by Elley Arden
Edna stood beside M. J., watching her son speak. While M. J. studied the woman’s profile in the shadows of the heavy stage curtains, she caught snippets of Tag’s speech. Words like disordered eating and female athlete triad caught her attention. If she wasn’t so fascinated by his family ties, she’d be hanging on his every word.
“He makes a mother proud,” Edna whispered, a wistful smile on her face.
M. J. followed the woman’s gaze to the man at the podium. There was no denying he was handsome beyond reason, and smart, too. He flashed that grin, and the student body giggled. M. J. closed her eyes. She was done for. It was hard enough to deny her attraction to him when she thought he was an uptight, social-status minder. But now she knew what she’d suspected all along—there was more to him than what she could see. He was goodhearted, the kind of man who would help out a troubled kid on his own dime, or rearrange his busy schedule to do a favor for his mother.
She opened her eyes when the crowd giggled again.
This was starting to feel like a conspiracy.
Chapter Seven
Tag stood alongside his mother, watching M. J. captivate the crowd of teenage girls. When she spoke, nobody moved, but when she paused at strategic, comedic beats, the laughter was deafening. But the longer Tag listened, the more he questioned the laughter.
M. J. launched into another story from her childhood. This one detailed the time her father and stepmother sent her to summer camp and used the week to buy her a new, more girl-appropriate wardrobe.
“Dresses,” M. J. scowled. “Back then, my reaction was this.” She stepped away from the podium and stuck her finger into her mouth in a gagging gesture.
The crowd laughed again.
M. J. waited until they settled, to continue. “I cried myself to sleep that first night home, wearing a nightgown with elastic and ruffles that made me itch and literally left indentations in my skin. I cried, because everything I loved was gone. My Jim Brown jersey with a rip in the side where a neighbor kid tried to keep me from rushing into our makeshift end zone. My red, black, and white Air Jordan high-tops that I was wearing when I first touched the rim—jumping off stacked boxes, of course. And so much more. I bawled, because it was like losing a part of me. Those things meant something to me. Those things represented what was important to me. When they threw them away in favor of what they thought was better, it was like they were throwing the real me away, too.”
She kept talking, and eventually the audience found something else to be funny, but whatever it was, Tag couldn’t laugh. He was stuck on the depressing treatment M. J. had suffered at the hands of her father, and it ignited a familiar burn inside of him.
Tag knew the brutal blow of belittlement firsthand.
Glancing at his watch, he squirmed against the memories pushing to get out, knowing this was only the beginning of the torturous trip down memory lane. In the not-so-distant future, he’d come face to face with his past again. Right about now, Jordon and Grey were on their way to Cleveland. To Tag. For a procedure that could put Grey back in the game. It was an exciting, admirable pursuit. It also made him want to hurl.
If Tag could just keep it professional, he’d be okay.
“She’s got them eating out of the palm of her hand. Always,” Mom whispered, leaning closer. “Do you know her? I thought maybe her being a football player and you …”
“I do,” Tag said, nodding. He knew her well enough to know how she tasted, but he’d had no idea they had something so miserable in common.
But charismatic, self-assured M. J. captivated more than her teenage audience with stories from her depressing youth. She mesmerized Tag, and had him so damn curious. How did she project power and certainty even when she was talking about such horrible things?
God help him, but he wanted—even needed—to know more about her.
“Be a first-rate you, because no matter who you are, that’s so much better than being a second-rate whoever they want you to be.” Raucous applause and cheers accompanied M. J. as she stepped away from the podium.
The other night, walking along a darkened stretch of sidewalk, he’d likened her to a goddess. Standing before charged-up fans, she was a warrior. He didn’t need her protection, but he could use someone who could show him how to rise above the inner turmoil once and for all.
“Fabulous as always,” Mom said, grabbing M. J. by the hand as they crossed paths, and then she let go and headed for the podium.
M. J. stopped in front of Tag. He didn’t really give her a choice. Unless he moved out of the way, she was surrounded, trapped between walls of rich velvet curtain to her sides, the open stage to her back, and Tag, staring into her shocking-blue eyes.
“Will you have dinner with me?” he asked. “I know you don’t date during the season, so we don’t have to call it a date. We can call it two friends sharing a meal if it makes you feel better.”
She considered him with a blank expression on her face. It was the kind of expression that made a guy never want to open his mouth again. He knew it was a long shot, but if that kiss had imprinted on her brain the way it had on his, there was hope.
“Okay,” she said.
His eyes widened. “Tonight?” He might as well capitalize on the unexpected good luck.
She shook her head. “I can’t, unless you want to eat at midnight. I have practice and then my shift, but tomorrow I’m free after practice.”
At this point, he would take what he could get. “Does six work?”
She nodded again. “But if you tell me to wear a dress, I’ll cancel.” A little smirk tipped her plump lips, reminding him of how much he wanted to kiss her again.
He leaned closer, brushing her shoulder with his arm as his mouth reached her ear. “What if I ask you to wear those boots?”
“I’d say it was a very odd request coming from a friend.”
She wasn’t buying it either.
“What can I say? I’m an odd guy.” She didn’t know the half of it.
She smiled. “I can handle wearing them.”
He could handle that, too—from her tapered ankles all the way to her strong, shapely thighs. He could even handle more if she wanted him to.
• • •
The thought of M. J. in those boots got Tag through the next twenty-four hours. The grafting procedure wasn’t bad thanks to the protective nature of the operating room. Grey was out cold, and Jordon wasn’t allowed in, which meant it was easy to keep things professional. Too bad Tag couldn’t say the same about the next day’s follow-up appointment.
He attempted to keep his distance as he and Leanne checked for meshing in the surrounding tissues, changed the dressings, and informed Jordon and Grey of the progress they could expect to see. But then Leanne got called away. The minute she closed the door behind her, Tag knew his luck had run out.
“How are you?” Jordan asked.
It would’ve been such a benign question coming from anyone else.
“I’m well.” An uncomfortable heat clawed up Tag’s face, but he resolved to maintain his composure. “The procedure went well. The hand looks good, and I have every reason to believe this will be a success.”
“We’re happy to hear that, but that’s not what I meant. How are you? How have you been? It’s …” Jordon’s voice cracked, “been a long time.”
Tag’s jaw ticked as his mind scrambled for a way out of this conversation. Leave. But his feet stuck to the floor. Jordon was right; it had been a long time. Too long to do anything about it now. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Grey’s head hung.
“Understood,” Jordon said. “So how about I talk and you listen?”
Leave. Tag didn’t care who, but someone needed to disappear for this conversation to evaporate, too. Once again, his feet wouldn’t cooperate.
“Francis Kemmons was a bastard,” Jordon said.
Grey raised his head and grunted his agreement.
“He broke us down with his angry words
and volatile behavior. It practically destroyed us all,” Jordon said. “It certainly obliterated our bond.”
Grey agreed again.
Tag’s hands clenched. “Your bond looks fine to me.” So much for not talking about this.
“Tag,” Jordon stepped closer. “It wasn’t always like this. I left home as soon as I could. I left Grey, too, and I didn’t call him until a few years ago—after Francis died.”
But he didn’t call Tag. Twenty-five years, and neither one of his older brothers called to check on him. He stepped back.
“I wanted to call you, too,” Jordon continued. “I thought of you off and on over the years, but I was so caught up in my own anger and guilt that I couldn’t imagine facing you. I didn’t know what I would say. I told myself you were better off without us, and when I looked into it and found out about your medical career, I figured it was true. You were the lucky one. You got away.”
It was true, but Tag would’ve felt a hell of a lot luckier had his old life and new life never crossed paths.
“I wish it could’ve been different, that mom could’ve lived longer and taken us away from him,” Grey said.
The muscles in Tag’s jaw tightened. He barely remembered his biological mother, who’d battled cancer off and on for most of his life until she died when he was seven. “I got away,” he snapped. “And I’m not going back.”
Leanne returned, saving Tag from having to hear more, but the discomfort of a cold sweat remained. Holding all of this in, dealing with the upheaval by himself, was starting to take its toll. If it were any other topic, he’d have talked to his parents by now and asked for their advice, but this was his own private hell, one he didn’t want Edna and Simon being subjected to—again. They’d already done so much to get him past those awful, early years, to accept and forget what had happened. He didn’t want them to think they’d failed.
He didn’t want them to know he had.
• • •
Hours later, sitting in the dirt parking lot in front of Mama Mary’s bar and M. J.’s apartment, Tag took a moment to exhale thoughts of Jordon and Grey from his head. He was looking forward to dinner with M. J., and he was not going to let Francis Kemmons ruin another moment in his charmed life. Tag pushed out of the car and spent the next few minutes searching the outside of the crumbling, brick building for an entrance to the apartment upstairs. He’d be lying to himself if he said it didn’t bother him that she chose to live here. It might be convenient to work and close to the people she loved, but it didn’t seem safe. He wasn’t going to bring that up tonight, though. If he did, she’d certainly balk at his concern at best, and label it elitist or sexist at worst. He wasn’t interested in taking and defending positions. At this point, he just wanted to have some fun, and M. J. seemed like his best bet.
On his way back around to try the door to the bar, M. J. was standing alongside his car, staring at her phone. Her chestnut hair draped over her shoulders, falling around her face, prompting the overwhelming urge to part the soft curtains so he could cup her face in his hands, rub his thumb over her bottom lip, and kiss her until the heat of the moment melted every last worry from his heart and his head. His heartbeat doubled, priming his body to push her against the car for leverage as he slid a hand over her skin-tight, shiny black pants until he reached the bend in her knee, just above those “ass-kicking” boots. He’d hike that leg to his waist as he deepened the kiss. Heck, after that, he may never have a coherent thought again.
His phone buzzed, and like the good doctor he was he shook off the heady imaginings and pulled it from his dress pants pocket to make sure the call wasn’t important.
It was better than important.
It was M. J.
Tag smiled at his screen, and then he smiled at her.
“I was calling to see where you were,” she said. “I came out through the bar and you weren’t there. I figured you were either down at the gym or dragged off by hoodlums in this scary, urban neighborhood.” She faked a shudder and added a sultry laugh.
Tag didn’t feel inclined to address the crack about his supposed socioeconomic prejudice, not with her happiness resounding in his ears and her beauty mesmerizing him at close range. “I was looking for you,” he said.
“You found me.”
“And I’m so glad I did.”
Without hesitation, he cupped her face between his hands and pressed her mouth to his, tasting her with his lips and tongue. All the while, he breathed in a warm, clean scent of something earthy, something perfectly suited to M. J., something as legitimate and unpretentious as the woman herself.
Seconds passed. Minutes. He wanted her—needed her—to show him more, teach him more, fill him with so much pleasure he could withstand any pain.
“Uh, I’m leaving now. So if you want to do that, you’re welcome to take it upstairs to the apartment.”
They separated at the sound of Tanya’s voice, their heavy breathing echoing in the stillness.
“Ha, ha,” M. J. called out mockingly to her friend as she walked around to the passenger side of Tag’s car.
“Hey, Tanya.” Tag flashed an extra-bright smile as he followed M. J.
With a hop-like move at the last second possible, he cut in front of her and grabbed the handle. She shot him a lopsided look that questioned his sanity.
“What? I’m opening your car door.”
“I know what you’re doing. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself doing it. Besides, it’s unnecessary. This isn’t a date, right? And I’m perfectly capable of opening a door by myself.”
Not a date. Right. After a kiss like that he wanted to call her bluff.
“Humor me,” he said, ushering M. J. into the car with the sweep of his arm.
He couldn’t resist touching the small of her back and leaning into the car as she sat. Her lopsided look faded away, replaced by something much more enticing, something that urged him to slip his hand along the seat belt and tug it across her rising and falling breasts.
“I know. I know,” he whispered. “It’s not a date, and you’re perfectly capable of doing this, too, but then I couldn’t do this.” By the time he said the last word his lips were touching hers.
Before he could do more than initiate the kiss, his face was in her hands. Their mouths opened, their tongues entwined. The kiss crossed every line of parking-lot propriety ever written. If not for the sound of crunching gravel beneath an approaching car, dinner would’ve surely been missed.
• • •
If this wasn’t a date, then M. J. didn’t know what was.
She stole a glance at Tag overtop her menu. The cheesy glow of candlelight flickered across his chiseled face, reflecting off his glasses. Glasses. Tiny tingles of pleasure tickled the back of her neck. Who knew glasses on an attractive man really turned her on? The problem was everything about him seemed to turn her on.
“Why don’t you wear those all the time?” she asked.
Tag looked at her. “I don’t need them all the time. Just to read.”
“Aren’t you a little young for bifocals?”
A splattering of wrinkles lined his forehead as he reached for his Goose and tonic. She watched him drink, thought about apologizing for the age slight, but decided against it. Either he was being too sensitive or she was being too careful, and neither one would do. If she was going to do this thing, she was going to do it right, without reservations or walking on eggshells whenever he was around.
Tag returned the glass to the table, closed the menu and removed the glasses. “I was born with a congenital cataract. I had surgery years ago. It fixed a lot, but obviously not everything.”
The longer he looked at her, the more the muscles in his face relaxed. No more lines on his forehead. No more wrinkles above his nose. Just smooth, flawless skin—skin that she wanted to touch again.
“Put them back on,” she said, so softly she didn’t recognize her own voice.
“What?” He chuckled.
�
��You asked me to wear the boots, and I did. Now, I’m asking you to wear the glasses.”
Dropping his elbows to the table, he leaned closer, letting the flickering flame from the candle illuminate him. “You like the glasses?”
“I like you in the glasses.”
He had them on in a flash.
They ordered, and conversation turned to his mother. They’d touched on the topic in the car, talking about the school, the health fair, and the doctor who’d cancelled at the last minute, necessitating Tag’s participation, but they never really got into the crazy coincidence of it all.
“Edna Dean is one of my idols,” M. J. said, laying her hand over her heart. “I swear. I can’t believe she’s your mom.”
Again, he sipped his drink thoughtfully. “Small world.”
“Infinitesimally tiny.”
She loved his crooked grin and the way he sort of sucked on his teeth or his tongue—Lord, help her—when he was about to release the grin to speak. “How’d you get involved with Maple Side Academy?”
“Community outreach for the team. We had to fill out a list of things we were passionate about, and I’m passionate about breaking gender barriers and instilling self-worth in young girls. Edna—your mom …” she smiled, because it was just that cool, “called the team and asked if I’d be interested in speaking. I’ve done it for the past three years.”
“You’re good at it.”
“Thank you.” She’d been told that before, but she’d never blushed at anyone else’s compliment. She touched fingertips to her heated face. “I enjoy it. Maybe once I retire from football I’ll do more of it. Nationwide. I would love that.”
Another sip. This time, he tipped the glass until the ice clinked against each side. And then again. He’d done that the night he showed up at the bar, too. The motion filled the silence when he was thinking. He was a doctor. Pondering and studying were probably as common to him as breathing, but sitting there waiting for him to speak again while on the receiving end of his consideration was a little unnerving.
