Nice and Easy: Boys of the Big Easy book three

by Erin Nicholas

  “I know that you’re the reason he sometimes gets to stay out later with me,” Ana said, dropping the hand Lexi hadn’t shaken. She glanced up at Caleb with a smile. “And I appreciate that you’re always willing to babysit for Shay.”

  Suddenly Caleb felt very uncomfortable. Which was ridiculous because he and Lexi were…friends. Or whatever. There was no reason to feel awkward about her meeting a…whatever Ana was. She wasn’t a girlfriend. She was a…fuck buddy.

  He winced and looked at Lexi. She was watching Ana. And she looked, well, a little sick.

  Caleb’s first instinct was to do anything he could to get her smiling again. Oh, and looking at him like he was her favorite person in the world. Of course. Because he fed off of that shit. “I couldn’t do anything I do without Lexi,” he said. Truthfully. “Don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  Lexi gave him a look that said, rather clearly, really?

  He was fairly certain he’d never seen that look on her face, either. And she suddenly looked older. Was it the black eyeliner or the unfamiliar displeased expression?

  “I love Shay,” Lexi finally said to Ana. Her voice sounded funny. But she wouldn’t look at Caleb.

  “Oh, I’ll bet she’s adorable,” Ana said.

  Caleb didn’t introduce the women he…unwound with…to Shay.

  “She really, really is,” Lexi said, with a sincere affection in her voice.

  Caleb started to reply when she turned to Zach.

  “I could really use another drink.”

  Zach nodded. “I’ve got you.”

  Caleb frowned as Zach steered Lexi to a barstool. He didn’t like that Zach was the one intervening.

  “I think it’s time to go.” Caleb wrapped a hand around Lexi’s other arm and stopped her from climbing onto the stool.

  “I’m going to have another stupid, sweet, kiddie bubblegum shot,” Lexi told him. “You can go with Ana.”

  He didn’t want to go with Ana. That thought snuck up on him a little, but if Lexi was here, he had no intention of going anywhere with Ana.

  A realization that would no doubt bother him tomorrow. But for right now, he wanted to get Lexi home. Where he understood her and how he felt about her and what she was in his life.

  Maybe it was seeing her light up about her work—work that he hadn’t even been aware she wanted to do—dressed in clothes that made him damned grateful she wore baggy stuff at home, and acting annoyed about Ana that made him feel like he needed to remind himself about everything. Or maybe it was watching her respond to the praise of other men. He knew he’d complimented her on the clay cats she and Shay had made last week. And the delicious pistachio dessert she’d baked the other night. But that wasn’t quite the same as telling her she’d been kick-ass in a medical emergency today.

  Caleb was not an asshole to her. He was the complete opposite, in fact. He was fucking sweet to her. Something that sometimes amused his friends and often amazed him. He helped her and took care of her and very much wanted her and Jack to be safe and happy. He did not take her for granted. He didn’t think she was only good at doing Shay’s hair or teaching the kids their colors and shapes. She was really good at all of those things. But he knew there was more.

  Even if his next two thoughts were how good she was at disguising vegetables in casseroles and getting Shay to pick up her toys.

  He grimaced. He did not take Lexi for granted. But he had a little trouble thinking of her beyond the house and kids. In his defense, that was where he saw her the most, and their happy domestic situation was the majority of their involvement in each other’s lives. They were good together. He just didn’t think of her as a skewer-pulling-flight-nurse. That didn’t make him an asshole. He hoped.

  “I don’t think these are actually kiddie shots,” Zach told her.

  Josh, Gabe and Logan’s other bartender, handed one over even though Caleb was preventing her from taking a seat at the bar. “Oh, they’re definitely potent,” Josh told her with a smile.

  Lexi looked directly at Caleb when she said, “Well, they’re not exactly mature or classy, right? They’re the kind of thing you’d expect someone who likes PB and J more than any other food, has seen every episode of Phineas and Ferb a dozen times, and happens to be fucking amazing with a set of Legos to drink, right?”

  Then she tipped the shot back and swallowed.

  He hated all of this. For one thing, he’d never heard Lexi say the word “fucking”. Then again, that was only one thing on a pretty long list of never-befores tonight. It was clear she was talking about herself—he’d come home to her watching reruns of the old cartoon, Phineas and Ferb, several times, and he knew she ate as much PB and J as the kids did. And she was, in fact, amazing with a set of Legos. Yeah, bubblegum shots seemed to fit her. But he hadn’t ordered them for her. So why did he get the impression she was blaming him for something here?

  He frowned. “I think five shots is more than enough.”

  Maybe Lexi was just a surly drunk.

  He almost laughed at that thought. Lexi Scott didn’t have it in her to be surly. But she was suddenly frowny and sassy—also things he didn’t think she’d ever be.

  “I can get her home,” Zach offered.

  “No,” Caleb said immediately and firmly.

  “I’ll get an Uber and ride along,” Zach said. “We’ll drop her off on the way to my place.”

  “No,” Caleb said again, simply.

  “Lex?” Zach asked, ignoring Caleb. “You want to stay for a little longer?”

  Lexi swallowed the shot and shook her head. “I’m good. I’m already home.”

  Oh baby, she was even drunker than he’d realized. “Lexi, I—”

  “I’ll walk her upstairs personally,” Josh said from across the bar. “She’ll be okay. Promise.”

  Josh had been bartending for Gabe and Logan for a while now. Ever since Gabe had gotten together with Addison and needed more family time at home. Josh’s hours had increased as Logan also needed to be home before two a.m. every morning. Josh was a good guy. But Caleb wasn’t going to let Josh take her upstairs. There was an apartment over the bar where Logan had lived prior to getting together with Dana and where Josh now crashed after he closed down the bar rather than making the twenty-five-minute drive back to Autre, the little bayou town where he and his family ran a swamp boat tour and fishing company.

  “You’re not taking her upstairs,” Caleb said. He was sure his tone conveyed exactly what he thought of that idea. “I will take her home.” And he meant his home. She wasn’t going to her mom’s house, even if her mom was home. Lexi was now to the so-drunk-she-needed-a-babysitter stage. And if anyone was going to be babysitting a drunk Lexi, it was going to be Caleb.

  “This is my home,” Lexi said. Then she laughed. A drunk-giggly sound that made Caleb shake his head. “Josh sleeps on the couch.”

  “Well, you said that Jack is a wild sleeper,” Josh told her with a grin. “I don’t need a little foot kicking me in the balls in the middle of the night.”

  Lexi giggled again.

  What the fuck was going on?

  “You talked about sleeping in the same bed?” he asked Josh.

  Josh might not be part of the support group, but he was a part of the group of guys—including his cousin and brother at times, along with all the guys from the support group and several members of Engine 29—who hung out at Trahan’s. And all of those guys knew about Caleb’s feelings for Lexi. Mostly because his friends loved to give him shit about it. Still, Caleb knew that Josh understood exactly how Caleb felt about Lexi being in Josh’s bed.

  “Not really,” Josh said. “That bed isn’t very big and if we’re not spooning, it just wouldn’t work.”

  The idea of Lexi spooning with Josh sent one word through Caleb’s mind.

  Mine.

  That was a problem.

  Lexi laughed. “It’s too hot in New Orleans for spooning,” she said.

  Josh gave her a smile and a wink.
“If you’re thinkin’ about the weather, he’s not spooning you correctly.”

  She laughed, and blushed, and Caleb slapped his hand down on the top of the bar. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”

  Josh looked over, amused and not at all intimidated. “Lex and Jack are livin’ upstairs. I crash on the couch on the nights I close up. Though,” he said, looking back at Lexi, “I’m always happy to help if you do get chilly.”

  Caleb knew Josh had said that simply to get under Caleb’s skin. And it worked. He gritted his teeth and focused on the woman on the stool in front of him. “You’re living upstairs? What the hell is that about?”

  She shrugged, running her finger around the top of the now-empty shot glass. “My mom and Greg got married and moved to Shreveport.”

  Caleb frowned. He knew who Greg was. Lexi had talked about her mom’s boyfriend at support group before. Amber hadn’t dated much at all while Lexi had been growing up, but now that Lexi was older, Amber had started seeing Greg. They were madly in love. And Greg thought Lexi was a burden on her mother. Caleb remembered when Lex had told the group about overhearing Greg trying to convince Amber to make Lexi grow up and get out on her own. She’d been hurt, but she’d admitted that he was right. She was old enough to start taking care of rent and things on her own.

  Caleb had wanted to punch Greg in the face.

  “When?” he asked shortly.

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “You’ve been living here and your mom’s been in Shreveport for two weeks?” he asked. She hadn’t told him. He hadn’t noticed anything was going on with her or was wrong.

  Lexi nodded. “They didn’t renew the lease for the house. I couldn’t afford it on my own anyway. I needed a place to go and Ashley told Gabe and Gabe insisted I move in upstairs.” She looked up with a smile. “And it’s great. It’s really close to work.”

  But it wasn’t that close to his place. Where she came every morning, either to stay while he went to work, or to drop Jack off while she worked.

  “You should have told me.” His voice was gruffer than he’d intended.

  “Why?” she asked. “It all worked out.”

  “You’re not going to live above a bar,” he told her.

  “Why not?”

  “Because…” It was a bar. Josh was sleeping on the couch. Jack was two. Her mom had moved away and essentially abandoned her. She’d never lived alone before.

  All of those were ridiculous reasons. Josh was a good-looking guy who couldn’t breathe without flirting, but he wouldn’t make a move on Lexi. Lexi was a grown woman. There was no reason for her to not live alone. Her mom hadn’t really abandoned her. She’d gotten married and moved to another town with her new husband. It wasn’t like they’d never be in touch.

  The truth was, he just didn’t like it.

  Because Lexi had had a problem and he hadn’t been the one to solve it. But he’d never say that. So he latched on to the only reason that could even possibly be legitimate. Jack.

  “Jack’s two,” he said. “You really think he should be living above a bar? And,” he added, as the thought occurred to him. “The bar’s open ’til two a.m. In the Quarter. No way are either of you sleeping well with the noise below and around you.”

  That had to be true. He’d been in the apartment over Trahan’s. This was a two-hundred-plus-year-old building. It wasn’t like the insulation was amazing. You could hear the laughter and music of the Quarter no matter what. A woman who needed to be up at five a.m. to get her and her son ready so she could be into work by six thirty couldn’t be kept awake until two a.m.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It won’t be forever. I’m saving up for another place. But for now, it’s great.”

  Great meant it was free. Caleb knew that Gabe wouldn’t be charging her rent and he appreciated that. But he did not appreciate that no one had told him about Lexi’s situation.

  “You’re moving in with me,” he said, before he’d fully, consciously formed the thought.

  She looked at him with eyebrows up. “No.”

  Caleb stared at her. He couldn’t recall Lexi ever saying no to him. “Yes.” He said it low and firm. And because he was staring at her, he didn’t miss the fact that her eyes widened slightly and her pupils dilated.

  “This is fine.”

  “It’s not.” He sighed. “Come on. I have that huge house and you and Jack are there eighty percent of the time anyway.”

  She focused on the shot glass again. “I need to be out on my own. It’s time.”

  Goddammit. Now she sounded almost sad. That was not okay. Lexi Scott wasn’t sad. Or worried or anxious or stressed out or upset. In large part because of him. And this sure as hell wasn’t going to be any different.

  “It’s okay to need people,” he told her. Meaning, of course, that it was okay for her to need him.

  She swallowed and didn’t look at him. “I don’t want to be a burden.”

  Okay, that was enough of that. Her step-dad had gotten into her head. Caleb had met Lexi’s mom a number of times. It had always just been Lexi and Amber. Amber had been a single mom, working hard to support her kid, so Lexi had needed to grow up fast, take care of herself to an extent. But Amber had always kept a roof over their heads and had paid all the bills while Lex went to nursing school. He didn’t think Amber felt Lexi was a burden. But Greg, the guy who’d wanted Amber to himself, to have her able to take off on a weekend getaway or, yeah, move to Shreveport with him, would have probably felt that way about his girlfriend’s adult child and grandson, who kept Amber tied to New Orleans.

  Well, fuck Greg.

  “You are the exact opposite of a burden to me,” Caleb told her. His voice was low and firm. She looked up at him. “You know that.”

  She did. He knew she did. She knew he needed her. She took a deep breath and then nodded. “At least I do stuff for you.”

  And for a split second, Caleb’s dirty-old-man mind spun off to the whole list of things he’d like her to do for him. He shook his head and said. “Let me take you home. My home.”

  He held his breath. He would pick her up and carry her out of here if needed, but he’d rather she choose to come home with him. She was drunk. She’d clearly had a big shift in the ER. She was dealing with some not-so-great emotional issues with her mom.

  And he wanted to fix it all.

  He wanted to see her lit up and happy and excited and giggly…with him.

  And he could much more easily do that if she was at his house.

  She finally sighed. She looked at Zach. “I guess I need to go.”

  Zach lifted a brow, but Caleb gave him a look that kept the other man from saying anything but, “Okay, well, it was fun. You did great today.”

  With that, Lexi’s face lit up again. A typical bright, glowy Lexi smile. That gave Caleb a definite sense of it’s-gonna-be-okay. Except, of course, for the fact that it was directed at Zach. Until he’d seen it directed at someone else, Caleb hadn’t realized how much he loved being on the receiving end of those sparkly smiles. Or how much he’d taken for granted he was the only one she smiled at like that.

  Damn. Maybe he was kind of an asshole where Lexi was concerned.

  “Thanks. It was a great shift,” Lexi told Zach, sincerity clear in her expression and tone. “I’m so happy to be full-time now.”

  There was the happy, bubbly Lexi Caleb knew. The one that disappeared when she looked back to him. She wasn’t frowning now, but her expression was resigned. Or something. Which bugged him just as much.

  She even sighed as she slid off the stool. “Okay, we can go now.”

  “It’s not a root canal,” he muttered.

  She rolled her eyes.

  Yeah, bubblegum shots clearly made her surly. Or at least Lexi-surly.

  “It was good to see you, Caleb,” Ana said as they moved past her.

  “You, too,” he told her. It was always nice to see Ana. She was a gorgeous, sexy woman.

  Ana gave
him a little smile. “Hope to see you again soon.”

  But his attention was immediately jerked away from the sophisticated redhead and to the tiny brunette beside him when Lexi made a funny sound, almost like a growl.

  He looked down. “You okay?”

  “Great. Peachy. Fine.”

  Uh, huh. “Okay, let’s go.”

  2

  She should argue.

  There was a little place in the back of her mind where Lexi knew she should argue with Caleb about going to his house tonight. She should insist on staying and being on her own and actually run her life like a grown-up for more than two freaking weeks.

  But she just…she sighed…she just didn’t argue with Caleb.

  “Where’s the rest of your stuff?” Caleb asked, stopping by the passenger side of his truck. “Jack’s bed and everything?”

  “Storage,” she said.

  “Address.”

  She had to think about it through the cloud of schnapps surrounding her brain, but finally rattled off the address to the storage unit that held her stuff. Her mom’s old stuff actually. Lexi didn’t have much of anything that was really hers.

  “Key.”

  She sighed, but dug in her purse and handed over the key to the unit.

  “I’ll have the guys pull Jack’s bed out and bring it over. What else do you need?”

  She could tell he was mad that he hadn’t known anything about the situation. Concerned, too—Caleb was always slightly concerned about her and Jack. But she hadn’t told him because, dammit, Greg had a point. She’d overheard her step-dad telling her mom to stop worrying about her. Amber had supported Lexi through her pregnancy and nursing school, but now she was finished and had a good job, and was old enough to take care of herself. She shouldn’t be a burden on Amber anymore.

  And he was right.

  But the apartment over the bar had been the best she could come up with only two weeks’ notice. Oh, and no money. But it was temporary. She could actually be independent. Maybe. Eventually. She blew out a breath.

  The thing was, she didn’t really want to be totally independent. At least not in the do-absolutely-everything-for-herself-and-never-lean-on-anyone sense. The single parent support group, the team in the ER, and yes, Caleb, all made her happy. She was a people person. She didn’t feel bad about leaning on other people once in a while and she was there for them, too. She loved when she was the one that someone in the group called for help or when she got to step up in the ER. Going it all alone didn’t work for her. She loved being a part of something bigger and wider than her own situation.