Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(27)
Her heart fluttering, Addison looked back at Gabe to find him staring right at her.
“Well, good for you,” Roxanne said. “So what’s the problem?”
“Her,” he said, still looking at Addison. “She’s intimidated by the fact that I have a kid.”
“She’s not intimidated,” Addison blurted out. Then realized that she’d just made a potentially huge mistake. She glanced around. “I mean, are you sure that’s what she’s feeling? Is that what she said?” Because it was definitely not what she’d said. “You’re assuming she’s scared of the idea of a kid, but maybe that’s not really it.” She would not label her feelings as scared, exactly. Exhausted, stressed, and overwhelmed were much better descriptors.
“Okay, maybe that’s not the right word,” Gabe conceded. “But she broke things off when she found out about Cooper.”
“Oh man,” Roxanne said sympathetically.
“Wow. That sucks,” Austin agreed.
“Well, honey, Cooper is a part of your life, and if she feels that way, you’re better off,” Bea said gently.
Addison nodded. Yeah, he was better off without her. But damn, her chest suddenly felt tight.
“Maybe,” Gabe said with a slow nod. “I mean, I get that’s how it seems. But I can’t stop thinking about her.”
His eyes were on Addison’s again, and she was having trouble swallowing.
“I want to be with her. And I just want her to give Cooper a chance.”
“Maybe you’re taking it too personally,” Addison said, again before thinking about the fact that she should just stop talking.
Gabe sat up straight, his expression one of disbelief. “I’m taking it too personally that the woman I’ve been dating—”
“You’ve seen her once a month for six months. That’s like, what, twelve days?” Addison interrupted. “You consider that dating?”
Everyone else stayed quiet. Addison didn’t look around to see their expressions—because she couldn’t stop looking at Gabe. And, interestingly, at the moment she didn’t care what everyone else thought of this.
“We’ve spent a lot of time in bed,” Gabe said, his gaze intense. “A lot of time. But we’ve also gone out and had fun and laughed and talked. If it had only been sex, I might have agreed with you. But it was more than that.”
He emphasized the word more, and Addison felt the butterflies take another swoop around her stomach. She cleared her throat. “But if she didn’t even know about Cooper until recently, how much did you really talk? How much do you really know about her?”
“You just told her about Cooper?” Caleb asked.
But Gabe ignored him. He answered Addison instead. “I was thinking about that, actually,” he said. “About how we didn’t share a lot of personal details. But the thing is—I do know her.”
He said it with confidence, and Addison had to admit she was curious about how he thought he knew her.
“She’s super organized,” Gabe went on. “She always has wet wipes and lip balm and pens and Band-Aids and stuff in her purse. But she also loves to be surprised. When I tell her I thought of a new place to take her and won’t give her any details until we get there, she gets this look in her eyes that makes me want to give her surprises every day forever. It’s like she has to be so on top of things and organized all the time that when she has the chance to let someone else come up with a plan, she’s all in.”
Addison felt the air whoosh out of her lungs, and she stared at him. Because that was exactly how she felt when she was with him.
“But she loves to surprise me, too,” he went on. “Sometimes it’s with sexy lingerie or edible body lotion.”
His eyes heated, and Addison could feel it even across the few feet that separated them. Her body responded to it, too. As always. In spite of the group of people gathered around them.
“But sometimes it’s with food from New York that she knows I’ve never had, or an I LOVE NY shirt just because it made her laugh to think of me wearing it, or it’s by getting up and singing karaoke in a bar we happen to be passing.”
Addison knew she shouldn’t be staring at him. If anyone in the group was even the least bit insightful, they would be able to figure out that there was something going on with Gabe and her. But she couldn’t look away.
“And I think she likes doing all of that because she doesn’t feel like she can be spontaneous in her regular life. She has to be on and prepared and in charge all the time. But with me, she can let down a little bit, and she’s discovered how fun it can be to make another person smile just for the sake of making them smile. Because you care about them. Because, yeah, the edible body lotion might just seem like it’s about sex, but it happened to be my favorite flavor. Which she discovered by spending time with me outside of the bedroom. And the karaoke might just seem like a fun thing to do on a whim, but she chose my favorite song, which she knew because I told her in passing when we heard it on the radio. But she remembered. And it was almost like she wanted me to think of her when I hear it now.”
Gabe finally stopped and took a deep breath.
“So I guess what I’m saying is that I think she cares about me and what’s going on with us more than she’s admitting, even to herself, and yeah, I think I know her. I know that she has a very put-together side that keeps things running in her life, but that she likes to let go of it a little from time to time and that she feels like she can do that with me. And I wish she’d trust me that just because Cooper might not be something she was expecting, it could turn out to be like one of those surprise dates I take her on—fun and sweet and something that would bring us closer together.”