He hadn’t missed one yet and judging by his reaction to the pregnancy news, she didn’t think it would be long before everyone knew that she and Logan were having a baby together.
Logan set the tray of drinks down in front of his buddies.
There were three pink drinks and three blue. He grinned and stepped back.
Owen Moreland looked up at him. “Huh?”
“What?” Logan asked.
“This isn’t beer. Or bourbon,” Owen pointed out.
“Right. These are new. My own mixtures,” Logan said.
“What the hell is in this?” Josh Landry picked one of the pink ones up and peered at it. He was the bartender Logan and Gabe had hired after Gabe got married, so he’d have more time at home. Josh was a master. And he was good-looking, loved to flirt, and was a good old Louisiana boy from down by the bayou. The ladies loved him. He’d been very good for business.
Logan pushed one of the blue ones toward where Josh was, for a change, perched on the other side of the bar. “You tell me.”
“I’m not drinking this,” Owen, Josh’s cousin, decided.
“You have to.”
“You said, ‘come up for a beer,’” Owen said. “We drove all the way up here and now you give us this?”
Owen and Josh had driven up from Autre, the little town along the bayou southeast of New Orleans. It was a suburb of the city, for fuck’s sake. A twenty-minute drive. Maybe twenty-five with traffic. Logan made the drive down there to hunt and fish—and yeah, drink beer—on a regular basis.
“I said, ‘come up for a drink,’” Logan corrected.
“But ‘drink’ means ‘beer,’” Owen said.
Josh chuckled and picked up the nearest glass. It was one of the pink ones. Watermelon flavored. Josh would like it. Then again, Josh just liked liquor in general. He drank everything from cheap beer while fishing, to top-shelf bourbon. He was always up for trying something new and liked to come up with his own concoctions. Owen was a little more traditional. Or simple. He liked beer and whiskey. And that was about it.
Still, this was a celebration.
Josh took a sip of the pink drink and nodded. “Not bad.”
“Oh, man,” Owen groaned. “We’re really not having beer? Come on. I had a kid puke on the airboat today. Before noon. Then a woman lost her sunglasses overboard and you would have thought someone was fucking dying. I had to jump in to get them. Who the fuck spends three hundred dollars on sunglasses?”
Logan rolled his eyes. Owen and Josh ran the Boys of the Bayou Swamp Boat Tour Company with Josh’s older brother, Sawyer. They took loads of tourists out on the bayou every day to look at the cypress trees and the gators. And yeah, Owen probably went through a pair of sunglasses every week himself. He didn’t worry about things like breaking sunglasses or losing hats or getting muddy. His job wasn’t glamorous, but it was fun. He got to be outside, on his beloved bayou, speeding along on his airboat and flirting with female tourists all day long. He could wear shorts and T-shirts and hats to work and didn’t have to shave. It was the perfect job for him, and no matter how much he bitched, he loved it.
“And was she pretty?” Logan asked.
Owen gave him a grin. “In a high-maintenance kind of way.”
Logan chuckled. “Which meant you made her hold the baby gator?”
Owen just shrugged.
Owen had a particular penchant for the women who were clearly way out of place in the swamp. If they showed up with a designer bag or heels on, he made sure they got a little dirty…and saw him without a shirt. He swore it was always a coincidence that he needed to strip his shirt off when the really girly girls were on a tour. But he also admitted that he liked to show the city chicks what a real man looked like. And if a girl showed up with a spray tan? She was going to end up wet from the swamp. Period. Owen also maintained that if they spent an hour with him on a tour, they weren’t just wet from swamp water. And he always wiggled his eyebrows in a really annoying way when he said it.
“You drink half that blue drink and I’ll give you a free beer,” Logan said.
“You’d give me a free beer anyway,” Owen said, picking up one of the blue drinks with his thumb and forefinger, looking at it like it might bite.
And considering the guy messed with alligators every day, that was pretty funny to see. “Quit being a pussy,” Logan told him.
Owen flipped him off and then, predictably, tipped the glass back as if it was a shot, drinking the eight ounces down in one swallow. Then shuddered. “Jesus, that’s nasty.”
“It’s fruity,” Logan said, but it did look like Owen was feeling a little pukey himself.
“I need a beer chaser,” Owen told him.
Logan pulled a bottle from the fridge beneath the bar, popped the top and slid it to his friend. Owen took two long draws, before sighing happily. “What the hell was that all about?”
Logan braced his hands on the bar and gave them a big grin. “This is my baby reveal party.”
Owen and Josh both just blinked at him.
Before they could respond with what would have likely been “Huh?” the front door of the tavern opened and Gabe and Caleb walked in.
The men all greeted one another as Caleb took a seat and Gabe came around the back of the bar.
Caleb noticed the pink and blue drinks. “What’s going on?”
Logan pushed a glass toward him. “Having a little celebration. Have one.”
Caleb picked the glass up with caution. Logan rolled his eyes. These guys were acting like he was trying to poison them.
“What kind of celebration has pink and blue drinks?” Caleb asked, lifting the glass toward his mouth.
But he froze partway as his question seemed to hang in the air. His eyes widened and he looked at Gabe.
“A baby reveal party?” Josh asked, focusing on Logan. “Isn’t that what you said?”
Logan nodded. “Yep. I’m having a baby.”
“And this is how you tell us?” Owen asked, frowning at the offensive drinks.
“It’s the new thing,” Logan told them. “It’s all over Facebook.”
“What is?” Josh asked.
“Using pink and blue stuff to reveal that you’re having a baby,” Logan said, lifting a shoulder. This seemed pretty obvious to him.
Caleb frowned. “So you’re having two babies?”
Logan shook his head. “No. I mean…” Well, shit, he supposed there was a chance of that. Not a good chance, but he didn’t know for a fact that Dana was pregnant with only one. “I assume just one. It’s kind of early to know. I think. Probably.” She couldn’t be more than three weeks pregnant, after all. Not that he knew when exactly people knew details like how many babies there were.
“So why do you have pink and blue stuff?” Caleb asked.
“Because I don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy,” Logan told him.
“Then why are you having a gender reveal party?”
Logan frowned. “What’s a gender reveal party?”
“The parties where they reveal if the baby is a boy or girl to the rest of the family and their friends. Sometimes the couple doesn’t even know.”
“How’s that work?” Josh asked. “How can you reveal something you don’t know?”
“The doctor writes the sex down on a piece of paper and puts it in an envelope, and then the woman or couple gives it to the bakery or the party people. They make the inside of the cake pink or blue, or put a bunch of colored balloons in a box, or whatever. Then when the couple opens it, they find out at the same time everyone else does,” Caleb explained.
Josh and Owen stared at him as if they’d never seen him before. Logan, on the other hand, was thinking that would be a hell of a lot of fun and he intended to tell Dana he wanted to do that with the baby.
“How do you know all of that?” Owen asked Caleb.
“My sister did the cake thing for Shay.”
The men all immediately went quiet. They’d known Caleb befo
re his sister and her husband were killed in a drunk driving accident, and Caleb became the guardian to his two-year-old niece, Shay.
“Man, the dead sister thing always brings the room down,” Caleb said after a second. “Sorry.”
Josh slapped him on the back. Then he said to Logan, “So this isn’t a gender reveal party?”
Logan shook his head. “No.”
“Then what is this?”
He shrugged. “It’s an I’m-gonna-be-a-dad party. Guess I should watch those Facebook videos with the sound on.”
Josh started laughing. “You saw a video and thought that’s what people were doing?”
“Pregnant woman, guy with her, lots of big smiles, a ton of pink and blue shit everywhere.” He frowned. “Why did they have pink and blue stuff?”
“Uh, twins? One of each?” Caleb suggested.
Huh. Logan nodded. “That makes sense.”
Josh and Owen both laughed at that.
“So, damn, Logan,” Gabe finally said, settling a hand on Logan’s shoulder.
Logan turned to his big brother. “Yeah. Pretty big stuff, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, man.”
“For what?”
“I really thought the condom talk I gave you was a good one. Sorry if you got confused.”
“Ha-ha,” Logan told him. “Super hilarious.”
“How long have you known?” Gabe asked, dropping his hand and any pretense of concern.
Logan appreciated that. Gabe wasn’t a guy to judge other people. He’d made his share of mistakes, but Logan knew that Gabe didn’t consider his unintended pregnancy with Cooper’s mother one of them. Cooper was the light of Gabe’s life, and Logan knew Gabe would be there for him as he did this dad thing. “Just found out this morning.”
Gabe paused. Then he blew out a breath. “So it is Dana.”
Logan felt his eyebrows rise. “How did you—” Then it dawned on him. “You had support group tonight.”
He’d known that. He hadn’t realized that Dana would tell everyone about the baby right away, though. He should have. That group told each other everything.
“We had support group tonight,” Gabe said with a nod. “She didn’t say your name, if you’re wondering. But she told us about the baby.”
Logan grabbed beers for Josh and Caleb. “She didn’t say anything about me?”
“I didn’t say that,” Gabe told him. “She just didn’t say your name.”
“What did she say about me?” he asked, trying to act nonchalant.
Caleb chuckled, but he just took a draw of his beer instead of answering.
Logan glanced from him back to Gabe. “What did she say?”
“That you were really happy and had offered to help with whatever she needed,” Gabe said.
“I am and I did.”
“And she said you’re going to be hanging out with her girls some.”
Logan nodded. “Of course.”
“Of course?” Gabe lifted an eyebrow. “Just like that? You think you’re that good?”
“I do.” And he really did. They were little girls. “I’m totally into snacks and cartoons and playing. I’m a natural.”
Gabe laughed and nodded. “I can’t argue with that.”
“And Dana really just needs someone to be there for her.”
Gabe nodded slowly. He looked at Caleb. Logan glanced at Caleb too.
“Well?” he said. “No advice?”
“I actually think you might be right on track,” Caleb said.
“I agree,” Gabe said.
Logan grinned. All right. This was good. Gabe knew him and how he was around kids. His stamp of approval meant a lot. “You willing to put that in writing to Dana?” he asked.
Gabe laughed. “Like a permission slip for you to go over and have playdates with her girls?”
“Something like that.”
“You know anything about glitter?” Owen asked.
Logan looked at him. “Glitter?”
“Yeah. Girls like glitter.”
Stella wasn’t really a glitter girl, but she was definitely into art. Logan knew all about clay and markers and paints. “I think I can hold my own with glitter,” he said.
“You need to get some glitter,” Owen told him.
“What do you know about glitter?” Logan asked. “The girls you hang out with are Kennedy and Ellie and Cora.”
Kennedy was Josh’s younger sister and Owen’s cousin. She ran the office and handled reservations for the tour company. She was sassy and kept the guys in line, but she wasn’t the glitter type. She had a pierced nose, several piercings in her ears—and probably other places—and tattoos. And while she wore sundresses to work in the sultry summer weather, she wore tennis shoes or combat boots with them. When she wasn’t barefoot. Logan loved to talk to Kennedy because she was whip smart, had a fantastic sense of humor, never took him seriously, and cussed like a sailor.
And then there was Ellie and Cora. Ellie was Owen, Josh, and Sawyer’s grandmother. She ran the little bar across the street from the tour company’s headquarters where she served tourists beside all of the fishermen who lived and worked in the tiny bayou town. Cora was the cook and her best friend since childhood. Even though Ellie had a boyfriend twenty years her junior, her ex-husband, the guys’ grandfather, lived in town too and when they weren’t fighting like cats and dogs, they were laughing and drinking together. Ellie and Cora were no-nonsense, tough old girls and they would not only not know what the hell to do with glitter, but they’d laugh their asses off if someone asked them.
“I know some things about glitter,” Owen said, scowling.
“Do not take advice about girls—little or big—from Owen,” Josh said. “His glitter experience all comes from dating strippers from Centerfolds.”
Centerfolds was one of the strip clubs down on Bourbon Street. Logan grinned.
“She didn’t wear glitter,” Owen said.
“She?” Josh said. “Which one? Jenna or Megan?”
Owen flipped him off but muttered, “Either of them.”
“I don’t think stripper glitter is the same kind of glitter,” Logan said, suddenly feeling a little perplexed. At least, he didn’t think stripper glitter was the same kind of glitter that was used in art projects. But now he was going to have to find that out.
“Jenna took me to her best friend’s little girl’s birthday party,” Owen said. “She had a unicorn-themed birthday party and one of the activities was making unicorn poop. I added glitter to mine and I was a freaking hero.”
Logan stared at his friend. He wasn’t sure where to start with all of that. “Unicorn poop?” he asked, just picking something.
Owen grinned. “Rainbow colored slime. It was pretty cool.”
Logan had to admit, it sounded pretty cool. “And you did this activity with them?” That was maybe the hard part to understand. He was picturing Owen crouched in a little kid’s chair at a plastic play table surrounded by little girls.
“Well, yeah.” Owen shrugged.
“You were really into the unicorn theme?” Josh asked, clearly hearing this story for the first time. “Did you get a headband with a unicorn horn on it too?”
“I did,” Owen said. “And I got laid so good that night it was all worth it.”
There was a beat of silence and then Josh and Logan shared a look and started nodding. “Ah.”
“There’s nothing like being awesome with little kids to get a woman all hot and bothered.” Owen smirked as he lifted his bottle of beer.
Well, that was a universal truth. Logan had seen it work with his brother over and over, as a matter of fact, before Addison came along. He glanced at Caleb. “You concur?”
Caleb just smiled and lifted his bottle. “Shay’s not into unicorns.”
“That’s not a denial,” Josh said with a chuckle.
“And Shay’s only three,” Logan said. “You could so introduce her to unicorns.”
“Lexi would kill me.”
“Why?” Logan asked. Lexi babysat for Shay a lot, and he knew the younger single mom had a lot of influence with Caleb’s niece. Influence Caleb was happy for. But influence over Caleb too. “Lexi is anti-glitter?”
Caleb frowned briefly, then shook his head. “I don’t think so. But she just decorated Shay’s room in a cat theme. I can’t get Shay into something else.”
Caleb had no doubt said “whatever you want” to Lexi and handed over his credit card too. Logan was sure the room was amazing. He shook his head. “Those two girls have you wrapped around their little fingers, you know,” he said. “Gabe showed me pictures of the bed and bookcase you built for that room.”
Caleb sighed, but nodded. “I know.”
“Now that you mention it, Jenna did end up covered in glitter later that night,” Owen said, clearly still reminiscing about the glitter and unicorn poop…and his stripper girlfriend. “Not for a show, but…” He trailed off with a wicked smile.
“You took glitter home from a little girl’s birthday party and used it to do dirty things to her mom’s best friend?” Logan asked, trying to sound shocked. He wasn’t. At all.
Owen laughed. “Nah. But that shit gets everywhere. It was on my clothes and my hands, no matter how much I washed. It just kind of came home with me. And got all over. Everything.”
Logan grinned. “I might need the directions for this unicorn poop slime stuff.” He wouldn’t mind seeing Dana a little sparkly. Or a lot sparkly.
Owen nodded. “I know how to make rainbow painted toast too. And pink tea.”
“You drank pink tea?” Josh asked.
“And got laid well,” Owen reminded him.
Logan picked up one of the pink drinks he’d mixed and toasted the men around him. “Here’s to glitter.”
They all saluted with him.
Yeah, this was going to be a piece of cake. Or toast. Rainbow toast, even.
3
The doorbell rang and Dana glanced at the clock. Logan was right on time. She actually hadn’t been expecting that. But as she wiped her hands on a dishtowel and put the lid over the spaghetti sauce, she had to admit that was unfair. Logan ran a successful business. He helped take care of his nephew and niece. He was not a complete fuck-up. He was just…fun. And fun was not a four-letter word.
Taking It Easy: Boys of the Big Easy book two Page 4