“Too bad,” Ashley answers with a shrug.

I step closer to Dixie just as she shoves the piano bench backward, scraping it across the hardwood floor. Before I can blink, we’re face-to-face and if looks could kill, someone would be performing CPR on me in a matter of seconds.

“Hey . . . I thought you might’ve gone on back to Houston. Or I’d hoped—”

“Go to hell, Gavin,” is all that escapes her beautiful mouth. Her rage hits me with the force of a ten-foot plate-glass window shattering over me.

I turn to watch her storm out, as I run a hand over my head and feel the heat of several angry glares from other women around me.

Ashley smirks from behind her glass as she polishes off another drink I didn’t realize she was holding. “Well that escalated quickly.”

Yeah. It did.

I am so fucked.

3 Months Later

1 | Dixie

“SON OF A bitch,” I bite out as the twisted metal tears into my skin.

“Jesus, Dixie. What the hell?” Jaggerd McKinley glances up from under the hood of a 1968 Mustang Fastback and narrowly avoids slamming his forehead into it.

Before I can stop him, he’s around the car and grabbing a clean rag from a tray beside me.

“Be still,” he commands, using the cloth to blot at the blood on my hip. I tug the waistband of my jeans down a little lower so he can press it against my flesh wound. It’s not huge but feels deep and raw. Kind of like I just walked too close to a piece of gnarly metal sticking out from under a tarp, which is precisely what happened.

“What the hell was that?” I nod toward the tarp. “What’s under there?”

Jag’s eyes resemble the color of whiskey in the sun and tighten when they meet mine. “Nothing,” he mumbles under his breath.

“Sure as hell didn’t feel like nothing.” I lift his hand gently and peer at my wound. I can handle just about anything except the sight of my own blood.

I feel my eyes rolling back and Jag’s firm arms around me.

“Still squeamish about that, huh?” His breath tickles the side of my face and I am suddenly acutely aware of his proximity.

“Yeah, apparently,” I say, feeling the edges of my vision fade.

“Easy, girl,” he says with a laugh, wrapping his arms even tighter around me and leaning me gently on the passenger door of the Fastback. “Take a few deep breaths.”

“I’m fine. I promise.” I run a hand through my wayward curls before wiping the sheen of sweat from the back of my neck. “It’s just been a long week.”

“I heard Dallas was back. I’m glad the scare overseas turned out okay.”

I nod. I had every intention of staying angry with my brother for not telling me Gavin wasn’t on tour with him but then he went and disappeared for almost forty-eight hours, scaring me half to death and forcing me to forgive him. “Me, too. The wedding is this weekend.”

Jag busies himself wiping his grease-covered hands on his jeans. “Guess it really does work out for some folks.”

The cocktail of emotions behind his statement twists around my insides like twine. “Guess so.”

“Robyn seems like a great girl. Glad they were able to get their second chance.”

The constant heaviness I carry in my heart lightens a little. I am happy for Dallas and Robyn. I’m excited to be a part of their big day and literally ecstatic about becoming an aunt to my future nephew. But . . . something about the anticipation of it all, the impending burden of necessary smiles and laughter in the midst of my complete and utter devastation about having to face Gavin Garrison for the first time in months . . . It’s like getting the worst news of your life on the brightest, sunniest, clearest day of the year.

I’m a walking, talking, living, breathing storm cloud waiting to burst and rain on everyone else’s parade.

But I won’t. Because I can’t.

I had my chance. My one night. And even a little more than that.

“Wait for me, Bluebird,” he’d said.

Apparently I should’ve asked for the specific details of just how long he intended to make me wait. I thought he meant wait until he got back from being on tour with Dallas. Too bad he didn’t go on tour with Dallas. Lucky me, I got to find out the hard way.

I have seen Gavin Garrison a grand total of twice in the past three months. Once at a bar he apparently worked at, unbeknownst to me. And then again when my brother went missing and he stopped by to check on me—as if he actually cared. He didn’t even come inside, just stood on the porch and asked me to keep him posted about Dallas.

Adrenaline courses through me like an electric current at the memory of seeing him at the bar with another woman. Her perfectly manicured nails skating up the skin on his arm.

“You sure you’re okay?” Jaggerd’s voice yanks me from the past.

I swallow hard as he takes a step back. “Yeah.”

“When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

I try to recall if I’ve ever had one. I have. Once. “Pretty sure I was a kid. Thirteen or so. I cut my hand on a rusty car rim when Dallas and Gavin let me go to the junkyard with them to find a side-view mirror for Dallas’s truck.”

Jaggerd mumbles something unintelligible under his breath.

“What’d you say?”

His eyes lift to mine and something unidentifiable flickers in them before he blinks it back and answers. “I asked if you had any memories that didn’t include him.”

There’s a challenge in his tone, as if he already knows the answer and is daring me to deny the truth.

It irritates me—the unnecessary shade he’s throwing, the male macho bullshit, game playing of any kind. I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime. After years of letting my older brother and Gavin Garrison—and even Jag in the year that we dated—dictate my life, my feelings, and my mood, I’m finally in a place where I am my own damn person. A few months on the road alone and coming home to have my heart broken have helped me to grow up a bit. Turns out I’m perfectly capable of making decisions all on my own and one of them is not to tolerate being condescended to on any level.

“Why don’t you just go ahead and say what you mean, McKinley? Save us both the time and trouble of trying to decipher your doublespeak?”

Surprise widens his eyes, then he smirks at me with a look of slight approval in them. “Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“Old habits?”

Jag shrugs. “I always felt like third runner-up. Hell, I was third runner-up.”

I frown because now I’m lost. “Meaning?”

“Meaning music will always be your first love. Gavin Garrison is your second and the one you’ve always wanted. I was more of a consolation prize—someone to kill the time with until he took notice of what was right in front of him.”

“Jag—”

“Don’t bother lying, Dix. I may just be some dumb mechanic but I know you and you have a terrible poker face.”

Sadly, I’ve heard that before.

“You were never a consolation prize.” This is true. Jaggerd McKinley was a little rough around the edges from a distance, but up close, he was genuinely a sweet guy. He took my virginity and he was kind and gentle about it. Granted he didn’t make my heart race or my entire body light up the way a certain someone else did, but he was a good guy and I cared about him.

“Uh-huh. What was I then?”

I rack my brain for an answer that’s honest but won’t hurt his feelings. “You were a very sweet guy who treated me with respect. And you’re still my friend and honestly, I could use a friend right now.”

He’s still standing close enough that I can feel the breath released by his sigh. “Oh, the friend zone. Guess I might as well get comfortable there, huh?”

The silence stretches out long and awkward between us. Jaggerd has thick, auburn hair that’s always about two weeks past needing a cut. It matches the scruffy beard that’s typically a few days past needing a trim. Beneath the rough exterior, though, he has bright hazel eyes, flawless skin, and a full masculine mouth women would stand in line to kiss if he’d pay more attention to them. He really is a beautiful guy. He’s just not my guy.