He’s nodding at me, and I ease up a tiny hair when I realize he’s gasping to breathe. Then I continue. “You’re going to write another letter. This one is going to be for Max. But you’re going to send it to Avery, and she gets to decide when…and even if your son ever gets to read it.”

“And finally, you’re going to keep depositing money into Avery’s account. Not just because she deserves it—she deserves ten times the amount you give her—but because Max deserves to get something out of you, too. You’re Max’s dad, and everyone knows it, but you don’t get to be his father. So you just go do the right thing, tell everyone the truth, and then stay the hell in Florida.”

I give him one good shove as I step away and walk back around to the driver’s side of my car, but before I get there, I stop. “And Adam?” I turn to look at his face, and I know he’s not moving from that spot for a good hour. “You better do what I said, because I’m a crazy motherfucker, and I’ll find you. Have a good flight.”

When I smile and slip on my own sunglasses, just to mock him, I feel satisfied. I didn’t hit him. I wanted to, but once I started laying out all his dirty laundry? Pointing out every failure? I knew I didn’t need to. Sometimes, holding up a mirror to someone’s face is a lot more effective than kicking their teeth in. Though, just one kick might have been nice.

It seemed like an easy enough thing, when the idea popped in my head in the middle of the night, lying there looking at Avery, so peaceful and small and fragile. I’d hunt down Adam, put him in his place, and make sure he never hurt her again. She’s a spitfire, yes—that tiny body can muster quite a punch when it needs to. But underneath it all, she’s so damned breakable. I know she hates when I call her Birdie, but looking at her, asleep on my arm, her tiny lips barely apart, whispering breath…she’s like a hummingbird. Like a beautiful, precious hummingbird, and all I want to do is make sure she gets to the next day, and then the next, and then…

I’m falling for her. And it’s making my head all f**ked up because I’m going to rehearse with the band tonight, and when I came back to the Creek I had only one mission—get this music shit straightened out, get back on the road with the boys, and cut a new record deal. But then Avery happened. And now, I have this other mission, and it sort of hopscotched right in front of the music one the second my lips hit hers. But I don’t know…I’m not ready to give up on the other things either. And Avery is…hard.

It’s late morning, and I know she woke up alone. I hate that. I bet she has a million and half horrible thoughts running through her head right now about me, but I had to slip out of there without waking her. She would have stopped me from talking to Adam. And it needed to be done. If not for her, for me—my anger over what he did was consuming me.

The smell of bacon hits my nose the second I open the back kitchen door, and the crackling sounds like distant thunder. Ray’s back is to me; he’s standing at the stove, frying up a batch, grease bubbling over the edges of the pan with every snap and pop.

“Making a BLT. You want one?” he says, not even turning around.

“Can you make mine a BL, hold the T?” I say, grabbing a beer from the fridge and popping the top off to drop it into the trash.

“You got it. Coming right up,” he says, tossing two more pieces of bread in the toaster. I keep pulling out my phone, trying to think of a way I can ask Ray for Avery’s number, some reason I would need it, but my heart literally races to the speed of a Ducati every time I try to speak, so I just put it away.

“Here, bacon’s still hot, so careful,” Ray says, sliding a plate my direction, and sitting down with his own across from me. “I’m heading over to Dusty’s after this. You wanna ride?”

“Nah, that’s okay. I’m headin’ over to Ben’s for a while this afternoon. Rehearsing for Friday,” I say, talking while I chew.

Ray just nods, taking a second giant bite out of his sandwich. He keeps looking at me, then back at the bacon and bread in his hand. I can tell he’s got something on his mind, but I never know if it’s going to be a lecture about the guys or just some interesting thing he heard on the news. Ray’s really the only father figure I’ve ever known, and frankly, sometimes the man makes me nervous.

I can’t take the stress of his off and on stare, so I cram the last quarter of my sandwich in my mouth, and take my plate over to the sink so I can run upstairs, grab my shit and head to Ben’s.