House of Payne: Tag

by Stacy Gail

  “Gotta go, Tag’s up.” Quickly typing out that last message, Ivy hit send before setting her phone on the coffee table and coming to her feet. “Hey. Did I wake you?”

  “You not being in bed woke me.” Clearly still half-asleep, he pulled her in for a hug. “Don’t like waking up and you’re not there.”

  “You just like grabbing this tiger by the tail.”

  “Hell, yeah, I do. This tail right here is my favorite thing to grab.” He guided her toward the couch and collapsed onto it, pulling her down with him so that she was curled up on his lap. “What’re you doing out here?”

  “I heard my text chime go off. Minnie,” she said, which she thought should explain it all. “I told her we’re keeping the dice.”

  “Good. She okay?”

  Aww. “Yeah. Her life changed today for the better, and I’m happy for her. More than happy. Ever since I’ve known her, she’s been kind of disconnected from deeper emotions—you know, not really caring about anything beyond the circle of her family. And me, though I think it was established today that I was definitely considered family.”

  He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth for a kiss before holding it against his chest. “Sounds like a big day.”

  “You could say that.”

  “I don’t know if I would’ve called Minnie emotionally disconnected, though,” Tag said, surprising her. “I mean, I don’t know her all that well, but she seemed thoroughly plugged-in to me, at least to her sex drive.”

  “But that’s all it was—sex, without giving a damn about anyone she was having sex with. Men might not be able to grasp that this isn’t the best kind of self-care a person can do,” she added as an afterthought. “Since you’re definitely a man, you might not be able to get that this kind of emotional numbness isn’t healthy.”

  “Hey, don’t underestimate my ability to grasp she was living dangerously and not really giving a shit about herself, much less the men in her life.” He brought her hand back up to his mouth for a gentle, chastising nip. “When you start feeling like there’s no point to anything, that’s how you end up hitting rock bottom, or worse. I’m glad your girl’s found something to give a shit about, because that means she’ll start giving a shit about herself.”

  “So you do understand.”

  “Tiger, I might be a guy, but I know self-destructive behavior when I see it. Yeah, guys are more physical than emotional, I’ll be the first to admit it. Once we’re beyond the playground age we think solely with our dicks and assume everyone on the planet’s like that. Then we grow the fuck up and realize half the population has a totally different mindset, and our world expands again. It takes us a while to get there,” he added dryly. “But a man who’s grown the fuck up understands that a well-balanced life has both the physical and emotional aspects, and that’s what they want more than any damn thing in this world.”

  “Yeah?” Her heart began to pound, and he was so close she couldn’t help but wonder if he could hear it. “Is that what you want?”

  “I’m a grown man, tiger. I grew up a long time ago.”

  “You didn’t grow up with beneficial emotions like love, though,” she couldn’t help but point out, all the while wondering if she was shooting herself in the foot by underscoring potential obstacles for him to overcome. “I did, even if I kept losing the people I loved. I know how priceless it is to have emotions like love in my life, to have that foundation that makes the chaos of the world vanish. How is it you know you need that balance between the physical and the emotional?”

  “Even when I didn’t have any kind of love or belonging, I could see it all around me. Couples walking hand in hand, claiming each other and making themselves a united front. Families on outings, and how happy and content they were because they knew they belonged together. I could see it, even if I couldn’t touch it. And I’ll never forget how happy I was when I finally had a taste of that kind of world when I landed in that foster home,” he added, his hand tightening on hers. “If anything, I know better than most how important the emotional shit is when it comes to relationships, because I know what life is like without it. That’s why we fit so well together,” he added, surprising her. “You know what it is to be alone in the world, and so do I, so neither one of us takes what we have for granted. Together, it’s our turn to be the united front, and it feels amazing.”

  “Yeah, it does.” Her pulse hadn’t eased up, because this was it. Even though she told herself she was still adjusting to her new reality and wasn’t yet ready to share with Tag, the time was definitely upon her, whether she was ready or not. “In fact, it feels better than amazing. To me, it feels…it feels like love.”

  For a fraction of a second he was still, before he searched her eyes through the darkness. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” The weight of the world lifted from her now that it was out, and she thought she might even float to the ceiling when he again squeezed her hand. “You make the chaos of the world vanish. That’s how I know it’s love. When we’re together, I’ve got my place in the world, and it’s a good place.”

  “A good place.” Through the dark she could see his eyes on her, and suddenly he didn’t seem very sleepy at all. “How good?”

  “So good I resent it when I have to go to work or be apart from you, when that’s not even freaking rational. So good it feels like a long-lost reunion when we get back together, even if we’ve only been separated for an hour or two. I keep trying to tell myself not to miss you when we go our separate ways, to think about something else, but that doesn’t work. I can’t talk myself out of feeling the way I feel. It’s that good.”

  “That is pretty damn good,” he remarked, and she could see the glimmer of his faint smile. The sight of it made the anxiety tying her in knots vanish as if it had never been. If he could take the news that she loved him with a smile, life wasn’t half-bad. “You go ahead and tell me if there’s any way I can make it better.”

  Tell me you love me.

  Ivy bit down on her tongue before the words could escape. The number of women who wanted that very thing were like the stars themselves—countless and endless. The hell of it was, even if she gave a voice to that request, his response wouldn’t feel right. She didn’t want to prod him to say I love you.

  She just wanted him to say it because he felt it.

  “Coasting along as we are works for me.” She stretched up to touch her mouth to his. “It’s been a long time since I had anyone in my life to love, so I’m good with baby steps. Though I do love the Dao family, too,” she added with an eye roll and a shake of her head. “That was part of what blew up this morning. I now know exactly where I stand with them, and I have to say I’m very grateful I have them in my life. I don’t know where I’d be without them, so I’ll always be glad they chose to become my surrogate family.”

  “How did that happen, anyway?” As he spoke, the hand that held hers against his chest moved so that his fingers threaded with hers. “I mean, I know how the social care system landed me with my foster family, but I get the feeling it was different for you when you were orphaned.”

  She nodded, looking back into the past. “I was only a few months away from turning eighteen when my uncle, my legal guardian, died. Minnie and I had been best friends since grade school—we met at an art fair and discovered we lived only a few blocks from each other. It killed both of us when she didn’t make it into CATE—Chicago Arts and Technical Education private high school, and I almost didn’t go because it meant we wouldn’t go through high school together.”

  “If I’d known you then, I would’ve kicked your ass for even thinking like that,” he muttered, the arm cradled around her back tightening. “Every kid who gets into CATE has to earn their way there. They’re the best and the brightest this city has to offer, so it would have been fucking criminal if you’d turned your back on something like that.”

  “My uncle Darius said pretty much the same thing to me at the time. He was so proud of me, Tag,”
she added on a faint laugh, though even she could hear the sadness in it. “He was also very artistic, so he knew what went into creating something out of nothing. He once told me that he loved to see that the next generation was carrying the creative torch into the future, and he was so proud I was that torch-bearer. Pretty cool, eh?”

  Not even the darkness could dim the softness in his eyes. “Very.”

  “You would’ve loved him, honey. Uncle Darius was crazy and funny and very extroverted. Wherever he went, it felt like a party was happening. He constantly said inappropriate but harshly accurate things at just the right time, and he hugged everyone he met. Literally everyone, but that was because he loved everyone without reservation. You had to really cross him up for him to even think a bad thing about you.”

  “Sounds like a great guy.”

  “He was.” It was easier now to think of her family, though she could feel the tears of long-echoing grief waiting just below the surface. “Not a day goes by when I don’t think about him. Crazy guy.”

  “I never asked how he died.”

  At that, her throat tightened and she swallowed hard to try to clear it. “He was working late at his business—it was an auto paint shop that did custom jobs and basically made cars into rolling billboards, or works of expressive art, or eyesores, depending on your point of view. My first solo design when I was fourteen made front page news. Uncle Darius was so proud.”

  “Doesn’t surprise me in the least.”

  She smiled, but it was fleeting. “I was at home, working on a school project that was due the next day, and I’m ashamed to admit that I lost track of time. I didn’t even realize how late Uncle Darius was. I keep thinking that if I’d been more aware of my surroundings, I could’ve gone down to his shop and…I don’t know. Done something. Saved him. Prevented it all from happening in the first place. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t do that. That’s survivor’s guilt, and not only does it not make a fucking bit of sense, it also harms you. You understand me? I won’t sit idly by and watch you harm yourself over something that doesn’t make sense, so get that shit out of her you head right now.”

  She couldn’t help but smile. He was so wonderful to talk to. “I’ll try.”

  “Good. What happened next?”

  “It was after midnight when there was a knock on the door. It was the police. They needed me to, um…”

  His hand tightened on hers. “They needed you to identify your uncle?”

  She shook her head. “There wasn’t much left of him to identify at that point. They just needed me to come down to the morgue to get paperwork filled out, to show they’d notified the next of kin.”

  “Shit.” He dropped her hand to wrap his arms around her, as if he wanted to shield her from the world. “I fucking hate that you had to face that alone. This was after Teo’s death, yeah?”

  “No.” Surprised at the conclusion he’d come to, she pulled back just far enough to look at him. “My uncle and Teo, they died together. They were murdered together.”

  Tag went absolutely still. “What?”

  She nodded. “I thought I’d mentioned that.”

  “No.” She heard him pull in a slow breath. For one crazy second she imagined that it shook. “You never did.”

  “The police explained how they think it went down, though at the time I was barely able to absorb anything they said.” Again she swallowed as the stubborn knot in her throat refused to go away. “My uncle was working late down at the shop, and since Teo was there with him, I guess my brother must have been working late as well. Uncle Darius had been trying to get Teo to be more focused on his future, because my brother was a little on the immature side,” she added with a wry smile, and was unnerved when he didn’t return it. “Though I suspect that’s something you already know.”

  “Yeah.” She heard him swallow before he looked away. “That Teo was a goddamn little shit, no doubt about it.”

  “No, he wasn’t,” she chided, smiling at the harsh growl in his tone. Even though it was Teo’s actions that brought them together, it touched her heart that Tag was still pissed on her behalf that her brother had stolen her tag. “My brother was just trying to find himself, that’s all. If he’d been given the chance, who knows what wonderful things he could have accomplished? He was my brother, after all.”

  The arms around her tightened. “You two are nothing alike. Nothing.”

  “I’ll never know that, now. Some really bad people—a few think it was the Backyard Killerz but most say it was the Yard Kings—came along and killed Teo and my uncle. They came into my uncle’s shop, and they shot him in the chest and…and the head, and then they did the same to my baby brother. The police think Teo must have come running up the hall to protect Uncle Darius, because while they found my uncle in the threshold of his office, Teo was in the hallway closest to the front room, as if trying to block the way. I hold on to that,” she admitted, then wiped at the tears that she couldn’t stop from falling. “My brother’s last act of life was a beautiful one—trying to protect our uncle, the wonderful man who’d taken us in and loved us unconditionally.”

  “Ivy. My Ivy.” His hand cradled the back of her head and pushed her face into the curve of his neck. She let it happen, because there, with her face pressed against the solid warmth that was Tag, she couldn’t help but feel like she was in the safest place in the world. “Jesus.”

  “I’m told they were both dead by the time the thieves set the shop on fire. And they were thieves, because before they lit the match, they hauled my uncle’s safe out of his office. I know it doesn’t matter, but in a weird way I’m so relieved they were dead before the place burned down to the ground.” She tried to laugh, but it came out a broken little sob, and his hold on her tightened. “I’ve had nightmares ever since that horrible night the police knocked on my door, isn’t that stupid?”

  “No, tiger, it’s not stupid.”

  “I keep seeing Uncle Darius and Teo bleeding and hurt and scared, and they’re trying to crawl to somewhere safe while the flames just keep coming at them…”

  “Baby, don’t,” he crooned softly, rocking her while she tried and failed at stifling another sob. “Don’t do that to yourself. They didn’t suffer. It was quick. Your uncle was a beautiful man who treasured you. And your little brother… well. What a hero. Right?”

  “Right.” Her breath kept hitching, no matter how hard she tried to get herself under control. “I’m so sorry I’m crying like an idiot. I know it happened a long time ago, but when I talk about my family, and I think of the animals that stole my family from me, a part of me still gets so…angry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” came the gentle rebuke, and she felt him turn his head so he could nuzzle his mouth against her hair. “You never have to apologize to me for showing me who you really are.”

  Frantically she tried to calm her breathing. “Shattered with grief is not who I really am. That’s just a tiny part of me that isn’t allowed off the leash very often.”

  “But it’s still a part of you, so that means I want to know about it.”

  Just when she thought the man couldn’t move her any more than he already did. “Does that mean you don’t mind me trying to drown you in tears?”

  “It means I need to hear what you’ve got going on inside, so that somehow I can make all the bad things go away. When you want to wage your wars, I want to be the one who brings you peace. When you hurt, I want to be the one who heals you. Two halves to a whole, fitting together like puzzle pieces. That’s who we are. That’s who we’re always going to be.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” she whispered, her arms twining tightly around his neck while the darkness inside her receded against the light that he so effortlessly brought to her life. “Because you’re everything I care about in the universe. You are my universe. That means you’re going to have a hell of a time getting rid of me.”

  “Right back atcha, tiger. I won’t let anything take you from me.
That’s a promise.” The hand at the back of her head tugged gently on her hair, bringing her face from his neck so she could receive his kiss.

  And if it occurred to her that he sounded downright grim, it was something she could easily ignore.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You’re up early.”

  Tag glanced over his shoulder at Malik, long and thin and dressed in his work coveralls, before he returned his attention to the package he was hauling out of the back of the SUV. “Depends on how you look at it. From my point of view, I’m up late.”

  “I remember what it was like to be young.” A chuckle eased comfortably from his friend as he approached from the direction of the park’s caretaker hut. “What do you have there?”

  “My payment for you to keep looking after my mural.”

  Malik’s brows shot up. “Is it Christmas already?”

  “Christmas came early, so find a way to deal.” It took a little maneuvering, but at last he slid the framed five-by-three canvas from the vehicle, the brown paper wrapping crinkling under his hands. “It’s the first draft of a scale model I did for Ivy, Invictus. Do with it what you will. The final scale model and the finished piece are headed off to the MoMA in New York. It put a pack of assholes in their place, so as far as I’m concerned this is one of my most successful pieces to date.”

  “Damn, son.” Malik took the painting from Tag, his expression what it always was at times like this—moved, grateful and just a little sad. “Are you sure there isn’t someone else you’d like to give this one to?”

  “I always give you my original artwork.”

  “I know, and I’ve always been so honored by that I’ve never been able to find the words.”

  Tag grimaced. “Fuck that, Malik.”

  “I’m serious, and I’m serious about this, too. I saw the reveal of your latest on the news the other night, and I recognized that lady in the painting right away. She was the one you brought here, wasn’t she?”