The suit wasn’t anything flashy, lacking the normal flair of the Dolce & Gabbana and Armani suits prior. It was a Kenneth Cole, a simple black suit, white shirt, black tie. That isn’t to say he didn’t look good in the suit – he was Tag ******** Swagger, of course he looked great in it – but he wasn’t the same Tag circa six months before. There was something different about him, in the way that he carried himself, something about his swagger.

It was hot as balls as the fourth of July approached, which to Tag had always meant two things: girls’ skirts were getting shorter, and he would be turning another year older at the end of the month. This year? He will be thirty-one years old, a weird age in his mind. Turning the big 3-O was behind him, and every birthday from there on out will serve as nothing more than a reminder that he is aging and what the ******** is he doing with his life?

He strummed his fingers at his cubicle desk, eyeing the clock as yet another slow news day in the slump of slow news days slowly approached its end. Only the click-click-click of strutting heels broke his focus, his eyes drifting to the fine source. And fine she was as his eyes feasted their way from the ground up, examining her smooth legs to soft pink hair. It was the newest make-up girl, Hannah - a tempting office-place vixen if there ever was one – checking out of the studio for the day. He wanted to be all over that, and normally he would be all over her, but he was doing his best to restrain himself.

The studio door slammed shut behind her, marking his cue to leave. His eyes met with the photo of his seemingly rapidly aging son – now three – and Chelsea. The mother of his child, she was the one girl he thought he could truly settle down to be with. But that ship had sailed and Tag discovered his feelings for her too late. She ‘Mike’ now, and ‘Mike’ was ‘so great’ and ‘so handsome’ and ‘so good’ to her and Liam. Tag simply couldn’t hear enough great things about ‘Mike.’ What’s there not to love? Somehow, Tag missed the appeal.

He slowly burned through a cigarette on his walk home, taking the leisurely route to clear his head. Clear his head from his changes, his aging, the make-up girl, Chelsea, and all the little stresses of his life. As he rounded the corner approaching his apartment, he tossed the cigarette to the curb and doused himself with cologne in his coat pocket to mask the smell.

He arrived to his apartment with food prepared, a sight he easily got used to. And girlfriend Gently Ponsonby was there, too. A girlfriend? That was taking some getting used to.