. But it wasn't her voice that came over speaker. "Can I help you?" That was one of her dads, but I couldn't remember which.

"Hi, Mr. Phillips. Is Monroe around?"

The silence I was met with was deafening and long. Until the door opened and that beautiful strawberry-blonde was in front of me in what had to be pajamas and bare feet.

"What's up?" she asked, crossing her arms under her breasts. She wasn't wearing a bra and her nipples pebbled in the night air.

"Can we talk?" I asked and I could see the no on her lips.

Imagine my surprise when she said, "Sure. Come in."

She led me through the walkway and into her apartment, where she shut and locked the door behind me as I kicked off my shoes.

"We alone?" I asked and she nodded. "But one of your dads—"

"He's in the house," she told me. "I was in the bathroom when the bell rang and as you know, they have access to the video feed."

"Right."

Once again, her posture was as straight as a broom. Normally, she had good posture, but it wasn't so… forced.

"Want a drink?" she asked.

"No thanks."

Monroe stopped on her way to the kitchen and turned to face me. Her fingers played with the hem of her shirt and her feet rubbed together. She was either nervous or uncomfortable. Maybe both.

"What's going on?" I asked her.

She wouldn't meet my eye when she said, "I don't know what you mean."‘

"Come on." I moved closer to her. "What happened between last night and today? You were gone when I woke up."

"Did you want me to still be there?"

"Yeah." That answer only mildly surprised me. "I thought we'd get breakfast, but I'm not mad that you weren't. You can leave whenever you want to. I just wanted you to stay last night because you wouldn't let me follow you home to make sure you were all right."

She blew out a breath that caught her hair. "Right. I get that."

"So what the fuck happened between then and now?"

"Nothing." She moved to walk away, but I reached out and grabbed her wrist to stop her.

"It's not nothing. You're upset."

She snapped her teeth together and took a deep breath. "I should've just come home last night. I can handle myself even with him. I've been doing it for months."

My body tensed. "You shouldn't have to."

"I know," she said quietly. "It's getting better. He was drunk the other night, but I haven't heard from him since. It's fine. You don't have to take care of me."

A tightening gripped my chest. "I would take care of any of my friends, Monroe."

"You say that, but are we even friends?"

I Yanked my hand away from her like she was suddenly the sun that I was trying to hold on to. "What's that supposed to mean? Of course we are."

"I don't think we are, Cobb," she said, causing me to swallow hard.

"Why the fuck would that be, Monroe?"

She closed her eyes and sighed. "Nothing." Then she opened her eyes slowly. "It's nothing. I'm upset about something that I have no right to be upset about. We're fine."

The small distance between us was too much, so I took a large step toward her. If this was about sex last night… that, I couldn't undo. But I sure as fucking hell wanted to figure it out because at this point, I wanted Monroe in my life any way that I could have her.

Maybe one day both of us would be able to get our fucking lives in order and I could have her the way I desperately wanted to. Hell, at this point, I was almost willing to bring her into the shitstorm I was dealing with, even if I shouldn't.

It was selfish, but I guess I was a selfish bastard.

"What're you upset about?"

She looked away from me. "Nothing."

Using my index finger, I turned her head back toward me. "It's not nothing. I'd like to know," I told her much more gently than we had been speaking to each other. "I'll fix it if I can."

Our eyes locked as she warred with herself on whether to tell me or not, which already told me that it was about me or having to do with me. Thinking back to everything since I'd come off the road trip, nothing came to mind.

So I waited.

Finally, she sighed again and wrapped her arms under her breasts.

"I found out today that you have a baby mama and I don't know…" She shrugged and squeezed her arms tighter as my world tilted on its axis and my stomach dropped. It felt like I'd been punched in the chest. "It bothered me. Even though I know there's no reason for it to. We're not together, but I thought… as a friend, that would've been something you'd tell me."

And now I fucking needed to.