He’d nodded very slowly, staring at my hands as they created images neither of us really understood.
“That part never changes,” he whispered, as if it resonated. “You’re Moses and I’m Tag.”
I nodded. “Yeah. As much as that can suck sometimes, there’s comfort in it too. At least we know who we are.”
He never asked about his own mortality again, and in the weeks that followed, he’d donned a confidence that I suspected he’d once had in spades. He seemed to be making plans for what came next. I still didn’t have a clue.
“When you get out, where you gonna go?” Tag asked one night at dinner, his eyes on his food, his arms on the table. He could eat almost as much as I could, and I was pretty sure Montlake’s kitchen staff would enjoy a little reprieve when we left.
I didn’t want to talk about this with Tag. I really didn’t want to talk about it with anyone. So I fixed my gaze to the left of Tag’s head, out the window, letting him know I was ready for the conversation to end. But Tag persisted.
“You’re almost nineteen. You are officially out of the system. So where you gonna go, Mo?” I don’t know why he thought he could call me Mo. I hadn’t given him permission. But he was like that. Worming his way into my space.
My eyes flickered back to Tag briefly, and then I shrugged as if it wasn’t important.
I’d been here for months. Through Christmas, through New Year’s, and into February. Three months in a mental institution. And I wished I could stay.
“Come with me,” Tag said, tossing down his napkin and pushing his tray away.
I reared back, stunned. I remembered the sound of Tag crying, the wails that echoed down the hall as he was brought into the psych ward the night he was admitted. He’d arrived almost a month after I had. I had lain in bed and listened to the attempts to subdue him. At the time, I hadn’t realized it was him. I only put two and two together later when he told me about what brought him to Montlake. I thought about the way he’d come at me with his fists flying, rage in his eyes, almost out of his head with pain in the session where we’d met. Tag interrupted my train of thought when he continued speaking.
“My family has money. We don’t have much else, but we have tons of money. And you don’t have shit.”
I held myself stiffly, waiting. It was true. I didn’t have shit. Tag was my friend, the first real friend, other than Georgia, that I’d ever had. But I didn’t want Tag’s shit. The good or the bad, and Tag had plenty of both.
“I need someone to make sure I don’t kill myself. I need someone who’s big enough to restrain me if I decide I need to get smashed. I’ll hire you to spend every waking minute with me until I figure out how to stay clean without wanting to slit my wrists.”
I tipped my head to the side, confused. “You want me to restrain you?”
Tag laughed. “Yeah. Hit me in the face, throw me to the ground. Kick the crap out of me. Just make sure I stay clean and alive.”
I wondered for a moment if I could do that to Tag. Hit him. Throw him to the ground. Hold him down until the need for drink or death passed. I was big. Strong. But Tag wasn’t exactly small, not by a long shot. My doubt must have shown on my face because Tag was talking again.
“You need someone who believes you. I do. It’s got to get old always having people thinking you’re psychotic. I know you’re not. You need somewhere to go, and I need someone to come with me. It’s not a bad trade. You wanted to travel. And I’ve got nothing better to do. The only thing I’m good at is fighting, and I can fight anywhere.” He smiled and shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t trust myself to be alone just yet. And if I go back home to Dallas, I’ll drink. Or I’ll die. So I need you.”
He’d said that so easily. “I need you.” I’d wondered how it was possible that a tough kid like Tag, someone who fought for the fun of it, could admit that to anyone. Or believe it. I’d never needed anyone. Not really. And I’d never said those words to anyone. “I need you” felt like “I love you,” and it scared me. It felt like breaking one of my laws. But at that moment, with our release looming large, with freedom at my fingertips, I’d admitted it to myself. I had needed Tag too.
We made an odd pair. A mixed-race delinquent who couldn’t stop painting and a big Texan with too much attitude and shaggy hair. But Tag was right. We were both stuck. Lost. With nothing to hold us down and no direction. I just wanted my freedom, and Tag didn’t want to be alone. I needed his money, and he needed my company, sad as it usually was. And so we went. We ran. We didn’t look back.
“We’ll just keep running, Moses. It’s like you said. Here, there, on the other side of the world? We can’t escape ourselves. So we stick together until we find ourselves, all right? Until we figure out how to deal.” That’s what he’d said. That’s what we’d done. And Tag Taggert became my best friend. When I needed him most he held on to me, and he didn’t let me go.
So now I have to find him.
The thing that scares me the most, is maybe he’s found his answers. Maybe he knows exactly what he’s doing. Exactly who he is. Maybe he’s figured the world out. But we’d made a deal when we were eighteen. And as far as I’m concerned, a deal is a deal.
“I need someone to make sure I don’t kill myself. I need someone who’s big enough to restrain me if I decide I need to get shitfaced. Hit me in the face, throw me to the ground. Kick the shit out of me. Just make sure I stay clean and alive,” he’d said. He’d wanted me to keep him alive.
I just hoped it wasn’t too late.
MY BAR IS called Tag’s because it’s mine. Simple as that. When I bought it, I thought about the name for a couple of weeks, trying to think of something catchy, something intelligent, but in the end, I just slapped my name on it. Makes sense, doesn’t it? When something is yours, you give it your name.
As a recovering alcoholic, owning a bar could be considered masochistic, but I don’t own it for the booze. I own it because every time I walk in, look around, tend the bar or pour a drink, I feel powerful. I feel like I’ve conquered my demons, or at least beat them back. Plus, I’m a man, and the bar is a man cave to surpass all man caves. Flat screens hang on walls and in thick clusters overhead so that customers can keep an eye on several games at once, with sections of the bar dedicated to different sports. If you come in to watch a particular fight or a football game, there’s a screen tuned in just for you. It smells like expensive cigars and leather, like pine needles and stacks of cash, all scents that make a man grateful for his testosterone. The décor consists of rock walls, dark wood, warm lighting, and pretty waitresses. And I’m extremely proud of it.
But I don’t just own the bar. The whole block is mine. The bar on the corner, the small indoor arena where local fights take place every Tuesday night and once a month on Saturdays, the gym beyond that, and at the end of the block, a sporting goods store, filled with Tag Team gear and equipment with my label emblazoned across every surface. My own apartment and two others, occupied by people of my choosing, sit above the training gym. The city block is my whole world, a world of my creation. And it’s all connected, each business playing off the others.
Even the bar and the fight arena are connected, and on the nights when there aren’t fights, the arena seats are cordoned off by a wall of metal accordion doors, and the cage becomes a stage in a back room, a private alcove filled with a dozen small tables and booths, the bar easily accessible just around the corner, and waitresses keeping you comfortable and in your seats. Four nights a week, the little arena is home to a totally different kind of show, a completely different kind of sporting event. A pole is erected in the center of the cage and there are no fighters allowed inside, just one woman after another, spinning and writhing on the pole in time to the throbbing pulse of music that is muted throughout the rest of the establishment. I keep it classy—as classy as stripper poles and half-naked ladies can be. The girls dance, they don’t strip, and they don’t mingle beyond the cage. But it’s just hot enough, just risqué enoug
h, that I keep it separate from the rest of the establishment. It’s the back room for negotiations—I do more business there than anywhere else—and the cherry on the top of an establishment that caters to hard-working men who feel appropriately sheepish and grateful just to be there.
Tag’s opened two years ago, corresponding with the launch of the clothing line and my first big fight, the fight where I beat someone I had no business beating. I knocked him out cold and became a hot commodity. I timed it all, capitalizing on one success to launch another. I was a rich kid turned businessman, a cowboy more suited to riding a wave of adoration than riding a horse, and more interested in taking on the world of ultimate fighting and mixed martial arts than in taking over my father’s holdings. I could have. It was a golden-paved path that stretched out before me, a road of privilege and entitlement. But it was a road I hadn’t built, and I’m convinced you can’t ever be completely happy walking on someone else’s road. Someone else’s path. The way to true happiness is to forge your own, even if your road isn’t straight. Even if there are bridges to build and mountains to tunnel through. Nothing feels as good as paving your own way.
I’d come to Salt Lake City ready to start building roads three years before. I had money—some of it my own, money I’d earned with Moses, and some of it money I hadn’t earned. I was a rich kid, but I wasn’t a stupid kid. I knew I needed capital to build an empire. Sometimes it takes money to make money. So I took the money my dad gave me and promised myself that I would give it back before I died or before I turned thirty. Whichever came first.
At twenty-six, I didn’t have much time or wiggle room. But I was on track, and the bar was doing extremely well. The evidence was all around me when I walked in the front door that Monday night—typically the slowest night of the week—to full stools and tables, to the happy thrum of relaxed customers. The place hummed and my heart warmed to the music. Two of my waitresses pranced by, dressed like ring girls in Tag Team booty shorts and halter tops, delivering rounds instead of announcing them. They sent identical smiles my way and tossed their hair, almost as if it were part of the job description. Maybe it should be . . . or maybe it was just common sense. You always smile at the boss.
I wasn’t there to flirt, though I smiled automatically. Instead, I calculated the mood of the room, the number of men bellied up to the bar, the number of tables filled, the flow of the alcohol and the efficiency of the wait staff. When I approached the bar to touch base with Morgan, my manager, a pulsing beat began to throb from down the hall, from around the darkened corner where the girls danced and the music was louder.
“Who’s dancing tonight?” I inquired, not really caring, but asking anyway.
“Justine. Lori. And the new girl.” Morgan smirked like he had a secret, and I was immediately suspicious. He slid a Coke in front of me as I sat down and I took a long pull before I gave him a response.
“Oh yeah? Judging from that shit-eating grin, I’m guessing there’s something you need to tell me about the new girl.”
“Nah. Nothing. She’s beautiful. Great dancer. Great body. She’s been on the schedule for the last two weeks, though you’ve missed her every time. She’s always on time, never says two words. She dances, doesn’t drink, doesn’t flirt. Just how you like ‘em.” Again with the smirk.
“Huh.” I pushed my Coke away and stood, knowing I might as well go see what he was up to. Leave it to Morgan to dress up one of my Tag Team fighters and put him in the cage in a bikini. He loved a practical joke. But he was a damn good bartender . . . even if he drove me crazy with the pranks.
I called out to a few customers, shook some hands, kissed Stormy’s cheek as she delivered icy bottles of cold beer, and waved to Malcolm Short, who obviously hadn’t taken the time to change after work and looked slightly ridiculous in his three piece suit and his Utah Jazz ball cap. But the Jazz were playing, and he was getting in the spirit, happy as a clam sitting on his stool, eyes fixed on the screen. He was one of my Tag Team sponsors and it was good seeing him happy.
I was almost as good at working the room as I was at working the octagon, though I’d rather be fighting any day. But my thoughts were on business as I strode across the room and through the arch that separated the dancing girls from the sports bar. My eyes went straight to the cage, expecting the worst. But it was Justine at the pole, finishing her number with a swivel of her hips and a final turn around the cage. Justine strode off, hips swaying arms waving, as if she’d just announced the next round, and the lights went dark.
When they came up again, the new girl was at the center of the octagon, hands on the pole, head down. As the music began to swell, she immediately swung into her routine, and I scowled in consternation. The girl was slim and lithe, smooth muscles moving beneath taut skin. Her straight, dark brown hair was silky under the lights, her oiled limbs glistening, and her barely-there shorts and bikini top no different from the girl who danced before her. I watched her for a moment, waiting for the punch line. There had to be one.
She was beautiful—delicate-featured with a small nose, a rosebud mouth, and a heart-shaped face, and I felt a sudden flash of fear that she was only fifteen or something equally alarming. I dismissed the thought immediately. Morgan was a prankster, not an idiot. Something like that would ruin the bar. Something like that would cost Morgan his job. And Morgan loved his job, even if he didn’t always love me, even if I didn’t always appreciate his sense of humor.
Nah. She was at least twenty-one. That was my rule. I pursed my lips and tipped my head, studying her. She worked the pole as well as any of the other girls, maybe even better, but her dancing was more acrobatic, more athletic, than it was overtly sexy. Her eyes were closed and she had a soft smile on her lips, which could be interpreted as sultry, especially considering that she was dancing for an audience of mostly men. Scratch that. An audience of all men. But her smile wasn’t sultry. It was . . . dreamy, like she was imagining she was somewhere else, a tiny ballerina spinning in place inside a child’s snow globe, endlessly dancing alone. Her small smile didn’t change, and her eyes stayed closed, the heavy sweep of dark lashes creating half circles of shadow on her porcelain cheeks.
The lighting was strategic, hiding the viewers and displaying the dancer. Maybe the lights hurt her eyes. Or maybe she was a little shy. I chuckled. Um . . . no. The shy pole dancer was as big an oxymoron as the timid fighter. But someone should probably say something. The men in the audience loved to believe that the dancers were looking right at them, and though the dancers never mingled with the men, at least not in the bar, eye contact and subtle flirting were part of the job. I wondered if that was Morgan’s joke. If so, Morgan was losing his touch.
I turned away as the song ended and the cage lights went black, indicating the end of the set. Three girls danced a fifteen minute set each hour, with another fifteen minutes between sets from nine to midnight. It was Utah, after all, not Vegas. The dancers were off two, sometimes three, nights a week for fight nights and club nights, when the octagon was needed for bouts or disassembled to create a dance floor. With four dancers, now five, on my payroll, it wasn’t a full-time job by any means. Most of the girls had day jobs and grabbed extra hours and good pay announcing the rounds and bouts on fight nights.
“So whaddaya think, Boss?” Morgan grinned and slid a glass to a waiting patron as I rounded the bar and sat back on the same stool, my eyes shooting up to check the score, not giving Morgan the attention he wanted.
“‘Bout what?”
“About the new girl.”
“Pretty.” He didn’t need all the other adjectives that had run through my mind as I watched her dance.
“Yeah?” Morgan raised his eyebrows as if my one-word assessment was surprising.
“Yeah, Morg,” I sighed. “You got something you wanna tell me? ‘Cause I’m not gettin’ it.”
“No. No siree. Not a thing.”
I shook my head and groaned. Morgan was definitely up to something.
; “So how many weeks, Boss?”
“Eight.” Eight weeks until I fought Bruno Santos. The fight that would give me a shot at a Vegas title fight. The fight that would catapult the Tag Team brand into living rooms across the US. Eight weeks of perfect focus—no distractions, and no decisions beyond one fight. After I won the fight, I would face what came next. After I won that fight the world could end, for all I cared. After I won.
“Hey, Boss. Lou called in sick tonight. He usually makes sure the girls get to their cars. You wanna fill in? Since you’re here?”
All the women on my staff are escorted to their vehicles at the end of their shifts. Always. This part of town is changing, but it isn’t there yet. Tag’s is situated close to the old Grand Central train station in a refurbished district that is still caught somewhere between restoration and dilapidation. Two blocks north there is a row of mansions built in the early 1900s, two blocks south there’s a strip mall complete with bars on all the windows. A high-end day spa takes up the corner of the block to the left and a homeless shelter is two blocks down on the right. The area is a conglomeration of everything, and there are some elements that aren’t safe. I feel responsible for my employees, especially the girls. So I imposed some rules, even if it means I am sometimes accused of being overprotective, sexist, and old-fashioned.
“Yep. I can do that.”
“Good. That was their last set. I’d do it, but the drinks won’t fill themselves, ya know. Kelli’s boyfriend came in and picked her up ten minutes ago, and Marci and Stormy are closing with me, so I’ll walk them out. You’ve just got Justine and Lori and Amelie.”
“Ah–muh–lee?” I parroted, eyebrows quirked.
“Yeah. The new dancer. Amelie. Didn’t I say?”