Tara audibly scoffed at "Most of them aren't here for me".

In fact, people fifteen feet away glanced over when she loudly followed it up with a "ha!"

Tara got quiet, though, as she mentioned William- though she smirked when Isabella mentioned wanting the things we can't have.

"I am honestly starting to think maybe Gavin is right-"

"First time for everything."

"and the best course of action for me is to swear off relationships all together and focus on business."

Tara sighed.

"Speaking from that particular way of life, I don't recommend it. But I'm not exactly the person for advice here."

She smiled sadly when Isabella asked about Jack.

"In another life, maybe. And no, he's playing for the right team. Just playing an entirely different game. Thank you for the compliments, though. I just need to get out there. Meet new people, I guess."

Well, it seemed she would get no sympathy from Tara in regard to her father's name bringing in suitors to spare.  She couldn't blame the other woman, especially when you're alone it's hard to feel bad for people who are up to their ears in men... but it was true, she really didn't want the bulk of them pestering her who did.  She liked Will calling on her, and Gavin - though he didn't really count cause that wasn't REALLY a gentleman caller.  He was... what was he to her?  A pleasant distraction?  A pick me up?  A word came to mind for him, but it unnerved her so badly she decided to never think of him that way again.  Probably because it was fitting, too fitting, and it scared her.

Hearing that Jack had no eye for Gavin's sister made her a touch sad for the gal.  It hurt to want someone who would never see you as you wanted them to see you - unrequited love was probably worse than no love at all.  Isabella looked the woman beside her up and down slowly and considered the likelihood that Gavin would ever let her repay the debt she owed him for the Canada trip and realized it was about zero.  He'd have to let her into his bubble, past his walls, for that to happen.  BUT... he'd be happy if she could help Tara and TARA might be able to be helped.

"I know this is going to sound absolutely nuts BUT... would you consider meeting some of my friends?  I know quite a few good men in this thing of ours who aren't wanting the trouble involved with chasing me, but who are damn fine men none the less.  Some of them in my crew.  I'd be happy to make introductions and barring that... let me play wing man for you tonight.  Let's take this lunch into a full on dinner and night out clubbing.  We'll dance to jazz until the dawn breaks, and with any luck at all I'll find you handsome Mr. Right Now to wake up with."

She smirks.  "It'll be fun.  I think we both could use some more of that in our lives.  Hell, let's go shopping and buy new outfits.  We'll get dressed up to the nines, blow a shit ton of my daddy's money, and not think twice about it cause he's got more than he knows what the hell to do with anyway."

Tara slowly worked on her drink, already deciding this would be the last one. She'd seen Isabella's face when she'd skipped over the discussion of her father; in her current state, the topic of parents was probably best avoided. 

Her offer was an interesting one though.

"It does sound a little nuts... but it also sounds like fun. I guess I could use a chance to blow off some steam. But, uh... please don't take this personally... I'd like to just see what happens randomly. Maybe someday I'll have try to set up me up with someone... but I'm not quite there yet. My one condition is that we blow my money instead... gods know I've earned enough of it without finding much to spend it on, so it'd be a nice change of pace."

"Oh,"  She said finishing her last drink.  "I just assumed your brother was blowing your cash."  She laughed.  "But - since he apparently is earning his own I will be more than happy to have you foot the bill."  She winked at her new friend as she stood up, a little uncertain from the booth.

"Maybe one of my guysh should drive?"  She made her way out of the bar, walking near Tara.  "So, how ish it two kidsh from middle of no where Canada end up in thish thing of ours?  I mean me, I'm born to this shit, no way but this way for someone like me no matter how hard my mother tried.  But you guysh, it seems to me with your knowledge and skillsh you might have lived a decent enough straight life."

She got into the backseat with Tara and let her tell the driver where he was taking them since, in all reality, she had no idea where the best shopping would be in Philly.  Happily, after a while, the fresh air was helping her slowly lose her fuzzy headed drunk feeling.  "The picture Gavin paints of his young life certainly brings him up with the skills he needed for this thing of ours, but certainly not access to it and the connections necessary to break into the life.  I mean, if the story is too personal, I apologize for asking but I have to admit I'm genuinely curious."

Tara sighs.

"My brother is one of the richest men in Philadelphia, and he only discovered this recently. Nothing to compare with the true big fish, of course. But he's been working jobs for a decade and just handing me whatever he makes, which I deposit and/or invest for him. For the first five years, he basically only spent money on a shitty apartment, booze, and ammunition. The last few years he actually started dressing nice, but he brings in more money than he can spend. Well, unless he keeps buying cars. That was the first big purchase he's made in his life."

As they walked out of the bar, Tara rested a hand on Isabella's shoulder for support. 

"God bless Mary Pickleford..."

When they were in the car, Tara lay back and closed her eyes to regain her equilibrium. When she was comfortably not-spinning, she took the time to address Isabella's question.

"My mother... was a good woman. My father was a fucking monster, which you seem to know about. Every day growing up, my father would take Gavin hunting. Beat the shit out of him for making mistakes. Teach him howta shoot. Howta fight. Howta kill. How to be fuckin' angry at the world."

She shook her head, moving on.

"My father 'got' Gavin. My mom got me all day. Her father had taught her how to read, and she taught me. I read every book I could get my hands on. Wore those fuckers out. She tried to teach me to cook, but I kept sneaking glances at non-cookbooks and would wind up destroying meals. With my father's temper, it was safer to just let me read. Novels. Philosophy. Math. Anything I could get. Devoured. There was an old man in the village who knew I was running out of books. On the rare occasions that my mother would go into town, he'd slip her one. Gavin stole some for me."

She smiled.

"So what could I do, when I was 20 years old? Go to a lady college and get a degree to be a fucking secretary? The only place I could run anything on my own was outside of normal society. I think about it sometimes, going to one of those colleges. Playing sports. Studying things. Marry some big shot rich fella from Yale with big hands and kind eyes. But then what the fuck do I do with my life after that? And what would happen to Gavin? My father started hitting me when I was 5. I'd say Gavin got 70% of the hits once he was 5 too and he tried to kill him. My mother got 25% percent. I'd just get slapped now and then. Gavin use to get hit on purpose. When my father was in a mood to lash out, Gavin would fucking antagonize him- put himself in between my father and my mother or especially my father and me."

A tear ran down Tara's face, but she didn't seem to notice it. 

"And what the fuck could Gavin do? Can you imagine him working in some office? Where else are they going to pay you for killing people really, really effectively? The army?"

Tara dissolved into a fit of laughter as she imagined Gavin in the army. When she recovered, she looked at Isabella.

"I'm sorry what was the question? I'm... very drunk. Oh. Uh. We met Jack in Philly. Started working jobs for the three of us, back when he was a Wise Guy with Spaceman. Jack's the leader; I couldn't do what he does. I'm the organizer, keeping everything straight. And Gavin's the muscle. Jack has a lot more muscle now, of course. But back when it was the three of us, that's how we started. And we just made our way together."

Isabella reflected on what Gavin had been telling her, combined with the things Tara was now saying and a picture was beginning to form.  She wondered if maybe the alcohol was causing her to romanticize the man who she'd spent so much time with.  Make her mind paint pretty pictures where there weren't any to be seen... but the ghost of a Gavin she hadn't considered before was starting to form there and before she could think better of it, words oozed across her lips she wished she hadn't said, "He seesh your father in the mirror."

She closed her eyes, wishing Tara had been too drunk to have heard her babble, but no such luck was had.  So, she continued and tried to make sense of it.  "He wondersh what it might be like to have a family, if it would fix him - as if he needed to be fixed."  She shakes her head.  "He'sh clearly thought about the sort of father he'd be... which means he'sh given shome thought to all of the thingsh I said he'd never do.  I suppose that means I'm a pretty shit friend for not having heard him when he said it clear ash day."

She scoffed at herself, it was damned stupid how alcohol made some things clear and some things so fucking difficult.  "I should have told him what I see when I look at him." 

She thought about that for a moment and then added, "I was too wrapped up in my own shit."  She sighed with annoyance at herself.  "Damn it.  He was reaching out - inviting me to tell him different."  She wondered if he'd ever give her such a chance again.  She doubted it.

"Well, if I ever get him talking again... you can bet I won't ignore the opportunity twice.  Like I said... I owe him."  she shook her head.  "He didn't tell me everything about your father or your young life... but he said enough for me to know it's the poison under those scars of his in more ways than one."  She really was annoyed.  She prided herself on not missing things such as that, in KNOWING people.  It was what she DID, it was how she became so stupidly successful in this life... that and probably a bit of nepotism despite what she wanted to think.

Tara listened to Isabella, blinking.

"I... don't know if that's true. But a part of me hopes you're right. Gavin told me he would never wanna be a father, said he was too fucked up. It was when I told him that I wanted a family. I think some people respond to a childhood like ours from running away from family. Others run to it and try to make a good one. I always thought that he was the former."

She leaned her forward against the window, her drunken stare looking outside.

"I just... you should know you might know him better than me. He was different ten years ago, when we first got here. The last few years... it's like his body is still moving around, but hish spirit fell asleep. He barely talks to me anymore. Not like we used to."

Isabella reached out and took Tara's hand.  Gently she squeezed it, "Sometimesh, when we think bad thingsh about ourselvesh, we want to spare the good people in our lives having to deal with it.  Seemsh to me that your description of Gavin in the past, combined with what he told me in Canada matchesh up pretty perfectly."

"If he thinksh you got a chance to escape your past, seems to me that he'd do whatever he could to help you with that... even if that meansh limiting hish time and exposure to you - ESPECIALLY if he seesh more and more of his father in himself ash the years have gone on."  She shakes her head, "I mean, he said he knows how he's improved - bonding with his crew and what have you - but that's not quite the same ash feeling like you're not the man who made you... nor that your presence might be hurting or holding back someone you care about."

She gave it thought and said, again without much thought - like diarrhea flowing from her mouth - "Fuck, maybe he did love the girl in New York.  If he thinksh of himself and seesh his dad in hish own wordsh and deedsh at times... maybe he figured the best damn thing he could do for a woman he loved wash to remove that from her life."

She shook her head, "Men can be noble and shoopid at the same time it seemsh.  Poor girl."

Noble and stupid. Tara never expected to hear anyone deconstruct her brother like Isabella just had. Her mind was racing, trying to process everything she'd just heard. She slumped back in her seat, like the words had had a physical impact on her.

Had she really missed all this? For years? Tara didn't think that Isabella was right about all of it... but what she was saying still froze Tara's heart a bit to think of it.

"I don't know that you can change a man.  Most women I've ever seen, they try and fail.  If I'm right about Gavin, you can't go to him and beat the fuck out of him and make him shee shense.  You can't love him into it, or force it down this throat... men like that, they're so ushe to protecting everyone around them that they just think you're too good to shee the right of thingsh.  That your big heart keepsh you from knowing how bad they are for you.  Sho... they do the 'selflessh' thing and push you away the closer you try to come."

She shrugs, "Asshuming I'm right, of course.  And if I am... it makes total sense why he didn't look back at toothbrush girl.  I mean, to do that would be to invite her to follow him and he loved her.  He had to protect her from the shcariest person he knows of..."  Isabella didn't say the obvious 'himself.'

The car came to a stop at a string of department stores, Isabella looked out the window and then to Tara.  She was no more ready to shop than Isabella wash, especially now.  "I don't have have a magic wand - knowing a problem doesn't instantly give you the wisdom to sholve it.  In a way you just keep doing what you're doing.  Maybe find reasons to end up in the same room together... don't over do it though.  He'll bolt, eshpecially from you if he thinks you're finally close to eshcaping all the shit that held you back before.  He's shtill there... in the woods.  In shome ways maybe he never left."

Isabella looked down at her left hand, the naked ring finger staring at her accusingly.  Maybe they were all people running from a past they couldn't escape.  Maybe their pain was imprint upon their souls causing them to run headlong into trouble and away from happiness despite how close at hand it was.  Rather like her with Will and Gavin.  Will could prove a solid choice, a good man with a bright future who would be everything to her that Elias could have been if he lived.  Gavin... Gavin would never be any of those things.  Gavin would always be the creature on the run from his past.  He'd always turn away from joy in favor of momentary bliss... moments were safer.  People were safer with HIM so long as they just stayed in his world only a moment.

But... he hadn't wanted her to leave Canada.  How long was a moment in Gavin's world?  Had she been there only a moment?  Or was she another toothbrush girl?  Another person he'd suddenly realize he was falling for, only to run the moment she pointed it out.

Isabella put a hand on her head, to steady herself.  These thoughts were too big for how drunk she was.  She knew she was a philosophical drunk but trying to turn a philanderer like Gavin into something noble was a trick even by her standards.

"I ... I'm shorry, you know I get wordy when I get drunk.  I think I'm shmarter than I am and I just won't shut up.  God, I'm shorry Tara.  I barely know Gavin.  I shpent one weekend with him and we did more fucking than talking.  Who the hell am I to tell you about your brother.  I'm just another piece of assh..."  She laughed.  "You shouldn't take my drunken pondering too sheriously.  Lord knows it's all bullshit."

Tara just stared out the window.

"Don't apologize. Just.. talk to him about all this sometime. However you want to. But just try it."

She wiped at one of her eyes,  slowly shaking her head as she tried to stop thinking about some of the things Isabella had said.

"I'm sorry, I just don't think I'm really in the mood to go shopping or dancing right now. You didn't do anything wrong. I just haven't really let myself think about Gavin like this in a long time. And... I don't usually cry. I'm just... very drunk."

"Don't worry about the tears, I've been a hot mess for months now."  Isabella offered her a kerchief.  "I promise to talk to him just as soon as I can." 

She asked Tara where she could take her to and she had the driver take them to the location.  Isabella got out and walked Tara to the door just to be sure she was okay.  "A rain check then.  Thank you for the drinks - it was nice to see you.  I'm sure we'll do it again sometime soon."

With that she let Tara walk away, letting the woman have her privacy to cry.