Cooper needs a sibling.
The thought seemed to come out of nowhere, but it was nothing new, really. Gabe and Logan were close, and while no one drove him crazier than Logan, there was also no one he’d rather have at his back. His son needed someone like that—someone who could tease him but who would also take care of him.
“Hey, don’t forget you’re picking Cooper up tonight from day care,” Gabe said.
“Yep, got it. What are you doing again?”
“Helping a couple of guys from the group bring some new tables to the community center.”
“The group” was the single parents support group Gabe attended regularly. They’d decided to donate new tables to the community center that allowed them to meet weekly for free.
The support group was like a second family, and Gabe had appreciated their support over the past three years he’d been attending. His mom and brother helped with Cooper, and he couldn’t imagine doing it without them, but the group made up of other single parents had given him a true “village.”
“Oh, will Dana be there?” Logan asked.
Gabe rolled his eyes. Logan had gone from excited over talking to Reagan to interested in what another woman was doing tonight. Typical.
“I keep telling you, she’s not your type,” Gabe said.
That was an understatement. The uptight single mom who’d lost her hero husband in Afghanistan was not the type to fool around with a playboy bartender who thought responsible babysitting meant no one bled. Of course, Logan only ever babysat Cooper, and Cooper’s only chance at bleeding was getting a paper cut from one of the pages in his books. Still, Logan would give the organized supermom a heart attack if he were around her kids. Or she’d kill him. Either way, Logan needed to stay away from Dana. Which Logan knew in the back of his mind. But it didn’t stop him from flirting at every family picnic. Dana’s cool reception to that flirting hadn’t slowed him down either.
“No,” Gabe said. “Just me, Caleb, and Austin.”
Gabe loved hearing the female side of single parenting. Women just had a different take on things. But he couldn’t deny that he felt a bond with the other guys who were also doing it alone.
“But you’ll see her Thursday at the meeting, right?” Logan asked.
Gabe sighed. “Yeah.”
“Tell her hi from me.”
Logan gave Gabe a grin that he’d seen a million times directed at women across the bar. But Gabe didn’t have breasts, and he did not find Logan charming.
“How about I just say, ‘Logan, this is never going to happen,’ right now and save us all some time?”
“She doesn’t say it’s never going to happen,” Logan said. “She says, ‘I don’t think so.’”
“That’s not the same thing?”
“Of course not.”
He should just let it go, Gabe knew, but he couldn’t help asking, “Why?”
“If someone asks if you’d like Brussels sprouts for dinner, what would you say?”
“Hell no.”
“Exactly.”
Gabe shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“When you don’t want something, you know it. And it’s easy to say no to it. When you’re not sure, or when you do want something but you don’t want to let on, you say things like ‘I don’t think so.’” Logan sat back with a grin. “Dana has never said no to me.”
“Not even a variation?” Gabe asked, not sure Logan was right.
Logan’s grin dropped. “If she had, I would have backed off.”
Yeah, okay, that was fair. They’d seen enough women getting unwanted attention and guys who didn’t know how to take a hint to respect that no meant no. “I’ll tell her hi for you,” Gabe said.
“Thanks.” And the grin was back.
Gabe finished off his coffee and mentally reviewed how to rearrange his day for the meeting he’d blown off. If that was three hours from now, it would put them at about eleven and . . .
Suddenly it hit him. Addison would probably still be at the office at eleven. She always caught the last plane out of New Orleans on Mondays, working all day at the firm when she was there.
He would get to see her again before she left.
His heart thudded far harder than was warranted even by the fact that she’d given him the best blow job in the history of blow jobs. A hard thud that probably meant he liked her for more than her blow jobs. A lot more.
He grinned, thinking about her surprise when she saw him walk into Monroe & LeBlanc. She was always the one to make the appearance at the tavern, on her own time line and terms, so he was the one to turn, see her, and feel his heart thump in a very not-just-a-fling way. Now it would be her turn. Maybe her reaction to seeing him unexpectedly would tell them both more about how she felt.
Gabe’s grin dropped away immediately. Did he want to know more about how she felt? What did he want her to feel, exactly? And why would it matter? She fricking lived in New York. Even if she were head over heels, it wouldn’t matter. He was not in the market for a long-distance relationship.
Even if what he had going with Addison felt like he was already in one.
Okay, he hadn’t been interested in going out with—or even fooling around with—any other women since meeting her. Okay, he thought about her way more often than he should. And okay, he really fucking wanted to send her flowers. But he did not want to be involved with a woman who lived more than a thousand miles away and was in town only once a month.
It could only be a fling with the miles and time between them. They couldn’t get more serious than that. Because with his business and his son, he couldn’t make regular trips to New York, and he wouldn’t introduce Cooper to a woman he’d see only every thirty days at most. Addison didn’t even know he had a son. Because that part of Gabe’s life wasn’t a part of whatever he and Addison were doing. Hell, nothing about his life was really a part of whatever he and Addison were doing.
Besides, Cooper was only five. If he got attached to Addison but didn’t have her in his life on a regular basis, it would be confusing.
And frankly, if Addison was only in town for a little more than forty-eight hours each time, Gabe wasn’t sure how much of that time he wanted to share with anyone else. Even Cooper. Which probably made Gabe a bad father and an asshole. So it was better not to go there.
“Reagan didn’t answer,” Logan said a moment later. “So you might need to start putting together a list, after all.”
Gabe nodded. That was good. He needed something to do. Something other than thinking about Addison and how she might react to seeing him at the architecture offices and how he wanted her to react to seeing him.
“Did you leave Reagan a message?” Gabe asked.
Logan ducked his head. “Yeah.” He looked almost . . .embarrassed.
Gabe grinned. “What did you say?” He knew Logan had put his foot in his mouth.
“Doesn’t matter.”
Oh, yes, it did. But Gabe would just ask Reagan. She really didn’t understand why Logan acted like a dipshit around her. She thought he was like that with all women. Which was hilarious considering Logan was a well-known charmer and ladies’ man.
“Okay, I’ll get the list done,” he said, pushing away from the counter and heading for the back office. He’d get right on it.
As soon as he sent Addison some flowers. Without analyzing why he was sending them. And he was only writing, See you soon, Gabe on the card. Nothing frilly, nothing romantic, and nothing about blow jobs.
* * *
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About the Author
Erin Nicholas is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty sexy contemporary romances. Her stories have been described as toe-curling, enchanting, steamy and fun. She loves to write about reluctant heroes, imper
fect heroines and happily ever afters. She lives in the Midwest with her husband who only wants to read the sex scenes in her books, her kids who will never read the sex scenes in her books, and family and friends who say they’re shocked by the sex scenes in her books (yeah, right!).
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