He shifted.She is not for you.He was not going to think of the Baby Chandler, or that body or that little roll of flesh on her back. Especially not in the presence of her overprotective big brother.
Kareem burst into the room, his yapping dog at his heels. Kareem beamed at him and tried to tackle him. Gabe caught him with a pretendoof. “What have you been doing, kid?”
“Uncle Jackson and I went to the lake to go paddle boarding and then we came back and then we made cookies.” Kareem smiled, revealing baby teeth stained with chocolate.
Jackson entered the room behind them, holding a tray of fragrant cookies. He silently placed the tray on the coffee table, and then wandered away to the bookshelf.
Gabe leaned over and swiped a cookie. He hated sweets generally, but he made an exception for these cookies. “I love these. I missed—” He cut himself off, because Nicholas had hung up the phone. Instead, he stuffed the cookie into his mouth, savoring the burst of bittersweet chocolate chips.
These had been called Sam’s Cookies back when the C&O had been a joint enterprise, a recipe Sam Oka had brought to the store. After the split, Gabe hadn’t gone to Chandler’s to buy them. It would have been a betrayal, to shop at Chandler’s.
These were even better than Sam’s Cookies, though, because they were fresh, gooey, and hot from the oven. He polished off one, and reached for another. “What are you guys going to do now?”
Kareem leaned over and hoisted his puppy up. “I dunno. We’re waiting for Mom to come back.”
“Hmm.” He petted the dog, who curled up next to him. “Gonna stare at the wall ’til then, huh?” The puppy tested his teeth on Gabe’s thumb and Gabe smiled, letting the tiny guy gnaw on him.
Kareem frowned at his dog. “Paddles, no. We don’t bite.”
“Paddles?” Finally off his calls, Nicholas joined them and helped himself to a cookie. “You changed his name again?”
“He liked being in the boat.”
Jackson returned, a deck of cards in his hands. “You want to play Go Fish while we wait, Kareem?”
“We should teach him poker. He can be a shark like his daddy was,” Gabe said before he could think.
Kareem twisted around to look at him, one hand still on his dog’s head. “What was Daddy?”
Gabe cleared his throat. Paul was a tough topic of conversation around these two men. Nicholas had been estranged from him the second the Chandlers had taken over the company. Jackson had left the country around that same time.
Paul had hissed about Nicholas and refused to speak much about Jackson. Gabe recognized that he’d been closer to Paul than either of them, and that wasn’t quite right for any of them. He was sure it must hurt Nicholas and Jackson, how could it not? As far as they knew, or even as far as Paul had known, Gabe wasn’t family.
His stupid unruly tongue. “Uh—”
“Remember when Paul and I were home from college, and we’d stay up all night playing?” Nicholas’s gaze was far away. He tucked his phone into his jeans, and sat down in the chair opposite them.
“You guys’d let me join sometimes,” Jackson rumbled, and took a spot in the other chair. “So you could fleece me, mostly.”
“Does that mean Daddy cheated?”
“Never,” Jackson said swiftly before anyone could respond. “Your daddy was just really good at bluffing. Bluffing isn’t lying,” he said hastily when Kareem opened his mouth. “In poker, sometimes you pretend you have a better hand than you have, so you can get a little further in the game. It’s okay in this one instance.”
Gabe snorted. “Jackson. He was really good at bluffing you, because you were naive. The man had the worst tell.”
Nicholas sniffed, and Gabe grinned, pointing his finger at him. “There you go. Before he played.” Gabe gave a discreet sniff.
Jackson scowled. “No. I don’t remember this.”
“Naive,” Nicholas agreed. “You were the easiest to—” His words faded. “Fool.”
Gabe squeezed Kareem, leaning into the slightly awkward pause. “How about we teach you how to play, kiddo? We should start the next generation somewhere.”
“Good idea.” Jackson tapped the cards out, then casually shuffled them. Gabe raised an eyebrow when the cards flew back and forth between the younger man’s hands. “I’ve learned a few things,” Jackson said mildly.
More than a few things. By the time they finished a few hands, Jackson was up about three hundred dollars, symbolized by chocolate chips Jackson had fetched from the kitchen. Kareem, who had opted to join Jackson’s team, whooped as they raked in their winnings.
Gabe pursed his lips as Nicholas sat back and folded his arms over his chest. “Clearly you’re not as naive as we thought.”
