Nice and Easy: Boys of the Big Easy book three Read online

  Bea shrugged. “That’s not how it feels to us. My husband was gone for days at a time when our kids were little. Now he and my daughter are gone and I’ve got these kids. And I bitch about it, but it’s how I like it. I know best.” She gave Lexi a little smile. “At least I can tell myself that when no one else is around who has ideas or opinions.”

  “Well, now I’m here with ideas and opinions about your diabetes,” Lexi told her dryly.

  “Exactly. And you’re at Caleb’s. With ideas and opinions about pretty much everything, right?”

  Lexi thought about that. Yes, of course. And that wasn’t new. But now that they were living together, spending time together during their time off, sleeping together, it wasn’t a matter of her implementing her opinions and ideas when she was there alone and him doing the same when she wasn’t there. They needed to do it all together. Partners. Equals. Even with the sex. Though he was in charge and she got off on submitting to him, it was still something they’d decided to do together. She’d put him in charge. She’d chosen to submit.

  She nodded. “Yes, I do. And it’s working. We’re figuring things out.”

  Bea smiled. “Good. I understand Caleb. I get where he’s coming from. Being in charge, being the go-to person, being the one who figures things out, can be exhausting. And it’s really hard to ask for help. Just keep that in mind.”

  “I get it,” she said. “And you need to keep in mind that when you ask for my help, I love it. Since I started nursing, I’m feeling that I can be valuable for the first time in my life. I’m not the dependent one. The one who people need to worry about. I can help people, I’m respected, and I can worry about people.” She gave Bea a smile. “And I think for the first time, I’ve realized I do worry about people. Which sounds strange. But when you’re always the one people are bailing out and supporting, it’s hard to focus on meeting their needs. Now I can really look outside of myself and see that I can be a part of something.”

  “I’m so glad,” Bea said sincerely. “You’ve grown up so much—”

  Suddenly there was a commotion at the front door of the restaurant. Bea straightened and Lexi pivoted. And her mouth dropped open.

  Caleb was coming toward them. Followed by Gabe and Addison and Lindsey and Corey.

  And Lexi realized she should have expected this.

  “What are you all doing here?” Bea demanded of the group as they came to the table.

  Gabe, Addison, Corey, and Lindsey took the three remaining chairs at the table. Caleb stayed standing.

  Lexi just lifted an eyebrow at Caleb. His gaze had come straight to her and she felt a stab of irritation. She’d told him she would call him when and if she needed him. What was he doing?

  “Logan texted to say he was heading to Caleb’s because he and Lexi were here with you,” Gabe said to Bea. “Our kids are at my mom’s, so we thought we’d head over and see if you needed anything.”

  “Caleb wasn’t here,” Bea said, frowning at Caleb over Lexi’s head.

  “Yeah, we met up on the sidewalk out front,” Addison said.

  “And you guys?” Lexi asked of Lindsey and Corey.

  “I called Dana to see if she still wanted to borrow my mixer,” Lindsey said. “And she told me she couldn’t come over because Logan was at Caleb’s because Caleb and Lexi were here. So I took the mixer and the boys to Dana and thought I’d see if everything was all right.”

  “I stopped at Caleb’s to ask if he could help me with my garage roof next weekend,” Corey said. “And Logan told me where you all were.”

  “I’m here because I was worried.” This came from Caleb and he didn’t sound nearly as lighthearted or apologetic as the others had managed to. Probably because he wasn’t apologetic.

  “I called Lexi,” Bea said. “No need for you to worry. Or come over. My house isn’t burning down.”

  “Well, I know how stubborn you can be and how sweet Lex can be,” Caleb said. “Thought she might need backup if you weren’t being a good listener.”

  Lexi scowled at him. She was sweet. When she needed to be. But she could be tough. He knew that. Didn’t he?

  “I needed a little bit of sweet tonight,” Bea said. “I’ve been yelling at myself enough, I didn’t need anyone else doing it. Lexi knows what she’s doing, but she’s calm and straightforward and kind about it.”

  “You didn’t think I’d be kind?” Caleb asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” Bea said. “You don’t have quite the bedside manner Lexi does.”

  Caleb frowned at her. “Some patients need someone to be a little more take charge.”

  Lexi felt her eyes widen. He was frowning at Bea, and he wasn’t wrong about Bea being stubborn and a know-it-all and a difficult patient, but Lexi had taken care of the situation.

  “I’m fine,” Bea informed him. “I don’t need all of you traipsing in here and embarrassing me. Lexi and I have this under control.”

  Lexi looked around. Obviously their group had attracted attention.

  Caleb clearly didn’t care. He crossed his arms, looking big and imposing and annoyed.

  Lexi knew how he felt. Annoyed was definitely what she was feeling at the moment. And hurt.

  “What is under control?” Caleb demanded. “What is going on? You, of all people, don’t go around calling people at night and asking for help. You can see why we would be concerned.”

  “You shouldn’t be concerned if you knew Lexi was here,” Bea pointed out.

  And Lexi wanted to hug her.

  Caleb glanced at Lexi. It took him a second to answer and Lexi felt her heart drop. He didn’t say, You’re right or That’s true or I definitely overreacted or I just felt left out because everyone always comes to me for everything and I don’t know how to step aside and let the girl I’ve been taking care of for the past two years actually be in charge once in a while. All of which would have been dead accurate.

  “I did feel better knowing Lexi was here,” he finally said. “I just wanted to check in on both of you.”

  “You thought Lexi would need checking on?” Bea asked.

  “I thought she might need some help dragging your stubborn butt out to the car to head to the ER,” Caleb said.

  “We’re not going to the ER,” Bea said with another glare.

  “Well, I didn’t know—”

  Lexi shot up out of her chair. “You didn’t know that I could easily assess if she needed to be at the ER? You didn’t know that I was resourceful enough and knowledgeable enough and that Bea would trust me enough to get her to the ER if that’s what was required?”

  Caleb looked mildly surprised. “I didn’t know anything about what was going on.”

  “Excuse me, is everything all right here?” The restaurant manager approached cautiously.

  “And you don’t have to know anything about what’s going on,” Lexi exclaimed, completely ignoring the manager. “Not everything that happens to every single person you know is your responsibility or even your business, Caleb.”

  His mild surprise went to outright baffled. “I’m just here to help.”

  “We don’t need your help.”

  Everyone else was totally quiet.

  Lexi took a deep breath. “I know you’re concerned. But you have to trust me when I say I’ve got this. You have to be okay with not being a part of every single thing every single second.”

  She swallowed hard. She was spilling all of this in front of everyone—and okay, the other patrons in the restaurant, too—but this was their support group. These were the people they shared the good, bad, and holy-crap-I’m-screwing-everything-up parts of their lives with. Yes, it was mostly about parenting, but there was nothing in their lives that their parenting didn’t touch and influence. They all knew a lot about each other’s lives, period.

  “Can we possibly move your party to—”

  “I don’t think you would have rushed over here if you knew Gabe was here,” Lexi said over the top of the restaurant manager. “Or if y
ou knew Lindsey was here. Or anyone else. You came over because you were worried about me.”

  “I want to be there for you, Lex,” he started.

  But she shook her head. “You were worried about me being in over my head. Like I was after mom left. And in this case, that also worried you for Bea. You thought I couldn’t handle this.”

  He shook his head. But she wasn’t done.

  “And I’m starting to think that might not go away. You can’t just immediately assume that I’m not able to handle the tough stuff. You have to trust me. To know my limits, to know when I need to tap out, to recognize when I can’t handle something that’s happening and to tell you.” She could tell from his expression that he realized she was using the sexual fantasies and her safe word as an analogy. “We’re both going to be a lot happier if you acknowledge that I know myself and trust that I will let you know what I need from you.”

  The entire restaurant was completely silent for several long moments.

  Then Lexi said simply, “You need to go home, Caleb.” She said it firmly. The only other time she’d used that tone with him was when he’d been trying to bandage her damned finger that morning in his kitchen.

  What the hell was with this guy not thinking she knew what she was doing?

  He studied her face. Lexi just held her breath and kept her gaze steady.

  This was her saying, “Red” in this situation. Would he understand that?

  There was a long pause. Then he said simply, “Okay.” Then he turned and left the restaurant without looking back.

  She blew out a breath as she watched the door shut behind him.

  “Okay, so—” Gabe looked around and then back to Bea and Lexi. “You’re all okay?”

  Lexi wasn’t so sure about that. Caleb had just left. Without fixing anything. Because she’d asked him to. That was…new.

  “I’ve got Lexi,” Bea said. “I’m fine.”

  Lexi smiled at her and then nodded. “We’re fine.”

  Gabe nodded. “Then we’ll head out.”

  Everyone got up and filed out. The manager sighed. He didn’t look particularly placated, but he moved off toward the kitchen.

  Lexi watched everyone go. Then she took a deep breath, sat back down, and looked at Bea. “What are we going to do with all of them?”

  Bea smiled. “Love them.”

  Lexi took a deep breath. “Well, not loving them isn’t even an option.”

  Bea nodded. “I know you love that boy in particular,” she said.

  Lexi knew she was talking about Caleb. “I do. But…I’m really mad at him right now.” She wasn’t sure why she’d confessed that. “I don’t think I’ve ever been mad at him before.” It was a really strange feeling to acknowledge that Caleb Moreau had fucked up. With her.

  Bea didn’t say anything right away, but after a moment she leaned in. “He’s not going to change, Lexi. At least not much.”

  Lexi sighed.

  “We’re a lot a like—me and Caleb,” Bea continued. “We kind of got dumped into the parenting thing. At least, I did this time around. Everyone else in our group is the parent of kids they chose to raise.”

  Lexi thought about that. She hadn’t really realized that before, but Bea was right.

  “I know Dana didn’t choose to lose her husband,” Bea went on. “Corey didn’t choose to lose his wife. Austin didn’t plan on getting divorced. You and Ashley didn’t plan on getting pregnant. But still, everyone else was more involved in the choice to become parents than Caleb and I were. Caleb was shocked to find out his sister made him Shay’s guardian. I was, obviously, shocked when my daughter had to go to prison. But, in some ways, that makes us even more aware of the things we’re doing. Or not doing. Because we’re taking care of someone else’s kid. For them. Because they trusted us over everyone else they knew. We want to do it right.”

  Lexi blew out a breath.

  Bea went on. “And then you trusted him, not just with Jack, but with you,” she said, squeezing Lexi’s hand. “There’s no way he’s going to shut off that need to make sure you’re always okay.”

  “So you’re saying that I need to get used to being mad and frustrated with him?” Lexi asked. She loved that Caleb wanted to take care of her, but why couldn’t he see that she could take care of people, too? Even take care of him once in a while?

  “Yeah, there are going to be those moments for sure,” Bea said with a little laugh. “You just need to understand that when he does ask you for help or defers to you, it matters even more than if it was coming from someone else. That won’t ever be his instinct or natural inclination. It will take a conscious effort. But I want you to know, it means even more then.”

  Lexi realized this applied to Bea calling her tonight when she wasn’t feeling well. She hadn’t wanted to. She’d wanted to take care of it on her own. But the fact that she’d realized she should let someone in, and that she’d chosen that someone to be Lexi, did matter.

  “I think I get it,” Lexi said.

  “People like Caleb and I need someone who will keep coming over and helping us even when we’ve been stubborn, hardheaded assholes.”

  Lexi looked at the two empty packets of honey that Bea had used tonight. “You’re not an asshole, Bea. You’re just learning that it’s okay to not always be the strong one and the right one. And,” Lexi continued, “I will come any time and every time you need me. I understand that it’s hard for you—and people like you,” she added with a smile, “to ask for help. But I personally find it very easy—because it means I have a family to lean on. You need to look at it that way.”

  Bea nodded. “You’re probably right.” She gave Lexi a final squeeze. “And when you need a reminder about how to deal with people like me…you just give me a call.”

  “When?” Lexi asked with a laugh. “You think Caleb’s going to be a stubborn, hardheaded asshole sometimes?”

  Bea nodded. “Inevitably.”

  Lexi let herself into the house an hour later. It was quiet, all the lights downstairs off except for the tiny lamp on the table in the foyer.

  She kicked off her shoes, dropped her purse, and turned to lock the door.

  She loved being able to lock the door behind her. It was a little thing, but it meant that she was staying and she wasn’t used to that yet. Or how good it felt.

  It was something that families took for granted every day, she was sure. Being home, all together, cozy and secure together under one roof.

  Of course, she didn’t know how cozy and secure things were at the moment. Caleb was upset and she was mad at him.

  “Hey.”

  She turned at the sound of Caleb’s voice. He was on the couch in the living room.

  “Hey,” she said wearily, coming around the end of the sofa. She didn’t know where they stood at the moment. They’d never really had an argument. She’d never pushed him away like she had at the restaurant.

  He leaned to shut the TV off and took a deep breath. Resting his forearms on his thighs he said, “We need to talk.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” She let her bag drop by the couch and took a seat on the cushion next to him. Her cushion. Where she always sat when they talked.

  “There’s something going on with Shay you should know about,” he said. “Something big.”

  Lexi felt a jolt of surprise. This wasn’t about Bea and what had happened at the restaurant? But then she frowned, concern overriding her surprise. “What’s going on?”

  “She has a brain injury.”

  Lexi stared at him as he blew out a breath, as if relieved.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not new. It happened in the car accident when her parents died.” Caleb looked down at his hands clasped between his knees. “I didn’t really notice anything until recently, but when I brought up her stumbling and stuff with the doctor, he did some testing.” Again he blew out a breath. “They’ve done all the tests. CT scans and everything. The damage is affecting he
r left side, causing…everything we’ve always noticed. The stuff you were working on with her.”

  He looked over at her. His expression was sad but he gave her a smile.

  That tugged at Lexi’s heart. She wanted to hug him. But she couldn’t move.

  This all made sense. It wasn’t at all hard to accept that the car accident had caused a brain injury and that that was affecting Shay now as she grew and developed.

  Caleb went on. “In addition to the weakness and foot drop, she also has some learning deficits.” His voice got scratchy and he cleared his throat. “She’s going to need PT, OT, speech and some learning intervention. Once she starts school, there are going to be special learning plans for her so that she keeps up as well as she can.”

  Lexi just nodded. She didn’t really know what else to do. She hadn’t been expecting any of this and now he was giving her so much information at once, she was having a hard time processing it.

  “But she’ll never…quite keep up. She’s always going to have issues.” He swallowed hard. “And there’s nothing I can do to fix it.”

  “You just found this out?” she finally asked. “Today?”

  She couldn’t put her finger on it exactly, but it seemed like he knew more, or that there was more going on, than could have all been discovered just today.

  Caleb shook his head and said, “She started therapy on Friday. Her doctor’s appointment was the Thursday before. That’s when they did the scans and stuff.”

  “The Thursday before last? The day we moved in here?” Lexi frowned.

  Caleb nodded. “Yeah.”

  Lexi thought about that. Something about it felt…wrong. Weird. “So on Friday, when we were talking about the exercises I do with her and the memory games, you knew then?” she asked, piecing it together.

  He looked at her and she realized that he knew where her mind was going with all of this.

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t say anything?”

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?” But she knew why. Because Caleb didn’t think she could handle it.

  “I didn’t know anything yet,” he said. “Not really. The scans showed there was something going on but they didn’t have any specifics. That’s what the therapy assessments were for. To see where she was currently and to talk about where they thought she could go. And how to get there.”