Going Down Easy (Boys of the Big Easy #1)(74)

“She’s coming over here tonight?” Gabe felt his heart bang against his rib cage. God, he wanted to see her so badly. He needed to see her. If showing her his shortcomings and sharing his struggle was the right way to go—and he really wanted to trust Caleb on this—then he was ready and so fucking relieved he almost couldn’t breathe.

“She’s not,” Caleb said. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a ten-dollar bill that he tossed onto the bar.

Gabe picked it up and handed it back to him. “You think I should go over to her?”

“I think you should go home.”

“Home.” He wasn’t sure where that was. He was living in the apartment upstairs with Cooper right now. But it wasn’t home. And strangely, in spite of growing up there and living there for the past five years, his mom’s house wasn’t home, either.

Addison was home. Addison and Stella and Cooper. Wherever they were was home.

Caleb must have read something on his face. “Where’s Coop right now?”

“My mom’s.”

“Go.”

Gabe looked around the bar. There were only a few other patrons, and he could comp their meal and drink tabs and close up. Easily. “Okay.”

Caleb looked pleased. “This shit isn’t for the faint of heart, man.”



Addison heard the front door open and shut and then Gabe’s voice calling, “Coop? Mom?”

Everything in her strained to go running to him. She’d been worried, kind of, when he hadn’t come to the support-group meeting last night. But she knew that nothing bad had happened. Caroline had been texting her periodically, keeping her updated on things with Gabe and Cooper. She knew that Cooper had fully recovered from the closet incident and that they were over for dinner at least three times a week. She knew that Gabe looked like hell but that he was doing a great job with Cooper. She also knew that Cooper was asking about her and Stella.

So when Addison had called Caroline last night and asked if she’d seen Gabe, Caroline had assured her he was fine and had then asked Stella and her over for dinner, explaining that Cooper would be there while Gabe worked.

The thought of Gabe at Trahan’s had sent a hot streak of desire through her that had almost buckled her knees. She had been so tempted to drop Stella off and then head to the bar, grab Gabe, and take him straight upstairs.

Maybe for an hour or two they could just go back to where they’d started. If that was all he was able to give, she’d take it. Because she had to have something. It was pathetic and totally unlike her, and in another life, at another time, before New Orleans and the Trahans and swamp-boat tours, she would have been annoyed with herself. But she wasn’t. She needed Gabe in her life somehow.

But this time that apartment would have kids’ toys and books and clothes in it. This time it would actually be where he was living. With his son.

And she wasn’t sure she could handle that, actually.

There was no way to go back to what they’d had before. And, ironically, Gabe as a dad was something she wanted more than anything.

So she’d come to Caroline’s for dinner and had actually been surprised when something suddenly “came up” for Caroline and she had to go out, and wondered if Addison could watch Cooper for a little bit. Well, she’d been surprised for about thirty seconds. Then she’d realized that Caroline was leaving her and the kids here for when Gabe got home. And she loved Gabe’s mother even more than she had before.

Gabe came around the corner from the foyer, his head bent over his phone, likely texting his mother, wondering where she was and why her car was gone.

Addison took in his appearance in the seconds before he noticed her. His hair looked like he’d been running his hand through it repeatedly. He had dark circles under his eyes, he had stubble that was at least a day old on his face, and his button-down shirt was half-untucked. He was no longer the bright-eyed, confident, laid-back, fun dad. This guy was exhausted. Now he looked like a dad who was doing it all.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever been more attracted to him.

“Hey,” she said softly.

He looked up at her with a combination of shock, then pleasure. Through clear, bone-deep tiredness. “Hey.”

“Your mom had to go out. I’m not sure where or for how long, but I told her it was fine. I’m just here for the cuddles.”

“Cooper needed cuddles?” he asked, his gaze landing on his son, who was tucked up against her side, his eyes glued to the television.

“No. I did,” Addison told him with a smile.

Gabe’s eyes found Stella where she was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor, markers and paper spread around her in a rainbow of choices, dividing her attention between the TV and her art project. “How’s everyone else?”

“We’re good.” Addison waited until he looked back to her. “A little lonely, and worried about some people we really care about, but good.”

Something flashed in his eyes. Something that looked a lot like wistfulness.

“Have you guys eaten?” he asked.

“No. Strangely, she had nothing ready when she got called out.” Addison said it drily and even got a little smile from him for it.

“Then I’ll go start dinner. Do you want to stay?”

She would gladly cook for him. Or order pizza. Or starve. Rather than making him drag his clearly weary ass into the kitchen to take care of them. But she knew this was what he wanted. She gave him a smile. “That would be great.”