The sky knew. The sky always knows. Thunder rolled. It shook me to my core, awakening me from my stupor. Red raindrops in my eyes. The gutter smelled like garbage and blood. Everything smelled like blood. Numb fists twanged with life, shooting pain up my arms to my skull.

At least my skull was intact. I couldn’t say the same for Billy. I could still hear the sirens in the distance, speeding him to St. Frederick’s. Maybe they could save him. God, I hoped so.

Billy was a good kid, and a good fighter. Almost as good as I was. Almost.

I shook the water out of my eyes, squinting through the dark streets of industrial Memphis. I grew up on these streets. They were good to me; better than my bastard father was, anyway. The streets taught me how to fight. I still remember my first. A man who saw ghosts took my day-old trash burger. I fought him for it. I lost.

I swore that day that I would never lose a fight again. I never did.

That night, sloshing through the gutters on auto-pilot, I wished to God I had. Just once. Just this time. As the shock left my body, every ache made itself known. My cracked and bruised ribs. My broken nose. The gash on my forehead. My gut.

Billy almost won. He had me by the throat, pressed up against the ropes. I was losing air. I shook the image away, but it kept coming back. My feet led me to the bar.

“Yo, Tyler! You look like hell. Have a drink.” Dan slid me a whiskey as he flipped his bar rag up on his shoulder.

“Better make it a bottle.” I swept dripping, bloody hair off of my forehead. The whiskey burned as it went down.

“Bad fight?” Dan asked casually as he poured me another.

“Bad doesn’t cover it. I might’ve killed Billy.”

“Might have?”

“They took him to the hospital. They were breathing for him.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.” My throat tightened, and I loosened it with booze. To hell with it. Someone should hear my side. “He had me pinned against the ropes. Had my neck in his elbow. Cutting off my air.”

“Hell of a spot to be in.” Dan nodded sympathetically.

“Yeah, well… Figured I couldn’t stay there. Walked myself up the ropes. Pushed off. He tried, man. Twisted me around, tried to stay on top.” Shot number three, down the hatch. “Didn’t work. Caught my knee in the side of his head. I…” I trailed off, hearing it again. “I heard his skull crack. Didn’t even slow him down. He got a shot to my throat. I blacked out. Next thing I know, I’ve got four people pulling me off of him. He didn’t…look right.” A tear fell into my drink, carrying a thin swirl of blood.

Dan grunted, closing his eyes against the picture I painted.

“He beat the hell out of me first, though,” I said with a bitter laugh. “He’s damn good. Was…damn good.”

“They’ll fix him up,” Dan told me encouragingly. “He’ll be back in the ring with you before you know it, with one hell of a grudge.”

My stomach twisted and I shook my head. “Can’t do it, Dan. I’m done. I’m out.”

“Out? You can’t be out. You’re the best fighter around. Who am I gonna put my money on?”

“Gonna have to back a new horse, Dan. I have to stop before I kill somebody.”

Dan was understanding, but his disappointment was clear. I didn’t blame him. I was disappointed, too. More than that, I was petrified.

“All I’ve ever done is fight,” I told him quietly. “I gotta figure something out. I need money, lots of it, fast. Jeanne just had those twins, she can’t work. Billy ain’t insured for this. I gotta do something, Dan, I screwed up their whole lives.”

The alcohol must have been getting to me, because I seemed to have to choke every word past a lump in my throat.

“You serious?” Dan had a strange look in his eye as he passed me another shot.

“No, I’m lying. I’m going to strut into the sunset with my winnings and leave his girl and his kids to fend for themselves.” Sarcasm wrapped around my guilt, insulating it. Smothering it.

“I’m just saying, I know how you can make a bunch of money, fast. Tons. More than you make in a year.”

That caught my attention. I cocked an eyebrow and immediately regretted it as the action split the fresh scab, spilling a trickle down into my eye. Dan leaned over the bar, lowering his voice conspiratorially.

“Celebrity sex tapes,” he said.

“What?”

“Big money, boy. I’d do it myself, but no hot little starlet is going to want a balding, pudgy bartender. You… You’ve got that appeal. All I ask is that you cut me in. Not much, just enough to make retirement more than a fading wet dream.”

“Come on, Dan, who’s gonna pay for that?” I scoffed, but the idea was gaining a foothold in my alcohol-soaked brain.

“I know a guy,” Dan said with a shrug, leaning back to wipe the counter. “You get the babe, he’ll give you the cash.”

“How much?”

“A lot,” Dan said vaguely, but his eyes glittered like a fox. “Enough for you to throw ten percent my way. Ten percent and I’ll be able to buy that houseboat, save my money for my old age. No point in keeping a mortgage now Debbie’s gone.”

I did some rough calculations. Yeah, that was enough. More than enough.

I switched to beer. It was better for thinking. A sketchy plan was better than no plan. Guilt shook me, and I licked my cut lip. Appraising Dan sideways, I considered everything he said.

“There’s just one problem with that plan of yours, Dan.”

“What’s that?”

I gestured around the seedy bar, where old men worked hard to put the last nail in the coffins of their livers, where young men numbed themselves just enough to want a fight, where too-thin women crowded together in protective groups.

“What celebrity is going to stumble into a place like this?”

“So don’t be in places like this. You gotta get close to them.”

“Them?”

“Celebrities,” Dan said with a leering smile, flashing his brown tooth. “You got a reputation in this town. Everybody knows you’re a fighter. Hell, old Jonny’ll be glad to give you a reference.”

“A reference for what, Dan? Talk in a straight line, I’m weaving here.” I swallowed the last of my beer and waved my hand for another.

He popped the top for me and gave me a sly look. “Get yourself hired as a bodyguard,” he said. “You’ve got the skills. You could fake the credentials. Get yourself…”

“Hey, Danny, turn this up, would you?” someone shouted from across the bar, pointing drunkenly at the TV.

Dan did so, muttering under his breath about the diminutive “Danny”. He turned back to keep talking, but I hushed him with a wave of my hand.

“Thanks!” The gorgeous girl on the TV giggled. “It’s a process, you know, it’s sort of tracking my personal growth, I guess.”

“Who’s that?” Dan asked appreciatively.

“Paisley Abbott,” I told him without thinking. “Singer.”

“She looks a little soft to be a metalhead.”

I pressed my lips together. She was too soft to be a metalhead.

“So your last single, Spark on the Wing, hit number one on both Country and Pop charts last month. That must have felt like a real accomplishment.”

Dan raised his eyebrows at me with a smirk. I ignored him. Nothing wrong with a little brain candy on the playlist.

“It would’ve felt like more of an accomplishment if I’d written that song myself,” Paisley confessed with an adorable little wince.

“You didn’t?” The interviewer looked irritatingly predatory.

“I wish I had,” Paisley said. “I actually bought that song to fill up my album. I wrote the other twelve, but my manager felt that it needed to be a baker’s dozen, you know? There wasn’t time to write one, so I bought it. The genius behind that song was actually Eric Mercer, who nobody knows, but everybody should. He’s written most of the top forty for this year.” Paisley seemed genuinely earnest in her praise.

“I see,” the interviewer said, obviously not interested in hearing anything more about the songwriter. “So what will you do now that the album has been released?”

“Keep working on the next one,” Paisley said, flashing her dimples. “No rest for the wicked, right?”

“And will you be writing all of the songs yourself?” the interviewer asked pointedly.

“I certainly hope so,” Paisley said as her cheeks darkened. “I’ve decided it’s time to get back to my roots. I’m proud of my last album, but I sort of feel like I’ve lost sight of myself, if that makes any sense.”

“It does indeed,” the interviewer said.

I didn’t believe the interviewer. She was the kind of woman who knew exactly who she was and never allowed herself a moment to question it. I could see it in her eyes and in the way she held herself. Before Billy’s head made that crunching sound, I was the same way.

“So that’s why I’m moving back to Memphis,” Paisley continued in a rush. “I’m going to watch the sky and run in the grass just like I did growing up. Tennessee used to feel like home, you know? I think I need it to again.”

“So your album isn’t coming along all that well, then?” the interviewer perceived sharply.

“Oh! Not at all, it’s coming along beautifully.” Paisley’s grin didn’t reach her eyes. Nice try, sweetheart. “And it’s only going to get better now that I’m home.”

“God, she’s gorgeous.” The words were out of my mouth before I was aware of thinking them.

“It’s fate, boy,” Dan said with a twinkle in his eye. “She’s hot, she’s single, and she just moved into town. There’s your target.”

I drank slowly, considering. Now that there was a face to the scheme, it seemed more real.

It certainly wouldn’t be a chore. Her hair was just the right shade of brown, like hot coffee in sunlight. Her big eyes were startlingly blue, making a guy look twice. Her light tan trailed all the way down to her collar, a deep U-shape which exposed the creamy tops of her plump breasts. No, it wouldn’t be a chore at all.

“So?” Dan pressed. “Am I gonna tell my guy to expect a video?”

“Don’t tell him anything yet,” I said, tapping my bottle on the counter. I almost chewed my lip until I remembered it was split. I settled for scratching my chin instead. Ideas were percolating sluggishly in my head. I was definitely going to need to sleep on the logistics of the situation. “Wouldn’t hurt to do a little window shopping for your houseboat, though.”

Dan threw his head back and laughed, then clapped a heavy hand on my shoulder, shaking me. “That’s my boy! You’ll get that sweet ass, then we’ll get our sweet cash. How you gonna do it?”

“Haven’t figured that out yet,” I told him with a wry grin. “Little on the drunker side of sober right now.”

“Better get on figuring. Girl won’t be in Memphis forever.” Dan nodded sagely, as if he had made some profound statement.

“Yeah, thanks for the tip,” I said, shaking my head.

I looked back up at Paisley, still chatting animatedly with the interviewer, who was beginning to look overwhelmed. I’d seen that look before, on a garden snake who was trying to eat a rat too big for its little jaws. I grinned and tuned back in.

“So the second boyfriend actually fell in love with the third boyfriend after the first boyfriend knocked them both out. And I wasn’t even with any of them at the time! All those rumors that I played them against each other, they’re completely false. Well, mostly false. Well, what I mean is, I didn’t mean to. They’re just so jealous, all of them, and you know what? Boyfriends two and three deserve each other. They aren’t nice people.”

“So you’ll be looking for a good guy this time around?” the interviewer asked, regaining her footing.

“Oh God, no!” Paisley laughed. “Let me tell you something, Mandy. The worst guys to date are the ones who swear up and down that they’re ‘good guys’. They treat everything like a transaction.” She shuddered, her diamond earrings flashing in the studio lights. “No, give me an honest bad boy any day. I’d rather know who I’m dealing with.”

Dan shot me a pointed look and I nodded.

“One honest bad boy, comin’ up.” I saluted the screen with the foamy remnants of my beer. “Thanks, Dan. I’ll see you.”

I settled my tab and left. The rain was still pouring, but somehow it didn’t seem as oppressive. I let it wash away the blood and the pain as I walked home, already brainstorming my next move.