HENRY FELL ASLEEP on Millie’s shoulder five minutes into the drive home and succeeded in crowding her into my side, gobbling up more than his fair share of space on the bench seat for the ninety minutes it took to get back to Salt Lake. I liked it too much. I liked the press of her thigh against mine, my arm resting between her knees every time I touched the gearshift, the smell of her hair every time I glanced down at her face. The conversation with Moses taunted me, and I felt a flash of anger that he had called me out on my friendship with her, that he’d forced me to examine the relationship. I didn’t want to examine it. I wanted to enjoy it.
We’d spent the afternoon in comfortable conversation and time with the animals. Henry had taken to the horses with very little fear, and I had a feeling we were going to be getting a whole slew of statistics and interesting facts about jockeys and horse races in the days to come. Georgia had told Henry he was exactly the size of most professional jockeys, which made him puff out his chest and walk a little taller. He was already asking when we could go back. I’d promised him soon and scowled at Georgia and Moses when they’d waggled their eyebrows and smirked. They weren’t very subtle about their fascination with Millie, but it was impossible not to be fascinated. She hadn’t shown any fear either, and I’d spent much of the day trying not to stare at her, trying not to feed my friends’ curiosity.
“How did that feel, being on a horse?” I asked Millie, my eyes swinging from the road to her face and back again.
“Like having eyes. The horse knew where to go and I was just along for the ride, but it felt good.”
“You weren’t afraid, not even a little?”
“Sure I was. I’m afraid all the time. I was so afraid when I first lost my sight that for a while I just sat in my room and played my guitar. But after a while, I realized if I allowed myself to be too afraid to do anything, that I wouldn’t just be blind, I might as well be dead. That scared me more. The only thing I can see is me, you know? The stuff going on inside of me. My thoughts, my feelings, my fears, my faults. They are the only things I see clearly. The rest is a guessing game. Being blind forces you to come to terms with yourself, I think.”
“Perks of being a blind girl,” I said, and she laughed.
“I say that a lot, don’t I?”
“You do. And it’s damn cool that you do.”
“Well, I could list the sucks of being a blind girl, but that would take all day.”
“The sucks?”
“Yep. All the many things that suck about not being able to see,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Tell me one. The first thing that comes into your head,” I insisted.
She started to speak and then shook her head, biting her lip. “Nah.”
I bumped her with my shoulder, making her head bob a little. “Come on. Whine, baby. Whine.”
Her cheeks grew rosy. “No.”
“You were going to say something and you changed your mind. I saw that!”
“All right. That. That sucks.”
“What?”
“I can’t see what YOU are thinking. I can’t look at your face and get some kind of clue as to what’s going on in your head. It’s so unfair. I would really love to see your face. Just once.”
We were both silent for half a second before I broke the tension.
“Damn. That really does suck. I do have a beautiful face,” I teased, but my chest felt tight and my throat ached a little. I gasped and laughed as she dug her sharp little elbow into my ribs.
“You know what else sucks?” she shot back, emboldened by my apparent lack of empathy.
“I told you you could only name one. We don’t want to open the floodgates, Millie.”
She growled and continued on as if I were driving her crazy.
“I can’t drive. I can’t run away. I can walk, but that’s not the same thing as just getting behind the wheel and taking off. Instead, I’ve got to rely on meanies like you to take me places. I hate that more than anything,” she huffed.
Without warning, I changed lanes and took the nearest exit at a pretty aggressive speed. It was an exit just past a little town called Mona, and I sped under the overpass and turned onto the frontage road and pulled to the side of the road with a screech of tires. Henry bobbed in his seat belt and changed positions without waking up, conveniently freeing Millie’s shoulder.
“Whoa!” Millie cried, grabbing at my thigh. “What are you doing? We’ve got a ways to go, don’t we?”
“I’m gonna let you drive.”
“Wh-what?” she gasped, clutching at the dashboard.
I adjusted the wheel up to create a little more clearance, shoved the seat back as far as it would go, which wasn’t much farther, considering my size, and pulled Millie up onto my lap, ignoring the warning light that was bleeping in my head. Too close. Back away. Hot female in lap. Breach! Friend zone breach!
“David!” She was pressed back against me, her hands clinging, as if I’d told her we were jumping from a cliff.
“Stop wiggling!” I laughed so I wouldn’t moan, and she immediately froze.
“I’ve got you, Millie. I’ve got you. This is going to be fun. Just like riding a horse with Georgia holding the reins.”
“Okay,” she squeaked, nodding vigorously, her head bumping against my chin, and I chuckled, impressed all over again by her guts and her trust.
I placed her hands where I wanted them on the wheel and she ran her hands down and back up, as if she had never touched anything like it. Maybe she hadn’t. She turned the wheel this way and that and giggled nervously before she put them back where I’d placed them.
“You good?”
“Yeah. Okay. Good.”
“Now, I’m going to be right here to tell you what to do, and I’ll help you steer if you start running us off the road.”
I revved the gas pedal and then placed her foot on it and let her do the same. I could tell she was trying not to bail off of my lap—her body was practically vibrating with nerves—but she didn’t. She stayed, listening intently. I gave her basic instructions, and then I helped her ease onto the road, going about five miles per hour. She didn’t move her hands from two and ten o’clock, and I had to tug at the wheel slightly to straighten us out. And then we picked up speed, just a bit.
“How does that feel?”
“Like falling,” she whispered, her body rigid, her arms locked on the wheel.
“Relax. Falling is easier if you don’t fight it.”
“And driving?”
“That too. Everything is easier if you don’t fight it.”
“What if someone sees us?”
“Then I’ll tell you when to wave.”
She giggled and relaxed slightly against me. I kissed her temple where it rested against my cheek, and she was immediately stiff as a board once more.
Shit. I hadn’t thought. I’d just reacted.
“I would have patted you on the back, but your forehead was closer,” I drawled. “You’re doin’ it. You’re drivin’.”
“How fast are we going?” she said breathlessly. I hoped it was fear and not that kiss.
“Oh you’re flyin’, baby. Eight miles an hour. At this rate, we will reach Salt Lake in two days, my legs will be numb, and Henry will want a turn. Give it a little gas. Let’s see if we can push it up to ten.”
She pressed her foot down suddenly and we shot forward with a lurch.
“Whoa!” I cried, my arms shooting up to brace hers on the wheel. I saw Henry stir from the corner of my eye.
“Danika Patrick is the first female NASCAR driver to ever win a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series pole,” he said woodenly, before slumping back down in his seat. I spared him a quick glance, only to see his eyes were closed once more.
Millie obviously heard him and she hooted and pressed the gas pedal down a little harder.
“Henry just compared you to Danika Patrick. And he obviously isn’t alarmed that you’re driving because he’s already asleep again.”
“That’s because Henry knows I’m badass.”
“Oh yeah. Badass, Silly Millie. ‘Goin’ ninety miles an hour down a dead-end street,’” I sang a little Bob Dylan, enjoying myself thoroughly.
“And Henry trusts you,” Millie added, more to herself than to me, and I fought the urge not to kiss her temple again. I suddenly didn’t feel like laughing or singing anymore. I kind of felt like crying.
(End of Cassette)
Moses
THERE WAS SOMETHING about the smell of the gym. Tag loved it. He said it smelled better than fresh cut hay, a woman’s breasts, and steak combined. And those were his favorite things. Tag’s gym smelled like sweat, bleach, and a hint of fabric softener. I hadn’t decided why the fabric softener smell was so prominent until I realized that heat and sweat made the scent rise from clothing. It smelled wholesome—perspiration, soap and good intentions mixed with a healthy dose of testosterone and overconfidence. It smelled like Tag.
Tag kept music pumping all the time, but his choices were interesting—a little Merle Haggard, a little more Metallica, interspersed with songs by Michael Jackson, Neil Diamond, and The Killers, just to liven things up. He had eclectic tastes. That, and he had a short attention span.
Before Georgia had stepped onto that elevator eighteen months before and stepped back into my life, I’d lived in an apartment over the gym and worked out there with Tag almost every day. It was comfortable for me—the people, the atmosphere, all of it—and when I walked in the front doors, I was greeted on all sides with enthusiasm and obvious curiosity, which was fairly normal for me.
I spotted Axel working with a group of fighters and saw that Andy was padded up, taking punches in the octagon. As I debated who I should interrupt first, my name rippled through the gym, and they were both excusing themselves and approaching me without me having to make a move. Mikey followed on Axel’s heels, grabbing up his crutch and bearing down on me like he wanted answers too. Mikey rarely worked out with his prosthetic, and he was a one-legged wonder in more ways than one. A kid named Cory who’d been new to the team when I’d married Georgia wasn’t too far behind them.
The question in their eyes and the worry in their expressions had the tension I’d been trying to tamp down flaring once more. I didn’t have any answers. That’s why I was here.
“Any word?” Mikey asked, foregoing a greeting altogether. I noticed the people around us were waiting to hear what I had to say, and I didn’t want to discuss Millie and Tag in the middle of the gym. Axel caught my wary side glances and led the way to the little office I’d plundered two days before in an attempt to find Tag. Mikey, Cory, and Andy didn’t ask permission to come along, and I didn’t deny them. Maybe together we could figure something out. Axel didn’t wait for me to start the impromptu meeting. He pointed at the wall, at a schedule for the next month that was all filled out.
“That’s Tag’s writing. He must have come in here at some point last week and filled it in. Nobody saw him, and I didn’t think anything of it when we first talked, Moses. The schedule’s always updated, always written out a month in advance. It didn’t occur to me that he would have had to come in.” Axel shrugged. “It made me feel a little better. At least he’s not lying on the side of the road somewhere, you know?”
I nodded.
“Tell him about the papers, Axel,” Andy insisted.
Axel went to the filing cabinet, the cabinet where Millie and I had found the tapes. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to me.
“I got these this morning. Certified. They’re from Tag’s attorney.”
I scanned it as quickly as I could, and then looked at Tag’s team in horror.
“Did everyone get a copy?” I asked.
“I got a copy,” Cory said.
“Me too,” Mikey and Andy volunteered.
The papers were legal documents detailing the transfer of ownership of the gym to Axel Karlsson, with Andrew Gorman, Michael Slade and Cory Mangum listed as Tag Team co-owners and shareholders with merchandising and licensing rights.
“Has this already gone into effect?” I gasped, searching the legal jargon for dates and details.
“No. It’s a process. And I have to agree to the terms. We all do. But the groundwork is done,” Axel answered, and his expression said it all. He wasn’t euphoric about his windfall, if that’s what it was. He was devastated.
“What the feck is goin’ on?” Andy growled, his Irish so thick it changed the words but not the sentiment.
“Nobody’s seen or heard from Tag?” I had to get that out of the way again.
“Leo saw him last, but that was almost three weeks ago now,” Axel said. He’d told me as much already, but a recap wouldn’t hurt.
“Leo took him to the hospital to get some stitches after he ousted a rowdy at the bar,” I summarized. Leo also took him back home. Millie saw him after that. He spent the night there.”
The guys exchanged looks.
“What?” I demanded.
“Nothin’,” Andy said. “We just like Millie. We’re happy for him.”
I nodded. I liked her too. I was happy for him too. I bit back a curse and plunged back in.
“He spent the next night there too, according to Millie. She said he was in a good mood and seemed to feel fine. He wasn’t overly bothered by the blow to the head, apparently.”
“Not surprised. Nobody takes a punch like Tag,” Cory spoke up, admiring. Wistful.
“He was gone before she woke up,” I continued. “There was a text waiting for her. Told her not to worry about him, that he was heading out of town to see his folks. Said it’d been too long.”
“You called his family?” Mikey asked.
“I did. He never showed up there, and he never told them he was coming in the first place, so they weren’t expecting him.”
“He was gonna drive to Dallas? That’s a long drive. Two day trip, each way. At least. Lots of miles to cover. Have you called the highway patrol?” Mikey asked.
I shook my head. “I did. But I don’t think he ever intended to go to Dallas. I think he was just buying himself time. That paperwork is dated six days ago.”
“Buying some time to do what?” Axel asked no one in particular.
“Buying some time to get his shit organized. To make sure things were covered,” I said grimly.
“Tag made Vince manager about three weeks ago, and Leo got promoted too. But Vince said Tag’s name isn’t anywhere on the bar schedule anymore. He thought it was just because Tag was tired of working so many hours. He was putting in a bunch with Morgan gone,” Axel added.
Cory let loose with a series of expletives that had the others pointing at a water jug already brimming with quarters labeled HENRY on Tag’s desk. It was the swear jar, obviously.
“Your whole paycheck is going in that thing, Mangum,” Mikey sighed, though I had the feeling no one was going to be making him pay up.
“So no one has actually talked to him or seen him for at least two weeks, and Millie saw him last?” Axel reiterated, running his hands through his hair. His blond crew cut didn’t budge.
“Looks to me like his lawyer saw him last,” I said, still reeling from the papers I clutched in my hands.
“How is Millie?” Mikey asked. “What does she say about all of this?”
“She’s a very composed mess,” I answered honestly. “She isn’t saying it, but I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s the reason he split.”
Cory repeated the same string of scalding words that he’s said a minute before.
“No,” Axel shook his head. “No. That doesn’t make any sense. I saw his face when Henry came into the bar that night. It was around closing, and I was keeping Tag company and having a few. Henry comes flying through the door, his feet bare, not wearing a coat. He’d run all the way there, and he was freaking out.”
“Why?” I asked. I hadn’t heard this story yet.
“We didn’t know. You know Henry. He speaks in sports trivia. It’s damn hard to communicate with him. But he kept saying something about Millie, and something had obviously set him off. I’ve never seen Tag look like that. He left Henry with me and was out the door in about ten seconds. You don’t leave a girl that inspires that kind of reaction. We all give Tag a bad time about his women. But Millie’s different.”
“Millie’s different,” Mikey agreed, nodding.
Cory just swore and pulled at his hair.
“What the feck is going on?” Andy asked again. But this time he didn’t sound angry. He just sounded as lost as Tag was.