My Baby Girl fell asleep with me deep inside her, a tiny smile curling up her mouth. For a while, I just held her, grateful to have her so close to me, for letting me be a part of her. When I pulled out, she didn’t even stir.

Fuckin’ tired as all hell, I got up and headed downstairs, making myself a real strong pot of coffee. Kenna had promised me that she wouldn’t leave, and I believed her. I trusted her to keep her word, but just in case her ethics or morality or whatever got the better of her, I decided it would be best to stay awake.

As I was pouring myself a mug of alarmingly black brew, there came a knock at my front door. Wearing only a pair of shorts, I wondered if I should put something else on, but fuck it, I opened the door anyway.

Brian fuckin’ Murray.

He looked just as wasted as Kenna, smudges of the sleeplessness shadowing his eyes. He was dead pale, too, looking real Irish.

“What?” I snapped, not feeling in the mood to stuff my jealousy away.

He’d been working side by side with Kenna for the last week and a half, and it pissed me off that he’d spent more time with her than I had. It pissed me off that he was too fuckin’ good-looking, too.

“Good morning to you, too,” he replied on the dry side.

“She ain’t goin’ with you today. Sorry, but I ain’t riskin’ my Baby Girl’s health and especially not her life.”

A ghost of a smile played about his mouth. “It’s all good, man. We’re not allowed back in the city. Is she here?”

“Yeah.”

Rolling his eyes and huffing, he said, “I’d like to speak with her.”

“Tough shit.”

Yeah, that felt good. I liked getting this guy pissy.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, telling her who she can and can’t speak with?” he snapped at me.

Lazily, I leaned my massive ass against the doorframe and took a sip of coffee. Fuck that was some strong shit. It just might put hair on my chest.

“Well,” I said, acting as though I was bored to hell, “I am the man she’s marryin’, the man she lives with, the man she sleeps with—”

“This is bullshit, Phil—”

“No, it ain’t. She’s fuckin’ sleepin’ right now, and the way she’s been workin’, I plan to let her sleep for as long as she needs. I ain’t wakin’ her up just so you can fuckin’ speak with her.”

Brian relaxed. “Oh.”

“So…I’ll let her know you came by,” I told him. “Was there somethin’ important she needed to know?”

He shook his head. “No. Just that we wouldn’t be needed anymore. The military has it covered.”

Excellent. “I’ll let her know.”

“Thanks,” he said.

I watched him head back to the front of the house, and after a few seconds, I heard the sound of his truck engine turning. Just to make sure, I dropped off my mug on the kitchen counter and took the stairs two at a time up to the bedroom, my heart in my throat.

Kenna was sleeping peacefully. Shame coursed through me for letting my head mess with me. She’d promised she wouldn’t go back, and here I was, thinking she might have snuck out while using Brian as a diversion.

My Baby Girl wasn’t like that.

From the doorway, I watched her sleep like the creepy fiancé I was. I didn’t care. Nothing compared to knowing she was safe.

In the weeks that followed, we all realized New Orleans’ healing would be a long, slow process. With a heavy heart, NOLA’s Junk made the decision to move to Lafayette for the time being. We had a job to do, and we needed a studio to do it, so we bought up a warehouse and soundproofed it.

We ended up renting a massive duplex, each side containing six bedrooms and bathrooms. Jason, Sheri, Flipper, Viv, and Connor took one side while X, Alys, Lili, Lewis, Kenna, and I took the other.

We were beyond lucky in that we’d had nearly every piece of our equipment with us on the road while on tour and found a high-security storage place to put it in.

By the end of October, the Lafayette studio was set up, and we were in touch with several bands who were interested in recording under our label.

Bougainvillea had suffered some damage from flooding and wind, but it wasn’t too extensive. It’d be good to see that place in action again, but I wasn’t gonna push my luck. Many people would never return to NOLA. There might not even be a crowd that could fill it up once it reopened, and that thought was depressing.

While all this was going on, Kenna had started working at a local rehab center three days a week. The woman constantly felt the need to work, so Tuesday through Thursday, she would do her doctor thing, and then she’d travel around to music hot spots the rest of the time, helping us look for new talent. The two of us made a decent fuckin’ team, and the pure joy on her face each time we went out to watch bands was well worth the effort.

With little encouragement, she was writing reviews and sharing them with me. I wasn’t only sharing them with the guys, but I was also secretly sending them to an acquaintance of mine—Michaela “Mike” O’Flaherty, a music journalist—back in New York.

Mike had called me after reading a few of them and confirmed what I’d already suspected—that Kenna was fuckin’ brilliant. She had a way with words, a way of describing the music that was unlike anything Mike had ever encountered before. She wanted to meet my Baby Girl, and I wanted to make that happen.

The week before Thanksgiving, I planned a trip to New York for the two of us to check out some up-and-coming bands. We’d be leaving on Thursday after her shift and return on Monday night.

My Baby Girl was fuckin’ glowing as she packed her suitcase, excited to be going to Manhattan. Stephen—front man for Black Prophecy—and his wife, Tara, were putting us up for the time we would be there. It had been a while since we’d seen them.

After a quick, uneventful flight, Stephen and Tara met us at baggage claim, and took us straight to a sushi restaurant where we pigged out and sucked down a decent amount of warm sake.

“I heard you and Devon made up,” Stephen mentioned.

“Yeah, man. Get a load of this,” I said.

Then, I told him and Tara all the shit that had gone down while on tour, except for the whole part where Kenna had pulled the brakes on our relationship. Her lips twitched when she realized I was leaving that bit out.

“I have to admit, I was shocked to see the photo of you and Brigid in that restaurant.” Tara sniffed.

They’d both met Brigid when we were in Switzerland all those years ago.

“Brigid passed away,” said Kenna softly.

Stephen and Tara looked stunned.

“What happened?” asked Tara.

“She committed suicide by OD,” I replied.

Kenna’s hand reached beneath the table to squeeze my knee. Turning my eyes to hers, I smiled sadly, and she returned it. Brigid’s death had affected her, too. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t seen it before. Maybe because she never talked about it, or because, in my own grief, I’d never considered hers.

Kenna had fought to save her. She’d stepped up and done everything within her power to bring Brigid back.

“Oh, Kenna Baby…” I said softly, leaning over and pressing my lips to hers. “You know it wasn’t your fault.”

Her throat worked hard as she swallowed, and she sipped some sake. “I know.”

“Why would you think it was your fault?” asked Stephen.

“She was amazin’, you guys, like just levelheaded and calm, while the rest of us were losin’ our shit. Well, her brother was pretty stable, too—”

“He helped me,” she interjected.

“Sure, sure,” I conceded. “Kenna did CPR until the medics arrived. But, really, Brigid was already too long gone. She’d left Devon a note tellin’ him…I don’t know what. But it was a suicide note.”