Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(69)

But they had to go, didn’t they? If he was going to do this, really do it, he needed his crutches gone. That definitely included Addison. God, he wanted to lean on her. And he didn’t know how long it would take him to get his shit together. A very long time, probably. Considering he wasn’t sure he’d ever had his shit completely together. At least as a dad.

“Bye, Gabe,” Stella said with a sweet smile.

This little girl was his son’s best friend. The person who’d been there for him. Who he’d told his secrets to. Gabe was grateful and jealous at the same time. “Bye, sweetheart.”

He gave Addison a last, lingering look as Cooper went through the door. He could tell by Addison’s expression that she didn’t want him to go but that she understood. At least, kind of. She maybe didn’t agree with his decision to go it totally alone, but she was going to let him do it.

Because that was how she did things with Stella, too. She let her daughter explore and try things. But she was always right there in case Stella needed her.

Would she be there for Gabe if things went to hell? And would she still be there when he finally figured his shit out? He hoped so.





Chapter Eleven

“So you moved out and are living in the apartment over the bar?” Caleb asked Gabe.

They were at the support-group meeting. It had been almost a week since Addison had left him standing in the middle of his mother’s living room looking torn up and lost.

That had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. Almost everything in her had screamed at her to stay and help him. Actually, leaving while knowing that Cooper had been having a hard time had been just as difficult. She wanted to march down to that day care and yell at Miss Linda. And then shake the stuffing out of the kids who had been picking on Cooper. In fact, she’d had to talk herself out of doing just that. Twice.

But this was Gabe’s fight. Or so he believed. And he wanted to handle it.

Apparently, he’d done just that the very next morning.

Addison had never been more grateful for the support group than she was that Thursday. She’d been holding her breath to see if Gabe would show up. He’d walked in a few minutes late, and she’d been amazed by the rush of relief and love she’d felt when she’d seen him.

He looked like hell. His eyes were bloodshot, his shirt was wrinkled, and he’d been drinking coffee nonstop since coming through the door. And the group noticed. And made him talk.

“It was the easiest thing,” he said. “We needed to get out on our own, and we could move right into the apartment.”

“So Logan’s at your mom’s?” Austin asked.

“Yeah, we swapped. For now. I just wanted to get Cooper on my own so we can spend some real quality time together and I can assure him that I’m the one who’s there for him. I’ll have to get a place for us eventually, though. You can’t raise a kid above a bar, right?” He looked around the group, but his eyes skipped right over Addison.

She felt a little twinge in her heart at that. She wanted to be the one he specifically looked at. The one whose opinion mattered most. But he’d been avoiding looking at her, and Addison understood. It was painful. Painful sitting there and not going to him, wrapping her arms around him, and just holding him. She also sensed that it was painful for him to not ask for that. She really thought he wanted to, though. But not leaning on her was what he needed. Or what he thought he needed. To do it alone. To not need her or anyone else.

It was an overreaction. And she was hoping someone here would tell him that. But she had to let him do this. Just like when Stella wanted to climb to the top of the equipment at the playground. Addison had to let her try it and realize on her own that either it was too tall, it was scary that far off the ground, or that it was fine and she could get to the top on her own. Stella knew that all she had to do was ask Addison for help getting back down. She could only hope Gabe knew the same thing.

“How’s your mom taking it?” Bea, the grandmother in the group, asked.

Addison smiled at that. The group couldn’t be doing better if she’d planted the questions with them herself. She also wanted to know how Caroline was. And how Cooper was. She was grateful to know that the “meeting” with Miss Linda had gone well. The woman had been appalled and assured Gabe that she would not only be paying very close attention but that she would be talking with the kids and their parents. Addison also loved knowing that Gabe hadn’t stopped there but had gone to Linda’s supervisor as well, and that Linda was going to be facing some disciplinary measures for leaving the class unattended during quiet time.

Addison ground her teeth together and fidgeted on her chair. She had a million other questions, too, but she was hoping the group would get around to them all.

“She’s okay,” Gabe said of his mother. “Concerned about Cooper, of course. But we went over for dinner last night.” He sighed. “Haven’t expanded my culinary skills much since we’ve been living with her.”

He smiled as he said it, but Addison could tell he also felt chagrined by that truth, and again Addison wanted someone to tell him that he was being too hard on himself. So he could only make a few things for dinner. That was hardly the mark of a bad parent. Cooper just needed Gabe to love him. Period.

But that thought pricked at the back of her mind. Wasn’t she just as hard on herself? Making sure she always had the four food groups in Stella’s lunch, because if she missed one serving of dairy, Addison wasn’t doing her job? Making sure that she found new ways to make the three vegetables that Stella would eat and getting creative with sneaking other veggies into things because that was what good parenting looked like?