I hold my forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “I thought you were a little off key during Can’t Wait Campaign.”

Gabriel snorts as we stroll through the rolling hills and sunny tree-lined paths of Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris. “You do, huh? Hate to break it to you but you’re wrong.”

Struggling to hide my smile I insist, “Seriously, right in the middle of the song there was this teensie weensie little moment that wasn’t absolutely without a doubt perfect like the rest of the show. I was appalled. I don’t know how you look in the mirror.”

He grabs a pink blossom from a bush we pass, and smells it. “If only I had someone to give this flower to who wasn’t overly critical.”

While looking at the sky I smile, “If only.”

He backs up to set it where he found it. “Oh well.”

“Give me that!”

Holding it out of reach my gorgeous man fakes innocence really, really well. “What...this? You want this? Grab it from me then.”

Shaking my head on a grin I head away. “Nope. Don’t need it.”

He hurries after me, behaving like a commedia dell’arte character, twirling an invisible mustache. “Oh? Why not?”

Spinning around I slip my arms around him and look up into his eyes. “Because I have you and that’s all I need.”

His pale green eyes flicker and change moods instantly. He sensually cups my head and whispers, “One minute I’m giving my cousin Ethan shit for getting married, and the next I’ve got images of you walking around my loft with a ring on your finger and my child in your arms.”

My heart skips while I stare at Gabriel, speechless as the sun dances across his skin like Mother Nature is licking him.

We kiss and let the Parisians around us disappear. I feel the flower pressed into my hand as we separate. “I might have bent it.”

“It’s beautiful.” I smell the crumpled petals. “No smell though. Try harder next time.”

He bursts out laughing, shaking his head. “Oh we’re going to get along fine.”

Our fingers lace as we walk further. “You know I’m messing with you, right? I think you’re wonderful, Gabriel.”

From the corners of his eyes he holds my look. “I know. Don’t worry, Gorgeous. I’ve got siblings and cousins with the same sense of humor and it just means love. If we’re not giving each other shit then something is wrong.”

“My brother and I didn’t do this,” I quietly say. “But in our house there wasn’t a lot of fun and playfulness growing up.”

“You want to call and check on him?”

A long, painful breath leaves my lungs. “No.”

“You didn’t tell me how you handled your apartment before you flew over to be with me.”

“To be with you — that sounds so good.”

We stop for a fashionably dressed couple pushing their baby boy in a stroller. “Bonjour,” the man says with a polite dip of his head.

“Bonjour,” we reply. The woman nods to me as they move along. They don’t recognize Gabriel, which just adds to our relaxing afternoon.

After a few steps when we can’t be overheard, I explain, “My mom was so happy I was finally doing something for myself that she and Dad packed up my apartment for me.” Off Gabriel’s curious expression I explain, “I thought they’d turned their back on Bobby when they wouldn’t let him live there anymore, but really they turned their back on enabling him. She knew I had to find my own way. They call it hitting bottom, where there’s nowhere to go but up. I had to get to that point, myself, before they’d help me. Seems harsh huh?”

“Nope. You had to ask for help,” Gabriel mutters. “What’s harsh is your brother stealing from you. That’s gotta kill him as much as it hurts you. I think when you stopped allowing it he might have been relieved. Like you’re telling his demons no more. It’ll give him the strength to tell them to fuck off, too, when he’s ready.”

Staring ahead I let that idea soak into me. “Wait, explain.”

“If he’s in there, in the dark corners of his mind fighting these demons…wait. First let’s say they’re not imaginary, that they’re as real as you and me and they are loud. If that’s true then when people allow him to do what the demons tell him to do, it almost gives their direction credibility. But when enough people in his life, especially the ones who matter most, say, no more, he’s then forced to look at the demons and ask himself why the fuck he’s listening to them. And he can make a choice.”

“You think he couldn’t make the choice before?”

“I think it’s harder.” Gabriel rakes a hand through his hair and stops walking. “We used to have a different drummer, a guy I knew from childhood who gradually disappeared into drinking. It inches up on you. He didn’t see it coming. Neither did we until he started fucking up, not showing, missing rehearsals and finally a show, and then another. We loved the guy but had no choice but to let him go the night we had an audience of two hundred waiting for us to go on, and no drummer.”

“Oh no. What did you do?”

“Luckily the band who opened for us was still there and it was a fucking miracle because their drummer was a fan. He’d seen all of our garage shows and little dives and shit. He knew most of the songs and we improvised. It was crazy.” Gabriel smiles with disbelief because it still amazes him how lucky they were. “We kept him and that’s when things skyrocketed. His old band was fucking bummed but what are you gonna do?”

I went to two meetings before I got Gabriel’s call. As we walk across the suspension bridge this park is known for I tell him, “When I get back to Atlanta I’m going to get a sponsor and see if I can’t…I don’t know. I’m still trying to grasp how it all works.”

Gabriel nods. “They have sponsors in Al-Anon?”

“Yeah. I’d like to have a guide. Mom can’t do it. It can’t be family, especially not your qualifier. Anyway,” I smile, squeezing his hand to get back to what he asked me. “Mom’s storing my car in their garage, and they boxed up my clothes. The furniture is being donated to the women’s shelter on Howell Mill, because Carrie’s place is furnished and she said I could stay as long as I like. When I get my own place I want to start over with things that don’t remind me of the past. It’s just stuff. I want a fresh start. I’m going real ‘minimalist.’ Only buy what I need as time goes on. Doesn’t that sound amazing?”

A thoughtful grin plays on his handsome face. “Nah, I like to carry a ton of crap with me wherever I go.”

Hitting his chest I laugh, “Your suitcase is half the size of mine!”

“That’s to impress you when really I’m carrying around eleven clunkers they have to stow in every hotel. Even have a couple cats in them.”

“You’re a mobile hoarder, is that it?”

“One of my suitcases is just empty takeout containers.”

“Stop. Do I hear another waterfall?”

“This is where I wanted to take you.” He points to a slice in the small mountain just up ahead.

“Is that a cave?” I gasp, excited and tugging his hand.

“Yeah, it’s a grotto.”

“What is that?”

“Just means it’s manmade. They even formed these stalactites, look. Those aren’t real.”

Staring up at the limestone spikes reaching for us from the moss-green ceiling I can’t stop smiling. “It’s beautiful here.”

“This waterfall was manmade, too.”

He takes my hand and walks us as close as we can get, where the spray cools our skin. In between kisses I lock eyes with him. “This reminds me of something Ben said.”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“The mill doesn’t have a waterfall. It’s a dam.”

He dryly asks, “Is water falling from it?”

“Yes.”

“Is it bigger than this rinky-dink thing?”

“So much bigger.”

“Then Ben doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Who’s Ben?”

Gabriel laughs. “That’s better.”

I show him my flower. “But you gave me this pretty little thing so it’s all okay.”

“Oh, and I’m a flower-crusher, too.”

“Nobody’s perfect.”

He looks me dead in the eye and smirks, “Wrong. I’m perfect.”

I cry out, “Oh my God, you’re so ridiculously cocky!”

“Nobody in my family has ever been called that before.”

I stare at him. “Really?”

He laughs, “No, not really.”

Rolling my eyes I slip my fingers into his belt loops and give a tug. “You think we could have sex in here and not get caught?”

“Want to spend the night in a foreign prison?”

“Maybe?”

Two children who can’t be more than six years old run in, their high pitched voices unabated as they race each other. Their tourist parents appear, looking around with long oohs and ahhs.

Gabriel whispers in my ear, “Let’s try it.”

I push him away and start walking out, shaking my head.