“Things have not gone smoothly with Cher, and Mia’s only part of that,” Garrett shared.

Dave shook his head knowingly. “Things that’re worth it never do. You got a woman where it goes smooth, you get rid of her. There’s no passion in smooth. There’s no challenge in smooth. You got smooth, that mean’s she’s bustin’ her ass so you can sail along without a hitch in the road, which in turns means she’s all about lookin’ after you rather than gettin’ what she needs out of the deal. Man’s no man at all, he doesn’t meet his woman’s needs. Woman’s no woman at all, she doesn’t got it in her to look after gettin’ what she needs. That might not make sense to you until you live it, so I’ll just boil this down, son. Smooth is boring.”

Garrett grinned at his dad. “I wouldn’t know. Not sure I’ve ever had smooth.”

His dad shook his head again. “Rough road you’ve been travelin’ wasn’t about that. Journey you took with Mia…” He kept shaking his head as he trailed off, then he grinned back. “But a woman who throws down in a bar full of people when she hears your five foot three ex shoved you, that’s the good kind of bumpy.”

Garrett hadn’t heard that. “Cher threw down with Mia because she shoved me?”

“Oh yeah.”

It was then, Garrett shook his head but he did it still grinning.

“Lucky for you, you’ve already proved you’re a hardass, so Cher defendin’ you at J&J’s isn’t a hit to your cred,” his dad teased.

“She thinks she’s the ’burg’s tough chick,” Garrett told him.

“She’s not wrong. Then again, life is life, so in this town, she’s got a lot of company.”

It felt good to know his old man liked Cher.

But he had to get to work and he had something he needed to get from his father, so he had to get down to it.

“I’m dreamin’ about her, Dad,” Garrett shared.

Dave’s grin turned to a smile. “Now, son, not sure your old man is up for hearin’ detail on that.”

“No,” he said low. “I’m dreamin’ her dead.”

Dave straightened. He paled. And he shut his mouth.

Garrett straightened too. “Now is not the time to close down on me. I thought I had this mess in my head like Rocky had it in hers—worried, me bein’ the man in the situation, the cop, that someone I loved would lose me like she worried Tanner’s occupation would take him from her. She was there when what happened to Mom happened, so her mess was compounded by guilt she wasn’t able to stop it.”

When he mentioned his mom, he saw his father’s mouth get tight.

But he didn’t quit.

“I’m seein’ from these dreams I’m not worried someone will lose me. I’m worried somethin’ I do will put Cher in danger.”

“Like I did to your mother,” Dave forced through tight lips.

“Like what happened to Mom,” Garrett returned. “You didn’t do it to her. It happened to her.”

“Because of what I did.”

“Because of what was happening,” Garrett said firmly. “You didn’t do dick, Dad. Except your job.”

Dave stared at him, then shifted irritably in his chair. “You wanna tell me why you’re here, goin’ over this with me?”

Garrett stared back at his dad, not believing he even asked such a fucked-up question after what had happened when Rocky broke down and Tanner justifiably lost his mind on both his and his father’s asses.

Then he said, “Thought that was obvious. I’m here because I’m fallin’ in love with a good woman and I wanna hold on this time. She’s got a kid, a kid I’m fallin’ in love with right alongside her. And she wants more kids, Dad. My kids. Unlike Rocky when she was twenty-one years old and she blocked Tanner from her life, not mature enough to deal with all the shit screwing with her head, I’m forty-two and realize I have issues. So I need to find the tools to deal with them so I can make my woman and her son happy. Not tear them apart.”

“You’re aware of it, just do it,” Dave stated.

“The first dream, she was against a wall with a gun in her face—a gun that exploded,” Garrett declared.

His father’s body gave a small jerk.

That was how his mother had died.

After she had been tortured, that was.

Garrett kept pushing. “Second one, she was like the vic’s body I saw yesterday—in a car, covered in blood. You okay with your son havin’ those kinds of dreams?”

“See a doctor,” Dave clipped. “That helped your sister.”

“I don’t wanna see a doctor. I want to talk to my dad.”

Dave’s head twitched before he said, “I don’t have those tools to give you, Garrett.”

“Yes, you do,” Garrett returned.

“If I did, I’d hand them to you.”

“You don’t hand them to me, if my time comes, how am I gonna hand what I learned to a kid me and Cher make? Ethan’s birth father is a moron, the kind he’s not gonna turn that around. If this is what I think it is with Cher, the best Ethan’s gonna have is me, and gotta tell you, the more I get to know that kid, that honor would be mine. But I gotta do that right. And if there’s a time in his life he needs me to be strong for him, teach him how to be that himself, how do I do that if I don’t even fuckin’ know?”

Dave’s face twisted.

Garrett leaned toward his father.

“Just tell me it’s gonna be okay,” he whispered. “Tell me I got this. Tell me I can do my job and keep her safe. I can do my job and keep Ethan safe. What happened to our family is not gonna happen to the family I make. All I need, Dad, is for you to tell me it’s gonna be fuckin’ okay.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Dave whispered back. “Nothin’s gonna happen to Cher. Fuck, Garrett, you lived your whole life thinkin’ that?”

“Right alongside you livin’ your whole life feelin’ guilt it was your fault that somethin’ happened to you. Mom and you. I love you. You’re my father. I felt that pain and guilt right with you. And I felt my own pain and guilt bein’ powerless to take yours from you. So, shit yeah, Dad. I lived my whole life thinkin’ that. No. Not thinkin’ it. Emotionally paralyzed because I was terrified of it.”

Dave held his gaze, pain and guilt in his eyes.

Fuck.

It never ended.

“Mia, boy…cute. So cute,” Dave started.

Garrett did a slow blink as his chin jerked back.

What the fuck?

“Not sweet. Sharp,” Dave carried on. “Girl’s sense of humor like a razor. Made you happy, oh yeah. She did. Loved seein’ my boy happy. But even with that, knew she was wrong. Good-time girl. When bad times came, I knew she didn’t have it in her. Your mother woulda put up with her, but she’d never really like her,” Dave declared.

Garrett sat back, stunned at hearing shit he’d never heard.

Dave kept going.

“And I was right. She didn’t have it in her. She wanted smooth, like her daddy gave to her, which meant you had to bust your ass givin’ that to her. You didn’t have that in you and that is not a weakness. That’s a real man. Like no woman should do that for her man, no man should hafta do that for his woman. And no woman should expect that from a man. A marriage is a partnership. Both of you gotta hold on to weather any storm, boy. I was not surprised Mia didn’t go the distance. It hurt seein’ you hurt. But when you lost her, I wasn’t surprised.”

He stopped speaking and Garrett didn’t start. He had nothing to say and he didn’t understand why his father was sharing this now when it should have been shared years ago.

Regardless of that, it was beside the point.

Mia was gone. Everyone now got why, and annoyingly, it seemed a bunch of them, including his father, got why a long time ago.

Discussing her did not have dick to do with holding on to Cher.

“Cher Rivers,” Dave continued, hopefully getting to the point, “that’s a different story. You know it. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t give a shit about your issues. You’d be just as blind, makin’ the same mistakes you’ve been makin’ for years and not givin’ a shit. If you didn’t know she’s a different story, you wouldn’t be here, askin’ an old man who has no idea how to deal how to deal. And the reason I don’t have any idea how to deal, Garrett, is because I learned real good how to weather a storm. And how I learned that is that I could face anything, your mother at my side. When I lost her, I lost that ability. I didn’t get it back. Any time I tried, it reminded me how much I missed her. So I quit tryin’. I don’t know how to tell you how to keep your head together or how to quit havin’ those dreams. All I know is that I’d have those answers if your mother was sittin’ at this table with me.”