Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(17)

“For what?”

“For having my mom help raise my son.”

She shook her head. “Of course not. Everyone needs to do what they need to do. I’m the opposite—I don’t want anyone else involved. I think I can make the best decisions for Stella, and so I don’t make it a group project. But you have to do what you have to do.”

“So you don’t think I can raise Cooper by myself?” Gabe asked.

Addison raised her eyebrows. Wow, he’d been quick to jump to that. “I don’t think I really know you well enough to say that one way or another. And it doesn’t matter what I think.”

Again, he just watched her for a few ticks before saying, “What if I told you that it does matter what you think?”

Okay, that was a really good reason to get the hell out of here now. She didn’t want his opinion on how she was parenting, and he shouldn’t want hers. That went way beyond the weekend-hookup thing they’d had going. She reached down and grabbed her purse from the sidewalk at her feet. “I would say that you don’t know me well enough to care what I think about your relationship with your son,” she told him. “And if I didn’t know we were at the flower-sending stage, I definitely don’t think we’re at the stage where we give each other opinions about our personal choices.”

He shifted forward and wrapped a big hand around her wrist. “Addison, don’t go.”

“I have to.”

“And I’m not going to see you at Trahan’s again, am I?”

She shook her head, feeling tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Wow. She didn’t miss Stella’s dad even after having a true relationship with him and raising a daughter—at least for a couple of years—together. But she’d been with Gabe for only a few hours, really, and she knew she was going to feel his absence from her life acutely. She pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry I kept coming by. I shouldn’t have done that.”

He gave her a long, intense stare and said, “Okay, I get it. But please, no matter what else, don’t be sorry for that.”

She sucked in a little breath. Then gave him a nod. Then, on impulse, she bent and kissed his cheek before straightening and walking away without looking back.



Gabe watched Cooper scoop mashed potatoes into his mouth and wondered if Addison made Stella mashed potatoes. And how did the little girl feel about fried chicken? Did Addison know how to make fried chicken? Did Stella eat green beans? He knew a lot of kids were picky about vegetables. Unlike Cooper. Cooper ate anything and everything.

“Wow, who pissed in your gravy?” Logan asked Gabe, kicking the chair out next to him at their mother’s dining room table and settling into it with his own plate of chicken, potatoes, and beans.

Gabe tried to relax his expression. He didn’t realize he’d been broadcasting the irritation he was feeling with all thoughts of Addison today. But it had been a week since she’d told him she wanted to end things, and he couldn’t get her out of his mind. Damn the woman. She’d always teased his thoughts when they were apart, but now . . . she was a mom. She had a little girl Cooper’s age. Her ex was completely out of the picture. And he’d thought she’d been damned near perfect before finding all of that out.

“Language, bro,” Gabe said to Logan, for all the good it would do.

Logan laughed and looked across the table at his nephew. “Hey, Coop?”

Cooper looked up, his eyes the same coffee brown as his uncle’s rather than the light-blue of his dad’s. “What?”

“Don’t say pissed, okay? It’s not nice.”

“Okay,” Cooper told him.

Logan grinned at Gabe. “There. All fixed.”

Gabe sighed. “You can’t just watch your language around him?”

Logan bit into his chicken. “Apparently not,” he said around the mouthful.

“Hey, Coop?” Gabe asked.

“Yeah?”

“Just don’t do anything Uncle Logan does, okay?”

Cooper looked at Logan. “Don’t do anything you do?” he asked.

“I guess,” Logan said as if he wasn’t sure what Gabe was talking about.

“What stuff do you do besides bad words?” Cooper wanted to know.

“Oh, well, there’s a long list,” Logan said.

“Logan,” Gabe said warningly.

“No, I got this,” Logan said, setting down his chicken and wiping his hands on his napkin as he addressed Cooper. “I make my bed every morning, I eat lots of fruit, I exercise, I get all my work done, and I’m always helpful to Grandma. So I guess your dad wants you to stop doing all those things, okay?”

Cooper frowned. “Really?”

Gabe ran a hand through his hair. Were all five-year-olds this literal? “No,” Gabe inserted. “Not really.”

“Uncle Logan doesn’t do those things really?” Cooper asked.

Gabe sighed. “Well, yes, he does do those things.”

“But you said I should not do anything he does.”

Gabe nodded. “I know. I was being funny.”

Cooper blinked at him. “I don’t get it.”

Logan laughed and dug into his potatoes. “He doesn’t want you to do the bad things I do,” he said. “I was just pointing out that I do lots of good things, too.”