Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(66)

He loved Addison. He loved that she was a mom. He loved her daughter.

But in comparison, he was fucking things up, and frankly, at the moment, he didn’t need that reminder.

“Okay, Stell Bell,” Addison said. “How about you and Cooper clean up all the markers and stuff, and then brush your teeth?”

“Already?” Stella protested. “But we’re not done.”

And he was tearing his son away from his friend. The one person who had been there for him, who he felt he could tell about what had happened, the person who made him feel brave.

Fuck.

Gabe jammed a hand through his hair and got to his feet. He loved Stella, and the things she’d done for Cooper made her one of his favorite people. But he couldn’t handle this right now. He couldn’t look at her brave, happy face, knowing that she would have never gotten stuck in a fucking closet at day care. No way would Stella have put up with that. And he hated the idea that he might sit here and not only compare himself to Addison but compare Cooper to Stella.

He started for the door. “I’ll be right downstairs, Coop,” he said. He just needed a little space for a second. “Help Stella clean up and come on down.”

“Okay, Dad.”

He got to the doorway before Cooper asked, “Are you coming for lunch tomorrow?”

Gabe swallowed hard before he turned back. “Absolutely.” He was going to have this talk with Miss Linda tomorrow. He had no fucking idea what he was going to say, but yeah, this shit with Cooper and these kids was ending now.

Gabe got to the living room and was headed for the kitchen before he heard, “What the hell was that, Gabe?”

Swearing under his breath, he turned to find Addison striding toward him. Of course. He knew that she’d follow. That didn’t mean he had any clue what to say to her.

“That was me being Cooper’s dad,” he responded.

Addison stopped about ten feet away and crossed her arms. “I see. And you thought I was overstepping?”

He sighed. “No. Not exactly.”

“But you don’t want me involved with this. You don’t want me going to talk to Miss Linda,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Gabe just looked at her for a long moment. She was so damned beautiful. Not just the hair and the eyes and the body—that body that he could lose himself in for days—but all of her. Her confidence, her passion for her work, her intelligence and humor and sweetness under the kick-ass-ness. And there was the way she looked at Stella, the way she looked at him, the way she looked at Cooper—all of that took his breath away. He could so easily fall into this woman and give it all up to her. And that wouldn’t be the worst thing. At all. It would be good for Cooper. It would be good for him. But it would be the easy way out, and ironically, over the last several weeks with her, he wanted more and more to be the father who truly stepped up and made his kid’s life better and was all in on everything. Addison had made it clear that she hadn’t wanted motherhood, yet when it happened, she’d owned it and worked her ass off and was amazing at it.

Gabe felt his throat tightening. It would be so fucking easy to just let her do it, to just turn it over, to just invite her in for all of it. He wanted that so badly. He’d wanted it since he’d first found out about Stella.

But why did he want it? Because he wanted to parent with her or because she would parent for him?

He knew he wasn’t being totally rational, but he couldn’t stop the thoughts and emotions rolling through him. He would love to stop the thoughts and emotions. They felt like they were rolling over him, like a steamroller, squeezing everything out of him—his own confidence in his parenting, and satisfaction with his life, and pride in how Cooper was turning out. None of that was him. Not really. Not fully. Sure, he loved Cooper, and he knew his son knew that. He made Cooper feel secure and loved and valued. But Cooper hadn’t felt like he could come to Gabe with what had happened. Gabe hadn’t even noticed something was going on.

How could he be proud of that? His mother did most of the actual work.

Gabe had no right to feel satisfied with how things were or confident in the job he was doing.

“I do want you to go talk to Miss Linda,” Gabe finally said. “I want it so much I can taste it.”

She frowned. “Then let me do it. I promise that I’ll—”

He didn’t need to hear the rest. He knew that she would do anything and everything that needed done. No question about it.

“I have to do this, Ad. This is my responsibility. He’s my son.”

She flinched slightly, and Gabe cursed. That had sounded worse than he’d meant it. “Ad, I—”

“No, I get it,” she interrupted. “And you’re right. He’s your son. And you should do it.”

“I just . . . need to. I feel like absolute hell right now. I had no idea anything was going on.” He ran a hand over his face. “How the fuck could I not know?”

“I didn’t know. None of us did.”

“But I should have. God, if he can’t tell me things . . .” Gabe forced himself to breathe. “I need him to be able to tell me things.”

“He wasn’t alone, Gabe,” Addison said. “He had Stella.”

He knew she meant that to be reassuring, but that did nothing to help his emotions. “Great. He had a five-year-old girl who he just met who’s not even at that day care comforting him,” Gabe said. “Someone who decided that the solution was to start carrying around flashlights everywhere he went.”