coffee on lexington avenue | phillipa soo

twenty-seven

"Alright. What do you want, Evangeline?" I say to Evie beside me on our bed, who had looked up from her iPad and her medical books, and had begun instead, to shift her focus on me. Though I'm not looking at her, I could feel it, her unwavering gaze on me, already making my cheeks feel a little warm.

She laughs. "Nothing. I'm not doing anything."

"I can feel you staring at me you know," I say, rolling my eyes. "You're not being very subtle."

"Fine— but I wasn't trying to be subtle," says Evie, and though I can't see her face, I hear the smirk in her voice. "Ive been trying to get your attention for the past twenty minutes, Red."

"Well, quit it." I say, feigning annoyance, though I think she and I both knew how I loved feeling her gaze on me. I tended to feel deathly anxious whenever I felt anybody staring at me for too long, but with Evie— there was never anything less than love in her eyes when she did just that, never a trace of judgment. Instead, she made me feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. It didnt change though, how much it still made me blush to this day.

"No," She says simply, clearly amused still by how hard I was blushing. "I'm just claiming my right for attention." I feel her snuggling up closer to me on the bed now, shifting so she could lean down, rest her chin against my shoulder, her arms drifting to wrap around my waist, hands landing gently over my belly, where I could feel the baby was still stirring lightly.

Still, I refuse to look up from my One True Loves script, intent on reviewing it again after months of leaving it untouched, being too anxious to do much of any work. Besides, the final zoom auditions were coming up, and I wanted to do well.

I'd already started mapping my life out around this role. Filming would start well after I've had the baby, though I haven't quite figured out how I would manage taking care of them since production would be far in North Carolina. Maybe I would even get to go back to doing Camelot before filming starts.

I haven't even told Evie filming wouldn't be in the city yet— I don't know how she would take it, knowing that if I got this role, that would mean we would have to be apart for a good month or so. I especially haven't told her that I was thinking about going back into Camelot, knowing that would mean being around Andrew again.

By then, Evie had altered her tactics at getting my attention, shifting herself to sit in front of me now to speak to my belly instead, knowing full well how her voice made the baby kick and move fervently, always responding to their mama, making my focus on my work waver.

Evie was now going on and on to the baby about how I had refused to pay attention to her this entire weekend because I'd been repeatedly reciting and going over my One True Loves lines, occasionally looking up at me to see if I was paying attention.

I shake my head at her, fighting a laugh at the sheer dramatics she was putting into this. "Go back to studying, honey. Come on. Shut up. Enough of that big mouth. Let the little one rest."

"She's so happy to hear my voice though— do you feel how hard she's kicking?" Evie says, grinning up at me, so happy and so cute that my heart skips a beat. She continues speaking to the baby then, "If only your mommy was just as happy to hear my voice as you, little one," She says, sighing dramatically. "But noooo, it's always, shut that big mouth up, Evangeline." She went on, mocking me.

I laugh. "Leave me alone," I say, though by then I was just teasing her, barely being able to read the lines on the page anymore. It was harder to focus now, and even harder to fight a smile as the baby kicked me right where Evie's hand was resting. "Come on. I need to review this—"