Page 124 of Power Move

“You do not know Eva, Joe. Eva could fight me over whether the sky is blue any given day.”

“Then why stay with her? You don’t have to,” Joe said.

“Because I love her.”

“Love her?” Carlos slapped his knee.

“Fuck, man! You barelyknowher,” Joe added. “Whoareyou?”

“I dunno. She drives me crazy, but when I finally get her number and think I have her all to myself, it’s glorious. Then, she pulls away. Why the fuck won’t she just say it back? It’s got to be some sort of sick power move, right?”

“Nah,” Carlos sighed. “You’re just too fresh in it and it sounds like your girl is a little scared. She’s fine. She will come around. When I worry about my wife fighting me on something for an eternity, I know it’s best to drop the rope—especially with the kids.”

“That must take a lot of self-control—something I lack,” I sighed. “I panic and fly off the handle. She’s not like any other woman I’ve been with. I cannot outsmart or outargue her. I cannot buy her off, either. She wants an all-out grovel and even my best doesn’t seem like enough most days.”

“I don’t understand this woman. Doesn’t shewantto have an easy life?” Joe asked.

“She doesn’t want to sit around eating bon-bons. She slept on my office couch part of Friday night so she could manage a tech thing with her team—and so our CISO could go home to her young children. She is the most motivated person I know—like Daphne. You know what is BS? Eva got the birth announcement from Cal and not me.”

“You haven’t laid hands on him lately?” Joe teased.

I glared. “Of course not!”

Joe shook his head. “I don’t get her. She should realize how lucky she is that you even want to try to make it work. I know I wouldn’t.”

Carlos butted in. “That would make you look like a dick. Look man, I see two people who were thrown into a situation Joe and I had time to adjust to. I don’t see an ungrateful person not getting howluckyshe is. I got told that shit all the time when I went to college, you know? Oh, aren’t you soluckyto have made it? Yeah, well, I still don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I do know those people only see me as an outsider and don’t value me. Davey, she’s not like you. She’s adjusting to all of this. And you? You’re barely out of your fuck up era.”

“My fuck up era? You mean like the one where I had a random hookup with a beautiful girl at a bar and got her pregnant?” I sighed. “With twins, no less? Or the one where I accidentally fucked my sister’s direct report and knocked her up with twins?”

“Both. But you’re trying,” Carlos said. “It will work out. Those kids are yours. If she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t even bother sticking around. Like you said, she doesn’t want or need your money. She’s with you, foryou.”

34.BABY ON THE BRAIN

Eva

“He’s very busy,”a saleswoman remarked.

I observed Davey as he paced on the phone outside an incredibly posh shop in a Naperville strip mall. It was almost cartoonish watching a man in a $15,000 Italian suit and $10,000 British-made overcoat pacing on the side of a strip mall in a suburban hellscape. More ridiculous were the women in yoga pants passing, doing a double take, and having himnotrespond in the least. The only bit of this that made sense was that his G-Wagon was sandwiched in a line of Range Rovers.

“Yeah. It’s just business. He’s not being rude,” I said. “This washisidea.”

It had to do with a real estate deal in New York.

“Dads are always too busy, you know?” She said, chipper.

I handed her a line of clothes that fit god-awful and exchanged them for a handful that could accommodate my massive boobs and wouldn’t give me awful camel toe. Everything was stretchy and pulled in places it shouldn’t.

“These are good. These aren’t,” I gestured.

She took the failures and hung them on a garment rack. “Well, should we pull some more clothes?”

“I need something more work professional,” I said. “I often dress a little down, but there are days I meet with the board or entire c-suite where I need something smart.”

“Most women use pregnancy as a time to slow down and lean into comfort. You’re one of those high-profile women?” Her tone suggested that wasnota compliment.

“I don’t know about that.” I glanced at Davey outside. “But my CEO is a pain in the ass. Thankfully, I don’t think he gives a shit about my wardrobe. Still, I’d like to feel more me, ya know?”

“We have some work dresses that are a little more formal,” she agreed.