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Winter 1988
The last words Tara Knowles said to her mother were: "We're out of fish food."
That was all she could think as she stood frozen in the front hall, Smurfs backpack hanging from her shoulder by one strap, and listened to her father say something about a car accident through wet sobs. He smelled like strong medicine; that wasn't weird. He was crying: that was.
Tara was nine but she wasn't stupid; she saw the car in the driveway when she walked home from the bus stop. There wasn't a scratch on it. The garage door hung open and reeked of exhaust.
Her mother's face swam in her vision, that familiar sad smile on her face, and Tara clenched her fists as hard as she could at her sides and listened to her dad cry.
Five minutes later, with her father stumbling after the liquor bottle in the living room, Tara quietly padded across the hall. The kitchen gleamed white and empty, the refrigerator humming. Tara swallowed hard and dropped her backpack in the corner. Then she pushed a stool all the way across the floor, scraping the tile, til it hit the wall. She climbed up, pulled the phone off the receiver, and dialed the familiar number.
Someone picked up after three rings; a grown-up male voice.
"This is Tara," she said, her voice little but rock steady. "Can you come get me?"
The night her Mom died, Tara rode on the back of a motorcycle and slept curled into the tightest possible ball in the Tellers' guest bedroom.
Nobody came looking for her until her grandma arrived in Charming two days later.
Winter 1993
Tara stepped out of her dad's car and slammed the door, dropping the keys in her coat pocket and taking the first few quick steps across the parking lot, boots crunching in the loose gravel. The cold hit her like a knife to the lungs and she powered through it, every breath stinging. She jogged right past the figure slumped on the stairs, but the flash of black leather caught her eye and she slowed, then turned back. Jax was perched on the concrete front steps of St. Thomas with his knees drawn up, shoulders hunched, and his chin low. He looked so small, so unlike his usual gangly swaggery self, that Tara paused for a long moment before quietly coming down one step, then two. Her sneakers made next to no noise as she sat down beside him, hip nearly brushing his.
Jax held the familiar top rocker in his hands, his thumb running across the TELLER patch just above the one that read PRESIDENT. Dried blood flaked off the leather under his hands. Tara wrapped both her arms around his near one and held on tight. His bicep tensed. She could feel it even through his jacket and the layers underneath. She hesitated for a painfully awkward second, then tilted her head a couple of inches and hid a kiss in the shaggy hair just above his ear. It felt illicit and sneaky and a little weird on the one hand, and utterly right on the other.
I'm sorry, she didn't say. Oh God, Jax, I'm so sorry.
I came as soon as I heard. I took my dad's car. He'll never notice it's gone.
Your dad is a really good guy.
There were several options, each worse than the last, and in the end, Tara kept all of them to herself in favor of hugging Jax's arm as hard as she dared.
Winter 1994
"Tara, what the hell are you doing?"
David and Tara were friends in kindergarten, before Tara's mom started wanting to blow her own brains out. In those days, it was perfectly acceptable to build block castles with Jackson Teller in Mrs. Abernathy's class, but Tara couldn't go to his house after school. David, on the other hand, was deemed a suitable playmate.
They were a long way from kindergarten now.
"Uh," said Tara, "smoking a cigarette." She rolled her eyes. Maybe David had turned out not half bad looking, the star cornerback, and maybe he was a decent guy, but Jesus was he a stick in the mud. She took a deep drag and blew smoke up at him, just because she could.
"In the outfield," he objected sourly, his arms folded over his chest. "In the middle of the school day."
Sitting cross-legged in the grass, Tara hauled her backpack over to shove the pack of cigarettes back into a pocket. "I have a free period."
"And you're using it to wait for your gangster boyfriend so you can play hooky."
It took two deep breaths for Tara to be able to avoid her initial impulse to hurl her backpack at David Hale and his condescending, judgmental face. "Jesus Christ, David." She began shoving items – a sweatshirt, two textbooks, her Walkman – into her bag with more force than strictly necessary. "We're dissecting a fetal pig together; that doesn't give you the right to come over here and start being a pain in my ass."
"Tara," he pleaded, in what he undoubtedly thought was a kind, reasonable tone, "he's no good for you."
Something inside of Tara snapped. She lunged to her feet and was in his face before she could even think about it. "I decide what's good for me." She enunciated every word, sharp and angry. "That's nobody else's business."
For a second, David looked taken aback by her fury, like he might step back, but he stubbornly set his jaw and stood his ground. "You're gonna get arrested."
"What're you, a cop?" she snapped over her shoulder, crossing the field toward the parking lot, where the rumble of an idling engine echoed.
Spring 1995
"What do you wanna do?" Tara asked the ceiling, her head pillowed on Jax's bare stomach and her hands folded over her ribs.
Jax gave her that slow quiet laugh that she loved, the one that might have been a chuckle on someone a little older. "We just did it," he said, running his fingers through her hair.
Tara snorted despite herself, lightly shoving his leg. "That's not what I meant. Besides." She shrugged one shoulder comfortably. "Your mom and Clay will be back soon, anyway."
"Nah." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders from behind. A lot of people might tense on Tara's behalf, given that strong arm in the perfect position to slide up a few inches and apply pressure, but Tara knew her man. She felt warm with his arm around her; safe and content. Usually, anyway. Tonight, she was restless.
"We still got a couple hours. Clay was takin' her to a movie; she talked him into that Jerry Maguire shit."
Tara smiled very faintly, watching the ceiling fan slowly spin overhead. "You know, sometimes your mom's a big old softie."
"I know," he said, grinning. He wriggled out from under her and rolled on top, his knees on either side of her hips. "Just don't tell Gemma I said so."
"Mmph," she protested into the kiss that he laid on her, turning her head away. He pulled back, looking hurt. "I mean it," she told him, ignoring the way that her heart twinged at his expression. "Let's go out."
"Where do you wanna go?" He flopped onto his side, his head supported by his hand. Tara sat up on her feet and fished her T-shirt off of the floor, pulling it over her head without bothering to find her bra. "Flo's is closed; so's pretty much anything else, this time of night. We could catch a movie, but it's Jerry Maguire and I don't exactly wanna spend two hours watchin' my mom and Clay make out."
Tara gave the ghost of a smile; it faded quickly as she mentally went over the few options they had. "We could ... get a slice of pizza," she offered.
Jax shook his head patiently. "It's Tuesday; House of Pizza's--"
"Closed," Tara finished with him, frowning deeply. "Doesn't it bother you? That there's never anything to do here?"
"It's Charming," Jax said as if it explained everything. He leaned over and kissed her lower back at the base of her spine, right at the heart of the crow spreading its black ink wings across her skin, and she turned around, still sitting on her feet.
"It doesn't always have to be Charming, Jax."
By now, his easy, sated good humor had begun to dry up; she could see it in his eyes and his frown. "What do you mean?"
"I mean – where do you see yourself in 10 years? Here? Still working at Teller-Morrow, waiting to take over SAMCRO?"
"Well – yeah." He half-laughed, disbelieving; as if to say, 'Well, no shit, Tara.' Jesus Christ, Tara thought. He's seriously never thought about this. "Where'll you be?"
Tara shook her head, slow and sure. "Not here. Not in Charming."
He pushed himself up on one arm, the move sharp and sudden. "Without me?"
"Of course not," she said immediately, certain of nothing in the world as much as she was certain of this. She framed one side of his face with her hand. "I'm your old lady, aren't I?" She bent down, dark hair tumbling over her shoulder, and she kissed his slow smile.
The first time Tara saw blood on Jax, after her initial spike of terror (and his shaky reassurance that it wasn't his), she asked whose it was.
By the third time, she stopped asking.
Summer 1995
Tara took a moment out in the sunshine to collect herself before opening the office door, but when she let herself in, Gemma was nowhere to be seen. Thank God, Tara told herself, peering through the door into the garage. She did not need another icy cold pretend-polite conversation; not today. Gemma didn't like her, she thought Tara was taking her baby away from her, and that was fine; Tara didn't give a shit if the old lady didn't like her. That didn't mean she looked forward to running into her, though.
The big bay doors were shut just as thoroughly from the inside as they were on the outside. For this time of day, it didn't feel right.
"Hello?" she called, stepping into the garage. Mrs. Matheson's old Buick was still up on the blocks, but Tara saw no sign of Hoagy, Lowell, any of the mechanics, or any of the Sons. "Hel-lo," she muttered to herself, and stepped back outside to follow the parking lot to the clubhouse.
She could hear the music even from outside; some kind of howling country-rock anthem, a couple off-key voices hollering along, the buzz of somebody else's voice doubtless telling them to shut the hell up. She half-smiled, rapped once on the door, and shouldered it open, stepping into the smoky clubhouse. "Hey, guys, anybody seen--"
Bobby Elvis, the new prospect, Kyle, and Clay stared at her from across a pool table full of gleaming semi-automatic weapons.
Tara's eyes went wide. She took a step back before she had time to even think about it, and she smacked right into the chest of Tig, who took one glance at the scene in front of him and then said, "Ah -- shit."
"Tig!" Bobby snapped.
"I had to take a piss!" Tig defended, stepping around Tara -- and she tried not to flinch when he put his hands on her arms to shift her out of his way, she really did, but she found Tig borderline creepy even to begin with, and Jesus, what kinds of guns were those? -- and deeper into the dimly lit clubhouse. "I was only gone 30 seconds!"
"Jesus Christ," snapped Clay, and the prospect killed the music, leaving the clubhouse ominously quiet all at once. "Goddamn useless!" His eyes flicked to Tara, anger still writ large on that craggy face, and she regretted ever walking in like she owned the place; regretted that she had spent so much time here with Jax that she'd thought she could do that. "Tara. Hey."
I want to leave, she thought feverishly; I want to leave, I want to leave, I want to leave.
"Hi," she said steadily, more than happy to go along as Clay steered her outside. "God, I'm sorry, Clay, I was just--"
"Lookin' for Jax?" he asked, pulling the clubhouse door shut behind them.
She smiled, bright and uneasy, her heart thundering in her chest. "Yeah."
"Well." Clay scratched his chin, then spread his arms wide in an as you can see... sort of gesture. "He ain't here." As curtly as the words could be taken, his tone was warm. Tara almost wished he were yelling. "Try the house."
"Sure." Tara's instinct was to not meet his eyes, but she knew that could only make matters worse. She looked up at Clay and his broad, friendly face. "Thanks."
He shrugged with an easy (too easy) smile. "No problem."
Tara nodded shortly and turned away, her face crumpling the moment that her back faced Clay.
"And Tara?" he called after her.
Tara stopped in the middle of the parking lot, swallowed hard, schooled her expression into as blank of a face as she could, and looked back.
Clay gestured with those huge hands of his. "What you saw in there..."
She shook her head tightly. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
Clay finally cracked a genuine-looking grin. "Good girl," he said.
The moment that he had disappeared back into the clubhouse, Tara said, "Oh Jesus" into her hands and walked to the Cutlass as fast as she could without running.
Fall 1996
"Well, well, well," said Gemma Teller-Morrow, standing outside the cell with her arms folded. "Will you listen to the former little Miss Goody Two Shoes."
"What?" Tara demanded, sitting on the bunk, hunched toward the door. "I don't regret it. I don't know what would have happened if I hadn't pulled that asshole off Opie."
"True." Gemma settled an unconcerned hand on her hip. "Of course, you don't know what would have happened if you hadn't broken a bottle over his head, either."
Tara stared at her, eyebrows pulled all the way down. A loose pipe somewhere in the town lock-up dripped twice, and then she said, "Are you seriously going to try to tell me you disapprove?"
"Disapprove? Who, me?" She laughed. In all the years Tara had known Gemma, even when she was young enough to think of her as Mrs. Teller, Gemma's laugh – not the real one but this one, the fake calculated one – had always given her the chills. "Oh honey. I just didn't think you had it in you, that's all." She took two slow, measured steps to the side, heels clicking. "Honestly, I'm impressed." Tara glared stonily; Gemma tilted her head and studied her for a long, unhurried moment. She leaned in; lowered her voice. "You enjoyed it, didn't you, sweetheart?"
The sentence hit Tara like a sledgehammer. She unconsciously pulled her mouth tighter; crossed her arms harder, fingers digging into the crooks of her elbows.
"The crash of the glass breaking, the feeling up your arm when you hit that son of a bitch, watching him hit the ground like a dumbshit sack of potatoes; the satisfaction when you see that blood start to go and knowing you caused it -- oh, it's good." One side of Gemma's mouth curved upward, smooth as silk. "Heard you kicked the shit out of him even after he went down." She lightly tapped the cell bars with an open palm. "Welcome to the family, baby. I'd kiss you if I could."
Gemma's voice seemed to come from a distance, like Tara was underwater. The world was suddenly too quiet and too loud all at once. She bit her already-split lip and tasted her own blood for the second time tonight.
Gemma smiled broadly. "I'll just go pay your bail," she said, as fake-sweet as anyone in history, and she left.
Tara managed to hold out for three minutes before she threw up.
Winter 1996
It wasn't much, as far as weddings went. The bride and groom weren't exactly the sentimental sort. Gemma's exact words had been, "I'm not walking down some bullshit aisle wearing a goddamn white dress," and that had been the end of it. What Gemma wanted, Gemma got.
Apparently, what Gemma had wanted was a small civil ceremony at the courthouse followed by a party at the VFW hall full of a whole lot of food, a whole lot of booze, and a whole lot of bikers. There were plenty of regular Charming folks scattered throughout the hall, but leather, bandannas, and black were the norm for the dress code, and as the crowd got drunker, the people in suits and sundresses were becoming scarcer. The Sons had taken over the dance floor, most just milling around though a couple were swaying to "Landslide" with their dates. The word "dates," Tara figured, being used pretty loosely; a pack of crow eaters had come in with one of the Oregon charters. Chibs was loudly bitching about Fleetwood Mac with most of the other Redwood boys, but Tara had been been a mostly-hidden witness to Chibs cajoling the guy into playing Steve Nicks earlier.
Clay wasn't bitching; he was dancing with Gemma, the two of them forehead-to-forehead, Clay grinning broadly and Gemma laughing with her hand on his cheek. Say what you would about Gemma Teller -- and Tara would say a whole hell of a lot -- but she looked genuinely happy; she had all day. She made a beautiful bride. Truce, Tara had promised herself, just for today, and so far, they were sticking to it.
"Shit," said Jax, throwing himself into the seat beside Tara, grinning from ear to ear. "I think half the charters sent half their members." He'd thrown his top rocker over the suit that he had worn to the courthouse; his hair, so carefully slicked back a few hours ago, was already falling around his face.
"Looks like it," Tara agreed dully. Surrounded by empty chairs and ravaged plates from dinner, she sat with her legs crossed, her elbow on the table, and her chin in her hand.
"Hey." He frowned, peering at her. "You okay?"
No, she thought. Not if this is a preview of what life's gonna be like, me sitting at the table and you dancing with the Club without looking back.
"I'm fine." She smoothed her hand over her face. "A little too much champagne," she told him, trying a smile.
"Underage lush," he accused cheerfully, pressing a smacking kiss to her cheek. She hadn't lied about the champagne; her face flushed at the the scrape of stubble against her skin, and that particular smell of shampoo and soap and a dash of cologne suddenly so close.
"If I'm a lush, what does that make you?" she asked, pointing at his nearly-empty champagne glass and raising an arch eyebrow.
"What can I say? I'm a sucker for the bubbles," Jax said, spreading his hands and then hooking his arm over the back of his chair, and Tara finally laughed.
A roar of approval and laughter broke out on the dance floor. Jax immediately glanced at the action over his shoulder, and Tara, who had been about to answer him, closed her mouth, deflating. Her eyes narrowed in consideration, and then she smiled, small and slow and maybe a little triumphant. "Let's get out of here," she said, laying a hand on his arm.
Jax turned back around. "Out of here?" he asked, clearly confused and bemused at once. Tara gave him a long look, and then she tipped her head toward the hallway and the banquet hall bathrooms. Her hair, curled in loose waves, brushed her collarbone; she didn't think she imagined that he glanced in that direction for a split second.
Jax's eyebrows skyrocketed. "Now?"
"I'm kinda bored, Jax," Tara said, matter-of-fact and frank as hell. She unfolded herself from her seat with a rush of hot impatience, tugging at his arm. "Would you come on?"
"You don't gotta ask twice," he said with a tremendous, boyish grin, standing up and happily letting himself be pulled across the dance floor.
They wound up tumbling into the coat closet (because it wasn't a SAMCRO event, Tara had discovered years ago, until one of the boys was getting sucked off by a bleach blonde in the women's bathroom, and today only reinforced that belief), still reeling from the sight of Bobby Elvis's jiggly white ass.
"Oh my God," Tara said into the dark, falling back against a leather jacket on a hanger and blindly grabbing for Jax to steady herself. After two tries, she caught his shoulders and held on, still laughing. "Oh my God! I never, ever needed to see that!"
"You and me both, babe." She could hear his grin in his voice.
"Oh Jesus," she said, giggling, as he wrapped his arms around her. "Jax!" She yelped a laugh when he stumbled against her, and she clung to him tightly. "We can't have sex after that!"
"See, that's where you're wrong." Jax grabbed her ass and pulled her flush up against his body, and his hot mouth was suddenly kissing her throat. His hands were everywhere at once in the darkness, and Tara thought dizzily, We shouldn't be doing this; somebody's gonna try to get their coat, oh-- but then Jax was pushing the hem of her dress up her thighs, and she grabbed his face in both her hands and kissed him fiercely.
I need you, she thought instead. I need you, I need you, I need you, and Jax said it out loud into the space between one desperate kiss and the next, and in that moment, she couldn't imagine a life without Jackson Teller in it.
Spring 1997
"I can't keep doing this, Jax!" Tara slammed a shirt into her suitcase. She stormed past Jax on her way back to her dresser; Jax, who was standing there with his hands up, like that would save him from this.
"Doing what?" he demanded. "Tara, what the hell're you talkin' about?!"
She flung her boots into the luggage, and then she whirled on him. "Getting tattoos and smoking up all day and -- and beating the crap out of people and getting arrested, and watching you get arrested! The charges will keep getting worse and worse, and some day, one of us or both of us is gonna get locked up, Jax!"
"We're not gonna get locked up," he said, lowering his voice and stepping forward, trying to grab her furiously-gesturing hands. "Jesus, Tara, come on--"
She yanked her arms out of his reach and stepped back. "I need to get out," she told him, shaky but as seriously and as calmly as she could. She stood very still; she looked right into his face. "Before either of us becomes somebody I don't recognize." She turned away again and shoved three pairs of shorts, rolled up into one big ball of denim, in her suitcase.
"Tara, this is crazy," he snapped. "This is fucking nuts!" He swiftly came around the bed, trying to get in front of her. "Remember when you asked me where I wanna be in 10 years? I know where I wanna be. In Charming, with you." Tara balled her hands into fists so hard that it hurt; she willed herself not to look at him. "Married, maybe a kid or two." He brushed her elbow with a hand. "Crazy smart like their mom."
They were standing in her childhood bedroom, which still had faded pink hearts on the wallpaper and a couple faded River Phoenix and Jonathan Taylor Thomas posters tacked above her bed. She'd never spent enough time in the house to make the room her own; not after she started dating Jax, after she had somewhere to escape the house and her father (and someone to escape with). Standing in this room, having this conversation about futures and marriage, kids, it was surreal; it was beyond surreal. "And what's their mom doing?" Tara demanded.
He frowned. "What do you mean?"
Her eyes came up. "I mean what would I do here? If we get married and live in Charming, and you stick with the club – where does that leave me, Jax? What are my options? Look at the other old ladies! Donna's six months pregnant and on bed rest, Deena works graveyard at the gas station, and Luann is taking it up the ass three times a day on-camera!" And Gemma -- Tara wouldn't badmouth Gemma to Jax, not even after all the shit that woman had put her through, not even after the epic blow-out she just had with her, but Gemma spent half her time bookkeeping in an auto repair shop and half her time being Lady fucking MacBeth riding bitch on a bike, and that was not the life that Tara wanted.
"Look, we'd work it out," he said. "What's the matter; is Charming not good enough for you?" Tara could hear Gemma Teller-Morrow in every syllable, dripping with pain. Gemma had clearly been poisoning Jax against her all along, just like Tara had always suspected, and she momentarily very seriously considered the possibility of marching right back to the Teller-Morrow house and slapping Gemma in the face.
"No," Tara said, and she stepped forward and took his face in her hands and willed him to listen to her. "And it's not good enough for you, either."
Jax stared at her, silent and still.
"You are so much better than this," she told him quietly.
His expression twisted; he stepped back and paced five, six, seven steps before turning to face her again. "You wanna get away from the club. Outta Charming."
"...Yes," said Tara, as gently as she could. "I do."
His face was stony, void of all of the roiling emotion and pain she had seen only moments earlier. "And away from me."
Tara shook her head; reached out and grabbed his hands. "I want you to come with me."
Jax's head rose sharply. He stared at her.
"Jax, come with me, please." She was barely a step above pleading and she knew it; she didn't care. "Let's go. We can explore the world together, be together, get out of this goddamn dusty town, do whatever we want to do--" Her face shone with excitement, with desperation; she knew she had to leave (she knew it right down to her bones) but she didn't know if she was strong enough to leave him.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tara," he pleaded. "Slow down."
"This isn't exactly coming out of nowhere, Jax," she said. "I've been saying I'm gonna get out of Charming since we were in sixth grade!"
"I never thought you'd actually do it," he shot back. "Nobody ever does."
Tara exhaled, long and slow and shaky, and she took his hands, running her thumbs across his knuckles, still scabbed from the punches he threw in a brawl with a bunch of Mayans the week before. "I want you to come with me," she said quietly. "Think about it." Jax looked down at their joined hands, and after a long moment, he silently tangled his fingers with hers.
Winter 2007
"Yeah," said Tara Knowles into the phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder. She flashed a tight, distracted smile at the teenage girl behind the register, taking her change from the girl's outstretched hand and dropping it into her coat pocket. She pulled her arm in close to avoid the woman standing in line beside her, the tiny coffee shop full to the brim with people trying to escape a subzero February morning. "Very funny," she continued. "Look, just tell Muriel to check his pulse rate again. I know I'm off right now, but just humor me, okay? Would you?" She pulled the tray off the counter, each styrofoam cup tucked into its own slot. "I'll see you in t--"
As she turned away from the register, moving quick with her hair in her face, she tripped over someone's shopping bag and bodily slammed into the man who'd been standing behind her. Her cell phone hit the ground with the kind of clatter that immediately told her that the back panel had popped off again and the innards had exploded across the floor; two cappuccinos, a latte, and a black coffee splashed across the chest of the stranger, all in a split second, and Tara found herself being held up, after a show of very quick reflexes, by his hands on her upper arms.
"--Shit." She quickly got her feet under herself and pulled back into her own space. "Oh my God," she said, her hands covering her face from her chin to just below her eyes. "Oh my God, I'm so sorry; are you okay?" She let her hands fall back to her sides. Her heavy down jacket was soaked, too, but not half as bad as the stranger's clothes. Everybody around them, after the initial dodge back when the coffee splashed down, was now giving them a wide berth while ignoring them. Somebody kicked a piece of Tara's cell phone halfway across the shop.
"Yeah," the guy said, a little snippy but not so bad considering that his dress coat and the front of his suit were dripping cappuccino.
"God -- here, let me get you some napkins--" She turned around, shutting her eyes for a split second, just long enough to start cursing a blue streak in her head, and she pulled a couple thick stacks of napkins out of the dispenser. She almost started dabbing at his coat before she thought better of it and handed the napkins to the man. He rolled up his left sleeve and started drying his arm; Tara frowned at the patch of skin that was already beginning to redden. "Jesus," she muttered, then raised her voice. "I am so sorry about that," she said, kneeling to pick up her smashed coffee cups and the broken pieces of her phone. "It doesn't look bad, if it helps at all. The redness will fade if you ice it."
He looked down at her, his expression a little bemused. Tara glanced up, tucking her wild running-late-this-morning hair behind her ear, leaving her face clear. Something shifted in the stranger's expression. Tara had never been able to pin a name on that particular look, but she knew exactly what it was. It was almost enough to make her laugh, given that her hair was a wreck and she was in scrubs and an enormous down coat with a faux fur hood, wearing no makeup, and she had just dumped scalding hot coffee all over this guy. He was lucky not to be burned badly enough that she would have to take him to work with her, and he was thinking about wanting to fuck her?
Still, it was a little flattering, as much as she didn't have time for it. She figured she'd let him down easy. In the meantime, he still looked amused -- if more interested now -- and she wryly pointed at her white sneakers and her blue scrub pants. "I know what I'm talking about."
"Ice it, huh?" he asked, and he crouched and picked up her phone's antenna, and offered it to her.
"Yeah," she said, taking it. She exhaled. "Look, you don't have to--"
"The way I see it, I was standing in your way," he interrupted. "The least I can do is help you pick up your phone and buy you a couple new coffees, Doctor..."
Tara smiled faintly, a little charmed despite herself. "Tara," she said. "Not a doctor yet."
"Josh," the stranger said with a broad, easy smile. He looked like a businessman or something in that suit; he had a briefcase and everything. He was handsome, now that she took a closer look at him. He had kind of an Anderson Cooper silver hair thing going for him. She would bet half of what she owed in med school loans that there was not a stitch of ink anywhere on his body under that suit. "Would you let me buy you that coffee?" He looked absurdly hopeful. He looked, Tara decided, totally, hopelessly normal. No drunk tattoos, no guns, no outlaw code of honor.
"Okay," said Tara, and she let herself take his hand for a quick shake. She smiled faintly at him. "Sure. Maybe sometime after I get in trouble for being insanely late today, though."
"Oh, yeah! Absolutely." He held out a bunch of pieces of her cell phone; she cupped her hands and he poured them in. "I'd offer to put my number in your phone, but..." She crooked another tiny smile. His hands were cold. "Here." He reached inside his coat and, after a moment, produced a business card between two fingers. "Give me a call sometime."
Tara took the card in both hands, without looking at it. She nodded. "Yeah. I will." She slipped past him, mouthing a heartfelt apology to the teenage girl now breaking out the mop, and she weaved her way through the line to the door. Once standing on North Michigan Avenue, curiosity got the best of her. She took several steps back, to use the building to shield her from the flow of pedestrian traffic on the sidewalk, and she flipped the card up.
AGENT JOSH KOHN, the lettering in the center read, and below that, the unbelievable words: BUREAU OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES. Tara leaned against the brick, tilted her head back, closed her eyes, and laughed. Then she took a second look at the business card, still shaking her head.
She ran her thumb over the card's embossed gold shield, and she thought: What have you got to lose?