Tears well in my eyes because I can hear them in his voice. “Well, shit, Dallas. Now you’re making me cry. Stop that.”

“Sorry. I’m not trying to upset you or manipulate you. I really will love you just the same if you say you’re not into this at all. But I had to ask. Technically, Gavin was supposed to ask but I’m getting used to him chickening out when it comes to you.”

Maybe he’s right. Or maybe Gavin was going to play another hand—the “I know you want me” hand. Was he going to screw with me like that? Pretend he wanted to be with me, eventually, when he’s done with the blonde, to get me to go along with this?

My emotions twist into an intricate knot in the pit of my stomach.

“I need some time to think about it. Either way, we can still do the warm-up gig. Go ahead and confirm.”

My brother barely suppresses a yelp of joy. Gavin says we don’t have poker faces. He’s right. We don’t. But he sure as hell does.

“Awesome. I’m so glad you’re on board,” he tells me on a huge sigh that sounds like relief. “I’ll text you all the details and the competition info with my thoughts on the songs we should play as soon as we hang up.”

“ ’Kay. Love you, big brother.”

“Love you, too, Dixie Leigh.” My usually closed-off brother is overflowing with the emotions. I like it. It’s different, but I like it.

After we hang up, my phone buzzes in my hand and texts from Dallas come in one after another.

My vision blurs trying to read it all.

Dallas has really put a lot of thought into this. I agree with all but one of his song choices and I text him back to tell him so. I’m a little surprised when I notice the excitement and anticipation welling up inside me.

I want this. I want to do this.

Moreover, I want to win.

At the edge of my awareness, there is still that same nagging concern that is always there. The thought of playing music with Gavin feels like facing a giant mountainous incline the world expects me to climb. One with terrain I have no clue how to navigate and haven’t had time to train adequately for.

I shake my head and stand. This isn’t about Gavin Garrison. This is about my band—a band I am just now acknowledging is as much mine as Dallas’s or Gavin’s.

I can do this. I have loved. And lost. I have grown. I am stronger.

I’ve learned a few vital lessons over these past few months. It’s not knowledge and experience that helps us to grow and mature.

It’s pain. It’s damage. It’s recovering from it. Surviving it.

I am stronger because I had to be. I’ve been hurt so many times. By life, by death, by love, and by loss. I am happier because I’ve known profound sadness, wiser because I’ve made epic mistakes and learned from them. But I am still standing.

Damn straight I am.

Oz sits faceup on the kitchen table and I run my fingers over his strings. “You ready for this? Want one more run at this thing? Think we’re ready?”

The buzz of electricity hums through my fingertips like an answer and it ignites every cell in my body. I am grinning like a maniac as I use my ancient laptop to research the competition.

I’m still smiling when my next student rings the doorbell. I have survived everything in my life so far—this won’t kill me.

At least I hope it won’t.

10 | Gavin

“GARRISON! HOW MANY times do I have to tell you? No personal calls at work.”

My boss looks sunburned 365 days a year. He’s turning a deep shade of crimson nearing on blood violet while he goes off on me.

“I mean, you’re the bartender. Get it? The name says it all. Bar and tender. As in tender of the bar, as in the asshole that holds up the line because he’s on the phone instead of pouring drinks. When you don’t pour the drinks, I don’t make the money. I don’t make the money, I can’t write you a paycheck. Got that?”

“Cal? Not to be a smartass, but my phone call probably won’t last half as long as that speech just did.”

“Two minutes,” he says, shoving the phone at me. “I mean it.”

“I’ll keep it to one,” I say, just to aggravate him because he makes it so easy. Once he shakes his head and moves out of earshot¸ I lift the phone to my ear.

“I told you not to call me at work. We had an agreement. I can’t keep doing this with you—”

“Garrison?

Fuck me.

“Dallas Lark. Holy shit. How goes the honeymoon? Y’all make a sex tape yet? ’Cause I can probably find a buyer.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t know it was me,” he practically growls through the phone.

“Yeah, no. My bad. Thought you were someone else calling.”

“I gathered that. Something going on?”

“Nah.” Not anymore, anyway. “What’s up? Other than you being married and all?”

“The sky. Sorry about calling you at work but I tried your cell and it was off.”

Yeah. There’s a reason for that. One I have no desire to discuss with him. “It’s fine. Just make it quick and I’ll call you when I get off.”

Dallas chuckles. “All right. Well, here goes.”

I shove my palm against my free ear to close it off from the commotion in the bar.

“I checked in with Dixie about the competition. Funny, she said you hadn’t mentioned it, you freaking pansy.”

The bottom drops right the fuck out of my gut. Between him and McKinley, everyone is going to ruin my chances with Dixie Lark before I’ve even begun to have one. “Sorry. The opportunity to discuss it just didn’t quite present itself.”

“Well, I just talked to her and I have to tell you that she sounded kind of stoked about it. She doesn’t know I got released from my label and I don’t want to dump that on her while she’s trying to decide. Nothing’s for sure, but she was definitely interested.”

“Shit. They dropped you? As in do not call us we won’t call you?”

“Yeah,” Dallas says slowly. “I’m not all that surprised but I don’t want it to influence her decision. I want her to do this because she wants to, for her, you know? So could you and her maybe rehearse one day this week? Get a feel for if you can handle your romantic drama and get a handle on it so after I get home and get the nursery set up we can get to rehearsing?”

My eyes close involuntarily and my throat constricts. If McKinley tells Dixie what he knows about me, she will have no interest in ever seeing me again. Which I will fully deserve. “Definitely. I’ll see what we can work out.”

“Awesome. And, Garrison?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I love you like a brother from another mother, but seriously, I will end your young life if you hurt her again. I won’t tell you to stay away because Robyn has convinced me that it would be unrealistic and futile for me to try and enforce that. But I will tell you that life has a way of catching up with you when you least expect it and if you don’t tell Dixie everything soon, it might get out of hand before you get a chance, and if that happens in the midst of this competition, I will be ridiculously pissed for multiple reasons.”

Says the dude not telling her he got dropped from Capitol. But he’s right. “Roger that. I know, man. Believe me, I know. I gotta get back to work but send me a list of songs you’re thinking about.”

“On it. Talk later. I have to go make sweet love to my wife.”

“Poor Robyn. It’s bad enough you knocked her up—now she has to see you naked for the rest of her life.”

Dallas chuckles, or he’s choking to death. I can hardly tell over the noise in the bar.

Before we hang up I need to ask him one more thing. “Hey, quick question.”

“What’s that?”

“How’d you know Robyn wouldn’t shut you down? I mean—you left the tour. Walked away from everything. Got dropped from your label. That’s fucking huge. What if she’d told you to go straight to Hell?”

Dallas is quiet for so long I think we got disconnected, until I hear him clear his throat.

“For years I told myself she was better off without me. I couldn’t give her the perfect life, the picket fence and all that. But it was the damnedest thing. Robyn didn’t want the perfect life or the picket fence. She just wanted me. Once I figured that out, it was either risk it all and tell her how I felt or live the rest of my life wallowing in regret. Thank God she said yes.”