I’d say it a million times if I could. More if I thought it would help.

“That’s why Dallas got so mad when he caught us behind the bar in Nashville. Because he thought maybe we were . . .”

“Yeah. Probably,” I answer shortly. It still pisses me off that he thinks I would’ve been doing anything like that with Dixie, but I try not to dwell.

“Jesus.” She’s quiet again, contemplating her next question, I assume. I’d rather be questioned by the FBI, by people I don’t give a flying fuck about, instead of by the woman I love more than life itself. But she deserves the truth and it’s time she got it. “The accident . . .”

My chest constricts as if she’s placing cinder blocks squarely on it. “Yeah. It was bad. Nearly totaled Dallas’s truck and gave both of us concussions and severe whiplash.”

Dixie’s eyes are wide when they meet mine. “Both of you? As in, you drove high with my brother, with my only fucking living relative, in the truck?”

Her arm swings left and takes her coffee cup off the table and onto the floor. She barely glances down at where the handle now lies broken.

Technically Dallas wasn’t her only living relative at the time, but this hardly seems like the moment to mention that. I clean up the mess quickly and efficiently setting the cup and its handle back on the table while she continues gaping at me and waiting for her pound of flesh.

“Yeah, Dix. I did. And I’m sorry. God, I am so fucking sorry that happened. He’d been drinking Robyn off his mind and called me for a ride. I didn’t realize how messed up either of us was until it was too late.”

Dixie buries the palms of her hands into her eyes and remains still for several minutes before talking to me again. “So you got charged with all kinds of stuff from the accident then. How’d you get out of it?”

One hard question after another. “Ashley. The attorney that you met.” And wanted to murder, from the looks of it.

“The attorney . . . Ashley,” she begins, and I can hear the venom and hurt in her voice. “How’d you afford her?”

There’s no way to sugarcoat my answer so I give it to her as gently as I can manage.

“Pretty much the same way I’ve always afforded things I wanted and couldn’t pay for.”

“Wow. Okay. I guess I kind of knew that, but hearing it . . . from you . . . Just . . . Wow.”

Her chair scrapes the floor as she moves it back. She shoots upright and takes the two pieces of her glass to the sink, but I know what she’s really doing. She’s disgusted and she needs space from me. I can’t blame her. I’m jealous. I wish I could get away from myself.

I hang my head and wait for the interrogation to continue.

Dixie busies herself using some type of glue to repair her mug and I finish my now cold, bitter coffee. She takes my cup and washes it before returning to sit down. “So you got help because the court made you, but it didn’t work?”

I nod. “Pretty much. Mandatory rehab is kind of a joke. It doesn’t take until you’re there because you want to be, because you want help and you want to change.” She nods as if this makes sense so I continue. “That time I was just going through the motions, complying with whatever simply to stay out of jail. But after the accident, I hit rock bottom. I was the worst off I ever was and Dallas dragged me out of my house, beat the hell out of me, and brought me here to dry out. I did and then I started trying to get some real help. It has helped and I still see an addiction counselor.”

“What were you addicted to?”

Now there’s the million-dollar question. Most addicts have a drug of choice. Heroin. Meth. Coke. Narcotics. Alcohol. Not that some people won’t just take whatever for the hell of it, but actual addicts tend to have a preference.

Mine was none of the above.

“I don’t know that I was ever actually addicted to one particular substance. My addiction issues were more . . .”

“Let me guess. Complicated?”

I nod. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

Dixie hates the generic use of that word and I don’t blame her. It’s vague as hell and basically a cop-out.

“That still doesn’t answer my question. What exactly were you addicted to then, Gav?”

A dull throb begins at my temples and lands in the center of my forehead. She waits patiently for my answer.

“Oblivion, Bluebird,” I finally answer. “I was addicted to anything and everything that helped me to check out, to escape my reality, to forget.”

“Forget what?” Her eyes are wide and round and shining with the promise of tears. Answering will only cause them to fall. But I have to. She deserves to know the truth.

“You.”

An hour has passed since I answered her final question and she went outside to get some air. She must’ve needed a lot of air.

I step out onto the front porch but she’s nowhere to be seen. Walking around the side of the house, I’m reminded of playing hide-and-seek as kids, of me and her and Dallas running and laughing and daring each other to do ridiculous things like mix Pop Rocks into a bottle of Pepsi and drink it all at once.

This house has been my safe place since the day I met the Lark siblings on the worst day of their young lives.

I’m so lost in memories, I think I see a younger version of myself sitting on the cracked concrete garden bench in the backyard.

He’s got dark hair like me, ill-fitting clothes like I did at that age, though at least his are clean, and I can see from a few steps away fingerprint bruises around the back of his neck. I sported those once or twice in my childhood as well.

I glance around but there is only me and him. The overcast day makes it seem like a dream or maybe a hallucination.

“Hey there,” I call out to make sure I’m not crazy.

He flinches and when he turns I know why. The last time this kid saw me I was beating his dad half to death right in front of him.

“This bench taken?” I ask, pointing to the other half.

He doesn’t answer, just returns his gaze to the empty field behind the house.

I take that as permission to sit.

Well . . . this is fucking awkward. Dixie was wrong, I’m not kid friendly at all.

A small flock of birds take off nearby as if we have offended them with our presence.

“Guess the birds didn’t want to hang with us,” I say, hoping to show him I’m not the monster I probably seem like.

He turns dark eyes briefly on me then goes back to staring. “They’re blue finches.”

“Yeah, I know.” I remember a day when Dallas and I found one by a pond where we mowed grass for summer money. It was beautiful and delicate and despite seeming as if it was done for, it eventually chirped loudly at us and flew off. That day I understood something, something about myself and about Dixie.

As long as she had hope in me, I would have hope in myself.

I’ve called her Bluebird ever since.

I tell my unexpected company the story about the bird and when I’m finished he actually looks slightly interested.

“What do you think happened to it? After it flew away?”

I think on this for a long minute. “I think it explored the world for a while until it met another bird to explore the world with it.”

“Or maybe it died. Everyone dies. My mom died.”

Fuck. Me.

I suck at kids.

I have no words for this. Except, “I’m sorry to hear that, man. That was probably tough to handle.”

He doesn’t respond. Taking a closer look, I realize he can’t be more than six or seven or so. I try to remember what that is. First grade maybe? Second?

“Hey, what grade are you in?”

“First,” he says quietly. “But I don’t really go to school much. They don’t like me there.”

I remember that. Being the addict’s kid, being dirty, being made fun of. You learn how to use your fists instead of your words pretty quickly. “Well, I like you. And I know Miss Dixie likes you. Maybe we can just have school right here. I bet she could teach us some stuff.”