Taking It Easy: Boys of the Big Easy book two

by Erin Nicholas

  “Girls! Logan is here!” She heard the thundering of little feet overhead and smiled as she headed for the door.

  The girls were thrilled with the idea of having a baby, and they couldn’t wait to meet Logan and tell him everything they knew about babies and parenthood. She could hardly wait to hear this.

  She smiled as she made her way to the door. Fun. This could be fun. And her girls deserved it. Dana wasn’t opposed to it—she just wasn’t that good at it. But Logan definitely was and honestly, as long as she remembered that that was his role here and she didn’t start leaning on him too much, she’d be fine.

  “We’re ready!”

  Chloe and Grace ran down the stairs, stopping three steps up from the bottom, gripping the handrail and peering through the spindles at the front door.

  Chloe was in blue leggings and a white top with blue flowers. Her blond-brown hair was down, curling around her sweet face with the big eyes that reminded Dana of Chad every time she looked into them. Grace was in a black T-shirt dress with black leggings. Her darker hair, the color of Dana’s, was pulled into a ponytail.

  “Okay, here we go,” Dana told them with a smile. She grabbed the doorknob and pulled the heavy front door open. “Hi, I—”

  Her smile died as she took in the small crowd of people gathered on her front steps. Logan was at the front, grinning. Right behind him was Gabe, with Addison’s hand in his. His mother, Caroline, stood to the side. Stella and Cooper were right in front of Logan.

  “Hi, Dana!” six-year-old Stella said brightly. “We brought balloons!”

  And they certainly had. Every single person in the group held at least three large, brightly colored helium balloons. Some were simple, single-colored orbs. But others were shiny mylar and said things like Congratulations! and Party time! There was also one that said It’s a boy! and another that read It’s a girl!

  “Wow, I guess you did,” Dana said, finally recovering.

  “And cupcakes!” Cooper told her, pointing at the container his grandmother held.

  Caroline lifted the box slightly with a smile. “Pink and blue.”

  Dana shook her head. “Wow.”

  “Cupcakes?” Suddenly Grace was down the stairs, poking her head around the edge of the door.

  Dana put her hand on her daughter’s head. “After dinner.” Which pulled her back to the entire situation. Dinner. Logan coming over for dinner. With her and the girls.

  And his entire family.

  “Oh geez, come on in,” Dana said, stepping back and opening the door fully. “Sorry.”

  Logan nudged Stella and Cooper and they hopped forward, clearly eager to be there.

  “Hi, Chloe!” Stella said as Chloe came down the stairs more slowly.

  “Hi.”

  The girls knew one another from the family get-togethers. Chloe was four years older than Stella, but they played together well.

  Logan followed the kids in, five balloons in one hand and two bottles of wine in the other. But instead of stepping around her and moving further into the foyer, he somehow wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in for a kiss.

  His mouth moved over hers for a long, sweet moment. It wasn’t a deep, lots-of-tongue kiss, but it was hardly a peck either. He even dipped her back slightly. Impressive with wine and balloons in hand.

  When he righted her again and leaned back, he grinned down at her. “Hi.”

  She was feeling a little flushed. “Well, you do know how to make an entrance.”

  He seemed pleased by that.

  “Give the woman some space,” Caroline chided as she came into the foyer next. “Grace, can you show me to the kitchen?” she asked.

  The girls knew Caroline—and Gabe and Addison too, of course—from the family get-togethers. Grace nodded and Caroline held out a hand, and they headed down the hall together toward the kitchen.

  “Here, give me that.” Gabe took the wine bottles from Logan. “We’ll take this stuff to the kitchen too.”

  Dana noticed that Addison and Gabe were each carrying a casserole dish. She watched them go, then turned back to Logan. “I can’t drink wine.” Though she really, really wanted to.

  “Nonalcoholic,” he said. “That way the kids can toast with us.”

  “Toast?” Dana asked. She felt very…befuddled. Not something she was at all familiar with feeling. And he’d been here for about two minutes.

  “This is a celebration,” he said with a huge smile. “We’re having a baby!” He looked over at Chloe, Stella, and Cooper. “That’s a pretty big deal, right?”

  “Yes!” Stella was nearly bouncing. “I love babies! We’re having one too!”

  Dana couldn’t help but laugh. “I know. That is pretty exciting.”

  “Stella! Cooper!” Addison called from the kitchen. “Come help!”

  The two started in that direction. Dana looked at Chloe. “Honey, go help them find the dishes and silverware. We need to set more places at the table.”

  Chloe jumped off the steps and followed them, though she seemed to be hanging back. Dana bit her bottom lip. This was supposed to be a dinner with just them and Logan. The girls knew him—or knew who he was, anyway—but they needed a chance to talk with him. She and Logan needed to work out who would be doing what, and she wanted to let the girls in on it. If Logan was going to be doing some pickups and carpool and class activities, obviously the girls had to know to expect that.

  “I didn’t realize you were bringing everyone over,” she said to him as Chloe turned the corner.

  He pulled her in close and kissed her again, this time lingering and really tasting her. When he lifted his head, he said, “I got nervous.”

  Dana wiped her thumb over his bottom lip, removing the smudge of lipstick there. “Nervous?”

  “About all of this,” he said. “I brought my backups in case I’m not good enough.”

  He said it with a smile, but there was a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes that made Dana’s heart trip. “Good enough for what?”

  “Good enough for the girls to be excited about having me around. I thought I’d show off the cool cousins and awesome grandma they were going to get too.”

  Dana felt a warmth in her chest. This was supposed to be a trial to see how involved Logan was really going to be. But in his mind, this all already included his family being involved with her girls. She had to admit, that was nice. She still saw Chad’s parents as much as possible. They lived in Texas, but came to visit a couple times a year, and she made sure she and the girls made a trip to Houston during each summer break. She believed firmly in the idea that you could never have too many people loving your kids.

  “And cupcakes and balloons?” she asked, not entirely ready to just let him off the hook for blowing in here with extra people and props on what was supposed to be a quiet, introductory evening.

  “You can’t have a party without cupcakes and balloons,” Logan said seriously.

  “This is a party?”

  “Well, yeah. It’s a boy or a girl!” He grinned.

  She couldn’t deny that even if he did show up with extra people to feed, she appreciated how excited he was about all of this.

  “Yeah, usually people buy balloons like that—and bring colored cupcakes—when they know which it is,” she commented.

  “I apparently got things mixed up with gender reveal parties or something,” he said. “But the cupcakes were made and the balloons bought, so what the hell?”

  “You know what a gender reveal party is?” Dana asked, admittedly surprised.

  He chuckled. “Well, now I do. And I’ve learned to watch Facebook videos with the sound on so I don’t miss important details.”

  She couldn’t help but laugh. “Yes, please watch any videos about babies with the sound on. Details are important.”

  He palmed her butt and pulled her in for another kiss. “Promise,” he said against her lips as he pulled back.

  She had to admit that she was surprised by his shows of af
fection in front of his family and her girls. But it didn’t bother her. They were having a baby together. It was good for her girls to know that they liked each other and liked to be physically close. It would make future conversations about physical intimacy and reproduction easier. And she supposed it was time for that conversation. She sighed.

  “So another detail,” she said, pulling back from him and the urge to just let him wrap his arms around her. And maybe tell her that he’d handle the hard conversations and the class parties. But she couldn’t turn over parenting entirely, of course. No matter how tempting it was at times. And she wasn’t great with making leprechaun hats out of construction paper, but she was pretty good about tough conversations. “When you invite five extra people for dinner, it’d be good to give me a heads-up.”

  “I know. That’s why I also brought extra food.”

  She’d been wondering about those casserole dishes. “You did?”

  “Well… I asked Mom to make something.”

  Dana peered up at him. “Do you cook?” In that moment, she realized she’d been entertaining the idea that she could now potentially stay for later meetings at work. Every once in a blue moon, it was unavoidable and Lindsey stepped in to help out on those nights. But as their executive assistant, Dana oversaw the schedule for the Miller brothers and that meant she could control when meetings happened most of the time. Now, though, if she had Logan, maybe she wouldn’t have to be as strict about that.

  But he needed to be able to feed her children.

  “I can definitely make sure there is food provided,” he said, clearly hedging.

  She smiled. Well, that was something. “So what did your mom make?”

  “Chinese chicken casserole,” he said. “And baked mac and cheese.”

  Dana nodded. “You’re good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, you know that you need a backup meal sometimes if you’re introducing something new in case the kids don’t like it.”

  “Oh,” he said, “the mac and cheese is for me. But I’ll share.”

  She snorted and shook her head. “No casseroles?”

  “Just not that one. Water chestnuts,” he said with a shudder.

  “You don’t like water chestnuts?”

  “No. Hell no, even.”

  “You can’t just pick them out?”

  “I could,” he said, looping an arm around her waist and turning her toward the kitchen. “Or I could use your girls as the perfect excuse to get my mom’s mac and cheese.”

  “You could, you know, learn to make the mac and cheese yourself.”

  “Or I could, you know—” He leaned in and put his mouth against her ear. “Promise to lick your sweet pussy until you come twice in exchange for you making it for me.”

  And that would definitely work. A shiver went through Dana just remembering how good he was at one of her very favorite things.

  She didn’t respond but Logan clearly read her body language. He chuckled, the sound low and rough. “This whole thing is going to work out so well.”

  He started toward the kitchen with her hand in his.

  Dana swallowed. She hoped so, she realized. She really did.

  “Hey, is art glitter the same as body glitter?” Logan asked.

  She looked up at him. “Excuse me?”

  But they stepped into the kitchen just then. The room was full of activity, voices, laughter and delicious smells.

  “We can talk about that later,” Logan said. Then he deftly caught Cooper by the back of his pants, swinging the giggling boy up into his arms.

  Yeah, they had a lot to talk about later. But Dana had to admit, looking at Chloe and Stella talking as they went around the table, laying out spoons and forks, watching Grace helping Caroline mix up the lettuce salad Dana had left half-prepared, and seeing Gabe catch Addison by the arm and give her a quick kiss on the head, that this was a really good start.

  He’d swept into her house with balloons and cupcakes and casseroles and people. He’d toasted their new situation with nonalcoholic wine that the kids thought was “so cool!” He’d made Dana close her eyes to pick a cupcake, then he’d done the same, claiming to the kids that it was a way to figure out if the baby was a boy or a girl.

  They’d both picked blue.

  Chloe and Grace were extremely excited about the idea of a baby brother.

  They’d laughed and chatted around the table for nearly an hour after the meal was over.

  Now his family was gone, Chloe and Grace were upstairs in bed, and Dana’s feet were in his lap.

  This was pretty much perfect in his book. And he knew that the foot massage was getting him even more points than the idea to make green leprechaun poop and use rainbow toast for mini sandwiches for Chloe’s St. Patrick’s Day party.

  He really owed Owen a case of beer.

  “So what do you say to this every night from now on?” he asked, pressing his point even as he pressed his thumb into the arch of Dana’s foot.

  She moaned with pleasure.

  That sound shot heat to his cock and he had to shift her leg back slightly, lest she think he was just trying to get into her pants. Or her shorts, as the case may be. She’d changed while she’d been upstairs getting the girls ready for bed. She was now in a pair of short cotton shorts and a tank top. And no bra.

  She was trying to kill him, he was sure. Or test him at least. And he was going to pass, dammit.

  He was a bartender. Sure, he was a successful business owner, a good son, a good friend, all of that. But bottom line, he was a bartender who set his own hours and basically did what he wanted.

  He had a chance to be more than that now.

  He was going to be a dad and yeah, he wanted a shot at being a husband and step-father too. Something important. Something that was admirable. Something that, frankly, showed he was becoming better. He’d always admired his brother. He’d thought the epitome of that respect had come when Gabe had become a full-time father after Cooper’s mom had left them when the kid was only one. They hadn’t been together. The pregnancy had been an accident, and she’d left most of the caretaking to Gabe right up until she’d left. And Logan had admired how seriously Gabe had taken fatherhood from day one. But being with Addison and Stella had made Gabe grow and change even more, get even better.

  Logan knew he had some room for growth, and the perfect opportunity was right in his lap.

  At least, her feet were.

  He rubbed up over her arch to her heel. “So, we can do this every night? Right here? Same couch, same time?”

  Dana looked at him with soft eyes. “You’re making a pretty good case.”

  He grinned.

  “Even though you blew in here with frosting and balloons and mac and cheese without asking.”

  “But I came with a mom who does dishes, a niece who makes up the best games, and I fixed the leak in your kitchen faucet.”

  “So you’re saying for every crazy, annoying thing you do, you’ll counter it with something great?”

  He would like to promise that. The thing was, he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what all the crazy, annoying things were. “How about I’ll try, and when I don’t quite balance it out, I promise foot rubs and orgasms to make up the difference?” He ran one big palm up her smooth calf, watching her pupils dilate.

  “I feel like crazy and annoying might be a regular thing,” she said, her voice a little huskier.

  “You’re probably right.” He couldn’t deny it.

  His lifestyle, at least to this point, was that of a teenage boy who had a big allowance. He made good money so could afford bigger, more expensive toys, but that was, admittedly, what he mostly spent his money on. He and Gabe owned the tavern building outright, which meant he had no rent on the apartment. He had a girl come and clean the apartment when she cleaned the bar below. He ate at his mom’s at least three nights a week. He was rarely in to work before ten. He did most of the general maintenance on the building because he liked i
t rather than because he had to. And he spent every night and every weekend in a bar. Sure, it was usually his bar—though his off weekends would find him down in Autre with the Landry boys in Ellie’s bar—and yeah, he was making money being in the bar, but still, it wasn’t a super serious job.

  “So that would mean a lot of orgasms,” Dana said.

  He pressed into her arch. “Yeah. You should probably prepare yourself for that.”

  She suddenly shifted her legs, leaning forward, and tucking her foot under her. She braced her hands on the cushion next to him. “Well, at least I won’t need to replenish my condom supply.”

  Logan felt his heart kick against his chest wall. He lifted a hand and tucked her hair behind her ear. He’d told himself he was going to be good. Not even making out. Maybe just a hot kiss at the door when he said good night.

  She licked her bottom lip. “I think this could really work out well.”

  “It was the leprechaun poop, wasn’t it?”

  “Strangely…yes.”

  He laughed just before she pressed her lips to his. Kissing Dana was always awesome, but having her initiate it made hot desire streak through him fast and hard. He moved his hand to the back of her head, pulling her closer. She shifted, sliding onto his lap, straddling him.

  He was sure her thin cotton shorts did nothing to hide how hard he was for her. Then she pressed closer and ground against him. Yeah, she knew.

  Logan tangled his fingers in her hair, his other hand going to her hip and pressing her more firmly against him. “Am I making up for anything tonight?” he asked against her mouth. “Anything crazy or annoying?”

  “Well,” she said breathlessly. “There were a few things, but you’re picking the girls up tomorrow and you’re taking over the St. Pat’s party, so I think you’re evened up.”

  “Huh.” He slid his hand from her hip to the bottom of her shorts, then underneath the cotton onto silky bare skin. “Well, maybe I should bank a few orgasms. Just in case.”

  “Yeah, no doubt there will be crazy and annoying coming up. You might as well get ahead.”