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“Ben,” he says, his voice tiny. I shake my head. I can’t. “Ben, I’m sorry.”
I absorb myself in my task, making sure I get all the pieces picked up, and a funny thing happens while I’m sweeping. I remember Winston’s face when he talked about still feeling life in what looked dead to me. The way he talked about taking care of those vines, cutting away what wasn’t good anymore and tending to the new growth. As long as there was still something alive at the heart of all that dead wood, we could bring them back and make them productive again.
“You need help, Dillon. You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”
Dillon curls into himself. “I can’t do it.”
“You’re going to kill yourself. It’s a wonder you didn’t driving up here.”
“…s’you.”
His words stop me. “What was that?”
“Was you. You guided me. I kept seeing you in front of me and was trying to get to you.”
It had to have been a hallucination from whatever he’d taken that night. Jeez, that was last night, wasn’t it? Less than forty-eight hours ago.
“I can’t save you, Dillon. I love you and think you’re amazing, but I can’t do this for you. You have to do it yourself. For yourself. You have to want it for you.”
When I’ve finally got all the bits of vine gathered, I look up and see that Dillon’s crying.
“I’m so scared.” He holds out his arms, and I go to him. “I don’t want to be like this. I really don’t, but I’m so scared.”
“I know, baby.” I wrap him up in my arms again and stroke his hair. “But sometimes you’ve got to take a chance, Dill, in order to get what you want.”
He snuffles, a deep inhale of snot that reminds me so much of meeting Dillon on the soundstage that would become our second home for another seven years. The first thing he’d done was snuffle up a wad of phlegm, then hocked it out of his mouth into a trash can. I’d looked at him and asked why the heck they’d cast me as the troublemaker. It made him laugh, and we’d been best friends ever since.
“Sometimes the scary thing is worth the risk,” I say.
He wipes at his eyes and tries to curl closer to me, but the only way he’ll be able to do that is if he wears me like a coat.
“I love you, Dill.”
He nods. “Will you wait for me, Ben? If I go away? If I get help? Will you be there when I get out?”
I kiss the top of his head. “I have waited almost a decade for you, I think I can handle a few more months.”
When Roger barges his way into my house several hours later, this is how he finds us. Dillon wrapped up in my arms, finally sleeping. Me resting my head against the top of his, occasionally stroking his hair with my hand. We’ve talked ourselves out, searched online and found a place with a great reputation that has space to take him immediately. His mind’s made up. He’s doing this.
Roger looks at me. “Oliver,” he says, calling me by my stage name.
“It’s Ben,” I tell him. “I stopped going by Oliver five years ago.”
He waves a hand like it’s of no importance and barks Dillon’s name. Dillon startles, stares up at me in confusion, and I raise my chin in Roger’s direction. I kiss Dillon and shift him so I can get up. I’m leaving him and Roger to figure out the details, but I know Dillon’s heart and mind are finally aimed in the right direction.
When they leave an hour later, it’s to take Dillon to the rehab place we found in Napa. He likes that I’ll be close enough to visit him once he can have visitors, and I tell him I’ll be there as soon as they let me. He hands me the keys to his car.
“She might be too new and flashy for you, but I know you’ll take care of her like you do all the things you love.”
And then he’s gone. But I know it’s not forever. This isn’t the end of our love song, it’s just the beginning.
six months later
Ben
I slip inside the Hopping Jack Tavern and make my way to the bar to let Jason know I’m here for my monthly gig, not bothering to hide my crazy grin. It’s been a good day, a good week, hell, a fantastic couple of months. Our foundation wine took the gold in a prestigious competition back in January, putting us firmly on the map as a boutique winery to watch. Especially after word got out about our old vines. Winston has been working magic on them, and it looks like we might get enough grapes to press if the bud breaks develop as well as he thinks they will.
But that’s not the only reason I’m grinning like a fool tonight. Dillon’s going to be on his way home to me in another week. He’s made such amazing progress and was able to come stay with me for a weekend last month. Those social media hashtags are largely full of encouragement now, and not a few of them hope for a reunion tour for Bridges and Bard.
