Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(18)

“What bad things do you do?” Cooper wanted to know.

“I drink beer and say bad words and kiss lots of girls,” Logan told him. He took a forkful of beans.

“Kissing girls is bad?” Cooper asked.

Logan shot Gabe a grin. “Well . . .”

“How come people get married if kissing girls is bad?” Cooper wanted to know, setting his fork down.

Great. Not only a sticky conversation, but now dinner was going to take forever.

Gabe barely resisted punching his brother in the arm. “Kissing girls is not bad,” Gabe said. And in spite of the fact that he’d kissed literally hundreds of girls in his life, the only one to flash through his mind at that moment was Addison. He gritted his teeth, then worked to unlock his jaw. “Kissing girls is actually really nice.”

“Really nice,” Logan felt the need to add.

Gabe kicked him under the table. “But you should only kiss girls when you care about them. Uncle Logan sometimes kisses girls just for fun.”

“But kissing is fun?” Cooper asked.

Gabe always tried very hard to be totally honest and open with his son. He wanted Cooper to ask him questions and expect honest answers. But he was five. And no way in hell was Gabe giving Cooper any kind of sex ed with Logan sitting right there.

“Kissing girls is very fun,” Gabe said honestly.

“So I can do that? And make my bed and exercise and do my work?” Cooper asked.

“Yes,” Gabe said. “You can definitely make your bed and exercise and do all your work.”

“But what about kissing?” Logan pressed with a shit-eating grin. “Can he do that?”

“Of course,” Gabe said. He leveled a look at Cooper. “When you’re older.” The last thing he needed was a call from day care that his son had suddenly turned into a ladies’ man.

“How much older?” Logan asked. “Like, how old were you when you first kissed a girl?” He took a bite of potatoes and chewed nonchalantly as he watched Gabe.

Gabe narrowed his eyes. Logan knew very well that Gabe had first kissed a girl when he was ten. Her name had been Jenny and she’d initiated it and she’d been the one to tell everyone about it afterward. Including her older brother, who had given Gabe his first black eye and his first lesson in you-don’t-mess-with-your-friends’-little-sisters.

Honestly, these were the moments when Gabe would agree with Addison—raising a kid would be easier alone in many ways.

“What is going on in here?”

Gabe looked up as his mother came into the room from the kitchen with a basket of rolls in hand. And he amended his thought to “Raising a kid would be easier without his brother helping.” Because honest to God, he had no idea what he’d do without his mother helping with Cooper. He loved his son with everything in him. He’d do absolutely anything to ensure Cooper’s health and happiness. And he’d realized very early on that making Cooper’s life steady and safe and happy meant moving back in with his mother and ignoring the stigma around that and dealing with the ways that was inconvenient and trying at times.

“Gabe’s just telling Cooper how fun kissing girls can be,” Logan said with a tattletale tone.

“We’re talking about kissing?” Caroline Trahan asked as she set the rolls down and gave Gabe a questioning look.

“Logan started it,” Gabe returned.

Caroline rolled her eyes and looked at her grandson. “What were they saying?”

“That I should make my bed, do my work, exercise, and kiss girls,” Cooper reported. “Oh, and not drink beer or say bad words.”

Gabe opened his mouth, then realized that Cooper had actually summed it up pretty well.

Caroline shook her head and took her seat. “Well, I guess that’s not a bad list.”

“It’s okay with you if I kiss girls?” Cooper asked, picking his fork up again.

“Of course,” Caroline said easily, reaching for the bowl of green beans. “When you’re older, and if they want you to, and if you really care about them.”

Cooper chewed a bit for a moment, then asked his uncle, “Do the girls you kiss want you to?”

Logan kept a straight face and nodded solemnly. “Yes. Yes, they do.”

“And do you care about them?”

Gabe coughed, and Logan gave him the finger by running his middle digit up and down the side of his face away from their mother’s line of sight.

“I like them all very much,” Logan said.

“And you’re old,” Cooper informed him. “So it’s okay if you kiss them. You shouldn’t put that on the list with drinking beer and saying bad words.”

Logan nodded, again without cracking a smile. “You know what? You’re absolutely right, Coop. Kissing girls should totally go on the other list. The one with my bed and exercise.”

Gabe kicked him again. There was no way Cooper would get Logan’s insinuation, but Logan deserved the kick anyway.

“And have you noticed how happy your dad’s been lately?” Logan asked, shifting away from the reach of Gabe’s foot. “I think it’s because he’s making his bed and exercising more.”

Gabe sighed. Cooper wouldn’t notice the tone that made “making his bed and exercising” sound like something else altogether, but Caroline did. She shot Gabe a look.