Nice and Easy: Boys of the Big Easy book three

by Erin Nicholas

  Sawyer opened his mouth, but then closed it. Nodded. And sighed.

  13

  Lexi glanced at her phone screen as she pulled a piece of jelly toast from Jack’s pocket. The nice thing about bread was that it got harder the longer it was in his pocket, unlike so many other things he stuffed in there—like the raspberries from the other day.

  She shuddered remembering it and wiped her hands on the bottom of one of Jack’s T-shirts that was going in the laundry, too. She pushed the button to answer the call from Caleb.

  He and Shay were out buying new shoes. Apparently she needed ones that were a little wider and laced up to accommodate the brace.

  “Caleb? What’s up?”

  Things had been tense between them over the past couple of days, but he’d worked a twenty-four-hour shift yesterday, which had given them some space from one another.

  If she moved into a new apartment, they would have space, of course, but she had yet to even open the newspaper to the apartment listings.

  “Lex, I need you.”

  She immediately straightened. “What? Okay, what’s going on?”

  She heard him blow out a breath.

  “I just…I can’t do this. I need you here. Shay needs you.”

  “You can’t buy shoes?” But she knew that wasn’t what he was talking about. Somehow.

  “The therapy. I can’t make her do it.”

  “I’m on my way.” She was already scooping Jack up from the playroom and was halfway across the living room, on her way to get his shoes. And she was going to ignore the fact that Jack’s left pocket was squishing.

  Fifteen minutes later, she was striding down the hallway of St. Michael’s hospital toward the rehab department. Her heart was hammering and she was fighting the urge to run.

  Caleb and Shay were here. They were unhappy. And she needed to get to them so she could fix it.

  Was this how he’d felt when he’d found out that she’d moved out of her mom’s and into the apartment? Because she got it now. She hated the idea that one or both of them weren’t happy.

  And Jack’s right pocket was now crunching, she realized as she shifted him from her hip and set him on the floor. Good lord, had the kid found chips or crackers in the backseat of the car or something? But she couldn’t worry about that right now.

  As she approached the wide doorway at the end of the hallway, she could hear a little girl crying. And her heart stopped. Was that Shay? Lexi had never heard her cry like that. She sounded heartbroken.

  Lexi felt protectiveness swell in her chest.

  “Cab!” Jack crowed.

  Lexi swung around. Caleb and Shay were walking toward them from the other direction.

  Shay wasn’t crying. She was carrying a juice box in one hand, her other securely in Caleb’s.

  Lexi made herself breathe. She and Jack met them halfway down the hall.

  Jack squirmed in her arms. “Cab!”

  “Lexi!” Shay exclaimed, noticing them for the first time.

  “Hi, Shay-Shay.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because I wanted to play with you,” Lexi said.

  Shay frowned. “I’m not playing.”

  Lexi focused on Caleb. He looked tired. But he also looked hopeful.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Hi. I thought you were in therapy.”

  “I pulled her out.”

  Lexi sighed. “You can’t do that, Caleb. She needs this.”

  “I know.” He paused. “I didn’t want you to think I was just asking you to come to make up for everything else. I needed you to know that…I really needed you.”

  She gave him a smile that she knew was full of love and exasperation. “I do know that. I know therapy is hard on you. I wanted to bust in and take over way before this, but I needed you to…initiate this.”

  His eyes flickered with understanding when she used the word they’d used discussing the balance of power in their sex life. “Please,” he said. “Please take this over.”

  “Okay. What’s your safe word?”

  His eyebrows went up. “I need a safe word?”

  “For when I’m going too far, pushing too hard to be in charge, not letting you in, making you uncomfortable with any of this.”

  The corner of his mouth curled up. “Red has been working well for us. And, not everything has to be green or red between us. Sometimes it can be yellow, right? Proceed with caution? Things are still okay, but we could get to a point where we have to talk about things and adjust.”

  She smiled. He was getting it. He might not totally change, but, like Bea, he was figuring out when he needed to make a phone call to someone else. “Absolutely things can be yellow between us sometimes.”

  “I’m relieved you’re here. I’m not going to lie. If I had to, I could do this, but I love that I don’t have to.” He paused. “Thank you for that.”

  She nodded. “I was just waiting for this phone call.”

  He took a big, almost contented breath, and Lexi felt a surge of happiness knowing that she was making him feel better. This had to be how he felt when he fixed things for her. Yeah, she could understand how this could be addictive. “And now,” she said, turning her attention on the little girl that needed her. “We have a play date.”

  “Okay!” Shay took Lexi’s offered hand and they started toward the therapy department.

  But as they neared the door, Shay started to resist. “No, I don’t want to do therapy.”

  Lexi stopped and crouched so she was even with Shay. “I know. But I’m going to make it better. I promise.”

  Shay looked at her with a worried, sad expression.

  “Shay, do you trust me?” Lexi asked.

  “Yes,” Shay finally said.

  Lexi felt her breath whoosh out. Damn, that really was powerful. “Okay, then come with me. Let me show you that this can be okay.”

  She wasn’t sure how she was going to do that yet, but she would. She had to.

  “No.” Shay shook her head emphatically. “It’s not fun.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie,” Lexi said honestly. “How about we just talk for a little bit?”

  “Okay.”

  She lifted Shay and headed into the therapy department. One of the therapists saw them and started in their direction.

  “Hi, Lexi. Hi, Shay.”

  “Can we try it again?” Lexi asked. “We’re…adjusting. But we want this to work.” She looked at Shay. “Right?”

  Shay nodded. But she didn’t look convinced.

  Lexi glanced back at Caleb. He and Jack were nowhere to be found.

  She shook her head with a smile. She was glad he’d taken the opportunity to get a break. She could totally handle this and she loved that he knew that.

  Lexi, Shay and Beth sat down on a squishy pink mat on the floor. And talked. Beth reviewed a lot of what Lexi had gotten from Caleb and assumed from her own knowledge. But Beth filled in gaps. Like which part of Shay’s brain was affected and to what degree. The things she could do as well as the challenges. Lexi hadn’t known that Shay was supposed to be able to balance on one leg for five seconds and should be able to walk toe-to-toe.

  Bottom line was that Shay hated the brace. It felt funny and it didn’t let her ankle move freely and it made it harder for her to walk. For now. But it was hard to reason with a four-year-old on a good day, and today was clearly not a good day.

  “So her walking won’t get completely better without the brace, right?” Lexi asked.

  “Not entirely, no. The weakness and foot drop will still be an issue even with strengthening and practice. The brace will be really important for her safety.”

  Lexi pulled in a long breath. Okay, well, if Shay needed a brace, she needed a brace. If it kept her from falling and prevented some sore knees, then they needed to get her into it sooner versus later.

  “Hey, Shay, tell me about this.” Lexi picked up the brace and looked it over. It was a piece of thick plastic that was shaped
like an L. There was a hinge between the long piece and the shorter piece. Lexi assumed the long piece went behind Shay’s calf and the shorter fit under her foot, keeping it up and preventing her from tripping.

  Shay scowled at it. “No.”

  “What’s it for?” Lexi asked.

  Shay shrugged.

  “It’s supposed to make you walk better, right?”

  “I don’t like it.”

  Lexi nodded. “Okay. Tell me why.”

  “It doesn’t feel good.”

  “Huh.” Lexi slid her shoe off and fit the brace against her own foot. It was too small and she was holding it upside down on purpose. “Yeah,” she agreed. “That’s not comfortable at all.” Shay made no move to help Lexi put the brace on correctly.

  Beth smiled. “We can pad it and we can get it in fun colors.”

  “What colors?” Lexi asked.

  Shay looked at Beth for the first time since they’d sat down.

  “Any color. Or we can do a whole rainbow of colors. Stripes maybe?” Beth said. “Or a zebra print.”

  “Wow.” Lex was actually impressed. “Well, that would help, wouldn’t it, Shay?”

  “This is just the practice one,” Beth said. “We’re getting it adjusted correctly and getting Shay used to it. She’s supposed to take it home and work with it.”

  “Okay.” Lexi leaned and looked down at Shay. “You know, I get why this isn’t fun.”

  Shay sniffed and nodded.

  Lexi lifted Shay out of her lap and turned her so they were eye to eye. “I don’t like it, either. I wish you didn’t have to have this. But I also don’t like it when you fall down. It makes me sad when you hit your knees and makes me worry that you’re going to get hurt.”

  Shay’s bottom lip protruded.

  “You know what else I don’t like?” Lexi asked. “When I have to wear my glasses to read my books.” She gave Shay a smile. “But I really like to read. So, even if I don’t like the glasses, I would be way sadder if I had to give up stories, so I’m going to keep wearing them.”

  Shay didn’t react, but she was listening.

  “I also have to take medicine before I go on a long trip because my stomach gets upset. I don’t like the way the trips make me feel, but I love going to new places.”

  Shay frowned. “Your tummy hurts on trips?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you know that I love to play volleyball?” Beth asked. “But I have to wear a brace or my shoulder really hurts.”

  Lexi gave her a surprised—and grateful—smile.

  Shay twisted to look at the therapist. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “See, sometimes to do fun stuff, we have to use things that help us do them safely or even better than we can do them without glasses and medicine and braces,” Lexi said.

  Shay seemed to be thinking about all of that. Lexi and Beth just let her process it all.

  “Can I have kitties?” she finally asked.

  Beth looked at Lexi. “Kitties?”

  “You want a kitty?” Lexi asked. Of course she did.

  “On the brace,” Shay said.

  Lexi grinned, a little relieved. She figured at some point they would have cats, but it would be great if the kids were a little older first. “Oh, for sure.”

  “Um, we don’t have any with cats on them,” Beth said apologetically.

  “We can paint them on,” Lexi said, running her fingers over the plastic of the brace. “I’m sure craft paint would work on these.” She looked up at Shay. “Maybe Lauren would paint them for us,” she said as the thought occurred.

  “Lauren could paint my braces?” Shay asked with wide eyes.

  Lexi didn’t even mind that the idea of having Lauren involved clearly made the braces a much better option. She loved this idea. “That way you can keep those kitty pictures. You always have to wash the face paint off, but this way you could have them always.”

  “Okay.”

  It was the closest Shay had been to enthusiastic all day.

  “What color do you want? Maybe black? Lauren can paint a white kitty face then?” She certainly hoped Lauren would be up for this. But she had seen the other woman interacting with Shay and Jack. It was clear they were special to her, and Lexi was sure she’d help Shay out this way.

  That warmed her heart as she thought about it. No one would love Jack and Shay as much as Lexi and Caleb did, but it was amazing to think about all of the people who cared about them.

  “White,” Shay said. “I want a black kitty and a brown one and an orange one and a gray one. And a tiger. And a cougar.”

  Lexi laughed. “Well, of course.”

  “Can I keep this one?” Shay asked Beth. She reached for the brace in Lexi’s hand and started to put it against her leg.

  “Sure,” Beth said. “You can keep that one and we’ll get the permanent one.”

  “Perfect,” Lexi told her. “Then Jack can have this one once your official one comes.” No doubt Jack would want to have a brace of his own. “Jack is going to think this is really cool.”

  Shay was already trying to strap the brace to her leg. Beth leaned over and helped her, showing her how to slide the strap through the metal square and how to tighten it. They got her shoe on and got her on her feet.

  Shay still didn’t like it, but it was less obvious. She kept it on. For about ten minutes. Then she sat down, pulled it off and said, “I’m done.”

  Beth nodded. “Okay. That was a good start.”

  “That was enough?” Lexi asked.

  “Definitely. We work up to longer wear times. And eventually she’ll see it really is easier to do some of the things she loves with the brace on.”

  “Wonderful.”

  They discussed the physical therapy schedule. And the occupational therapy schedule. And the speech therapy schedule. As well as the things they could and should work on at home.

  It was a lot. Lexi felt more than a little overwhelmed. She really just wanted to take Shay home and snuggle with her on the couch and watch cartoons and eat fruit snacks and pretend that everything was exactly the way it had been two weeks ago.

  But she realized that the way it had been two weeks ago was really only in her mind. All of this had been there then, too. They just hadn’t known it. And knowing it now might add some appointments and a brace to Shay’s life, but the cuddles and cartoons and snacks would be the same.

  She also realized that not only was Caleb feeling overwhelmed, she knew he was feeling guilty that Shay was struggling and that he couldn’t snap his fingers and fix it. She knew him. She knew this was killing him.

  She wanted to go and hold him.

  She also wanted to punch him in the face for not asking her to come sooner.

  She supposed that pretty much summed up what being in love was all about.

  Caleb and Jack had hung out in the hospital for a few minutes after Lexi arrived.

  But he’d already been feeling claustrophobic and restless. That didn’t improve much when Lexi showed up. So he’d headed out.

  He’d texted her, we’ll see you at home. And then he and Jack had gone for ice cream.

  Because he didn’t need to be at the hospital. Lexi was there with Shay. And she was a hell of a lot better at all of that than he was.

  He was going to beg her to continue being the therapy parent. If begging didn’t work, he would tie her to his bed and tease her with almost-orgasms until she agreed.

  He really hoped that his initial begging wouldn’t work.

  By the time Lexi and Shay came through the front door, Caleb had spaghetti sauce simmering and was in the middle of salad prep.

  “Hi.”

  He braced his hands on the countertop and looked Lexi over, feeling a combination of love, relief, hope, and bone-deep happiness course through him. “Hi.”

  She looked gorgeous. And a little tired. The kind of tired that he could completely relate to. The tired that came from putting Shay through her paces
in therapy. It was harrowing to watch her struggle. But at the same time, there was that glow. That glow that he saw in her when she’d come home from a shift in the ER.

  “I’m going to keep doing the therapy thing,” she said.

  “That is the best thing you could have said to me,” he told her honestly.

  “And in exchange…”

  His body hardened thinking about all of the ways he’d be happy to pay this back.

  “You get to figure out a way to keep Jack from putting food in his pockets.”

  Oh. Yeah, that wasn’t nearly as fun.

  “I could come up with some other ways to—”

  “Partners,” she said. “Partners in parenting. Equal.”

  “Of course. But I could—”

  “Not in the bedroom.”

  He felt his eyebrows go up. “No?”

  “Nope. In there, you’re totally in charge.”

  “I’m completely okay with that,” he told her honestly.

  “But nowhere else.”

  He nodded. “Okay.”

  “So I want to talk about leasing a new apartment.”

  No. But he didn’t say it out loud. If she still thought she should move out so they could figure out the partner stuff, then she’d move out. He’d move Jack’s bed into the new place himself. And then he’d work like hell to prove to her that this was where she belonged.

  He waited. She pulled the newspaper out of her purse and slid her glasses onto her nose.

  Caleb felt his cock harden. Damn, he really liked that nerdy hot look.

  “There are simply no other apartments available with all the things I need.” She looked up through her glasses. “Can you believe that none of them come with a sweet little girl, a stash of coconut crunch donuts, or a hot, dirty-talking firefighter? I mean, where do they expect a girl like me to live, anyway?”

  “That’s definitely a problem,” he said with a nod.

  “So I’m thinking that maybe I just need to stay here.”

  “Huh. Interesting.” He moved around the kitchen island. “Is now a good time to tell you that the rent is going up here?”

  She made her eyes round. “Oh, no. How will I afford it?”