“Okay, then. Me first,” I say quietly, overwhelmed by the sense of vulnerability I’m feeling. “I love you, Gavin Garrison. I love the feel of you, the taste of you, the scent of you. I love the way you touch me and the way you make me feel.”

His eyes are on fire when they lock with mine. “I love you, too, Bluebird. More than should even be possible. More than I ever knew I could be capable of.” His hands grip my waist tightly, denting the flesh and claiming me as his.

His fingertips drift lazily up the backs of my thighs, tracing the lower curve of my backside, causing me to twitch in response.

“Can we stay like this while we talk?” I plead weakly.

With a low chuckle, he gives my ass a squeeze. “We could. But we probably shouldn’t. Wouldn’t get much talking done.”

“You couldn’t just let me lie here and die happy?” I tease. Truthfully, despite how aroused my naked body is, my heart is hammering into my skull with an urgency demanding I do whatever is necessary to find out what happened the year I was in Houston.

Gavin is a vault; he always has been. A beautiful, bruised vault hiding the world’s darkest secrets. Secrets I am equally terrified of knowing and not knowing.

He’s not Clark Kent or Captain America. I always knew that. Gavin is much more of a Bruce Wayne minus the money. He’s a dark hero fighting to be good when we all know he could go either way.

“I mean . . . I can,” he answers, stroking my hair and then my back. “If that’s really what you want.”

I sigh in his arms, soaking up the last ounces of vulnerable intimacy while I can.

“I’ll make some coffee,” I announce as I peel my reluctant body from his. Something about our closeness without having had sex seems more . . . primal. Or intimate. Or . . . I don’t know. It’s just more. “Sun will be up soon.”

20 | Gavin

I’VE BEEN IN a lot of tough and precarious situations in my life. Hell, my life is one big, complicated situation. But none have been daunting to the point of debilitating the way facing Dixie Lark is about to be.

It’s as if I’m about to face a firing squad and I’m the one supplying the ammo.

Once I pull on a pair of Dallas’s old gym shorts and a T-shirt featuring the name of our high school football team, I make my way to the kitchen, where I can hear Dixie making coffee. My feet are lead weights as I move, begging me to slow down and reconsider before I ruin everything good in my life only moments after finally getting it back.

For a moment, I just stand there, watching her making coffee.

What would life be like if I were normal? Would it be like this? Waking up to her, morning coffee with her, holding her in my arms every night—it sounds like Heaven on Earth and like a life I could never begin to be worthy of.

“Hey. You want it black as usual?”

I blank out for a second staring at her full mouth.

“Gav? Coffee?”

I shake my head. “Black is fine. Like my soul.”

She gives me a pointed look but doesn’t comment on my mood. I take the mug she hands me and lower myself into one of the wooden chairs at the table.

“So what did you want to tell me?” she asks tentatively, eyeing me carefully while sitting in the seat adjacent to mine.

I take a long swallow of hot coffee and then a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”

Something flashes in her eyes. Intrigue? Worry? I can’t tell for sure.

“Everything,” she whispers softly. Then a little louder, “And nothing.”

I force a half smile. “Oh, that’s all? That I can do.”

Neither of us speaks for a few minutes but then she sets her mug aside and clasps her hands together on top of the table. Her stare meets mine, an immeasurable number of emotions swirling in her eyes, and I know this is the calm before the storm.

Maybe we should take cover, have this conversation beneath the table or locked in a bunker somewhere that we can’t escape, can’t walk out of until our issues are resolved.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were home? Even if you didn’t want to see me, it would’ve been nice to know without finding out like . . . like I did.”

Man up and tell her the truth, Garrison. Before someone else does.

I stare at my coffee mug, realizing it says WORLD’S GREATEST NANA on it. Dixie’s has sheet music printed across it and the words DEAR MUSIC, THANKS FOR THE THERAPY.

I spin mine in my hands a few times before answering.

“I didn’t call you when I first came home because I needed time. There were things—like the probation situation I told you about—that I wanted to get handled and squared away before contacting you. There was some jail time involved and I didn’t want you coming to that place, though eventually I guess you had to anyway.” Or she chose to. Whichever.

“Okay,” she answers slowly, tracing the rim of her cup with one finger. “So let’s back up. How did you end up on probation to begin with?”

And here we go.

Deep into the year that I think of as my dark period, which, with my life, is saying something.

“The year you were gone wasn’t a great one. I wasn’t making very good choices. I was using . . . and then I was in an accident. One that was my fault.”

I see the ripple of disappointed sadness that crosses her features. No matter what I do, I will always hurt her in one way or another. The knowledge settles onto my chest like a ton of bricks.

Dixie looks momentarily like she can’t decide which part to question first. “Using what exactly?”

I rub my fingers over my eyelids. “Coke mostly. It was around all the time. Guy my mom was seeing wasn’t shy about sharing. I’d drink a little, do a few lines, and go play my drums until I couldn’t move my arms.”

She frowns. “Were you addicted?”

I nod. “I don’t know. Sort of. It was like . . . like I was trading one addiction for another. Losing you and filling the void with getting high.”

“I see.” But I know her tone. She doesn’t see. How could she? Dixie doesn’t understand living a life of crime to make ends meet because she’s never had to and she probably never would. She’s moral and good and pure. “So you got caught? How?”

I sigh because this is the beginning of the end and I don’t know what I thought but I’d hoped I’d somehow figure out a way to avoid this part. I didn’t.

“I got busted for possession in a back alley behind a bar a few towns over. Got a suspended sentence, days on the shelf basically, court-ordered addiction counseling and community service for it because Ash—uh, my attorney—was able to plead it down. But I’d no sooner finished the court-mandated program than I got into an accident. I was high and it showed in the tox screen. Since I already had one major strike against me plus a few minor arrests for assault for petty bar fights and other BS, the punishment was a little heavier that time.”

She sits there processing for a while and I sit there hating myself for tainting her with my fucked-upness.

In a way, I’m glad that much is out there. I feel like I can breathe a little easier. But in my heart I know I’ve glossed over the most painful details of that year and my Bluebird isn’t stupid. She’ll catch on and demand the full story.

It doesn’t take long.

“Were you alone in the back alley? When you got busted?”

I shake my head but don’t answer.

“So . . . did the other person get arrested?”

I nod.

“Gavin, don’t turn mime on me right now, please.”

I swallow hard and choke out a quick “Sorry.”

God, I am so fucking sorry.

“They got arrested for drugs, too?”

I shake my head, and she narrows her eyes at me. “For performing a lewd act in public, Dix. That’s what she got arrested for. Is that what you want to know? That I found the only peace I could with other women?” She flinches and a white-hot blanket of shame covers me. “I’m sorry. I know it doesn’t mean anything right now, but for what it’s worth, I am sorry.”