by Lex Martin
I interrupt her. “I’ll find another firm. I’d rather be with you. I like what we’ve started. I can find another lawyer, that’s no big deal.” Maybe Drew has come through for me already.
“Do you really want to go through this all over again? Contacting strangers and showing them your blog? Revealing your identity without a guarantee they won’t disclose who you are? Because I won’t screw you over, Josh. You know I won’t tell anyone.”
Fuck. She has a point. And I do trust her.
I reach up and run my hands through my hair.
We’re both quiet, and when I finally look at her, she’s staring into her lap.
“I need the business. I need to generate clients,” she whispers. “Josh, I hate that this is part of my job. I hate that I have to time every interaction with every client on every phone call or negotiation. I hate that I can’t simply focus on the aspects of the job I’m good at, because I’ll be honest, dredging up new clients is torturous for me. I hate schmoozing and kissing ass. I’m not wired like that.”
Her solemn gray eyes glance up at me. “Taking you on means I’m moving toward partnership, which is what I’ve been busting my ass for since law school. It means doing something on my own and bringing in clients on my own.” She sits up taller. “I know I can handle your work. Contracts are my specialty.”
A flare of anger flashes through my gut when her words settle in.
“So you want me to be a client. Just a client.”
She bites her lip. “I do.”
“And you don’t want to see me again?” I ask, even though she’s already told me in so many words.
Letting out her breath, she looks down at the table, then up again. “I had an incredible time with you. Of course I want to see you. But we can’t do this. I can’t be that attorney who sleeps with her client. Maybe after we complete your work,” she says, her brows furrowed. “What you and I have is new, and after all the drama that happened this weekend, I’m worried I’m rushing into something neither of us is prepared for. I’ve worked really hard to get where I am now, and you’re amazing, Josh. You are. I’m sure I’ll be kicking myself in the morning, but I want to play it safe.”
She shakes her head, and I’m not sure, but I think I see tears welling in her eyes that she shuts down fast. Taking a deep breath, she says, “I’m not spontaneous like that. I don’t just dive off cliffs, and this is a cliff. A big one. One I’m not sure I can leap off of right now. Not with so much at stake.”
From being elated this morning, I am now flat. I have a lawyer, which is what I wanted. But I don’t have the girl.
Fuck.
I can’t do it, though. I can’t take this opportunity away from her. Even though it’s crushing all of the fantasies I’ve had since I met her.
Fantasies that were coming true.
My job means a lot to me too. I understand how she’s focused on her career. I’m not going to get in the way.
“Do you have a pen?”
Pulling one out of her case, she hands it to me, and I sign. Thankfully, the engagement letter just says generically, “Business advice regarding development of popular social media platform.” Not, “Legal advice for weirdo who takes pictures of his dick and posts them on the internet.”
“I’ll send you the proposed contract and have the prototype mold kit sent to you.”
“That would be great,” she says quietly. She slips the engagement letter into her case and glides out of the booth. Then she looks me in the eyes. “I’m happy for you, Josh. We’re going to get you a great contract, and I’m going to work hard to ensure everything turns out well for you.”
She holds out her hand for me to shake.
Well, fuck.
I return the gesture, one that feels like a kick to my gut.
After a few minutes, I throw down a twenty to pay for two untouched coffees and go back to the office, not sure what just happened.
At about seven at night, Drew buzzes my home and barges in. “I brought you a meat stick,” Drew says, “not that you need another one, happy guy.” He opens his mouth to talk, but then catches the look on my face. “Holy fuck, what happened to you?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I mutter and hand him a beer.
But for the next two hours, I do talk about it. I tell him how she’s my attorney and how we hooked up when she wasn’t. And how I’m completely disgusted with myself.
Maybe I should have insisted on finding another attorney. Even though she was so fucking distant.
But no. I couldn’t do that to her. This means too much to her.
Guess I just wish I meant something to her too.
14
Evie
I keep it together, keep my emotions in check on the way back to the office, through endless meetings that afternoon, and all the way home. It isn’t until I’m in my pajamas and catch the end of You’ve Got Mail on TV that I start to cry, frustrated with my job and all the reasons I’m not with Josh. Frustrated that I can’t just live my life. Frustrated that he’s the secret I can’t share, the client I can’t have.
Once the tears start, I’m overcome.
What have I done?
Josh is the best thing to ever happen to me. He’s kind and thoughtful and sweet. He doesn’t play games like some guys and pretend he’s not interested. He came right out and told me he wanted to pursue a relationship. Never mind that he’s gorgeous as hell and amazing in bed. Of all the women in Portland, he wants me.
And I threw him away.
Seriously… What the fuck have I done?
My cell rings, and for a gloriously brief moment, the ache in my chest subsides when I wonder if it’s him, but Kendall’s name flashes across my screen. Listless, I can’t bring myself to pick it up until the third time she calls back.
“Hey.”
“Finally!” she shouts in my ear. “I was afraid I was going to have to drive my ass all the way over there to get the details about this weekend. I didn’t call you yesterday in case you were still doing the dirty with Dirk Diggler.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“I saw his post last night, though. He loved your dress! I knew he would.” She squees into my ear, and it only makes everything worse.
I sniffle into the phone, but I don’t say anything. Talking requires energy, energy I don’t have. Chauncey whimpers at my feet and lays his head on my lap as I sink deeper on the couch.
“What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
“Sick? In the head, maybe.” I laugh until the tears start again.
“Whoa, whoa. What’s going on?”
It takes a second to compose myself. I’ve never been much of a crier, but this whole clusterfuck is my doing, and I don’t know how to rectify it.
“Ken, I think I screwed up.” Using every last bit of energy, I nudge my dog over to grab a tissue and blow my nose.
She listens while I explain our weekend together, how we worked through a little drama, and how phenomenal things turned out until I dropped the bomb on him earlier today. When I’m done, she’s quiet. I pick at my chipped nail polish, the same shade of gold as my dress.
I can’t stand the silence, so I blurt, “I finally find the perfect man, the stuff of legends, and I break things off so he can be my client. What kind of stupid, heartless bitch does that?”
“A smart bitch, babe.” She sighs. “Evie, you’ve been so focused on your career—nose to the grindstone, head in books—for years. You took on obscene school debt, and I know you’re trying to pay back your dad for the loans he took to help you, on top of your new mortgage. You’re wired this way, to be practical. If you handed this guy off to another attorney and things didn’t work out in your relationship, you’d never forgive yourself for screwing up a huge opportunity at work.”
Ignoring my sniffles, she continues. “I don’t blame you for taking the safe route. Yes, I want to champion this guy because he sounds amazing, but you also have to be true to yourself. This is coming fr
om someone who knows how much it can bite you in the ass when you date a client.”
I nod, remembering Kendall’s bad breakup last year, but that doesn’t absolve my conscience.
“I’m never going to forgive myself for being so distant this morning, for trying to be ‘professional’ when all I wanted was to throw myself into his arms. I wish he knew this is breaking my heart. I mean, I’m not saying I’m in love with him, because it’s too early for that, but we had an incredible connection.”
I pet Chauncey, whose worried expression makes me wonder if he knows he won’t be seeing Josh anymore. I’m pretty sure my damn dog loves him more than he loves me.
“You’re still friends, though. Just because you need a little time to figure out how to maneuver this situation doesn’t mean you have to cut him out of your life.”
“I don’t know if I can handle being friends with Josh. I can’t imagine us hanging out and needing to keep my distance.”
“Josh?”
It takes a second for me to process what she’s saying, and I close my eyes, feeling more defeated. I just divulged his first name. Fuck.
“Ken, you can’t tell anyone anything. Can you please pretend I didn’t just open my big mouth? I can’t keep track of all of my screwups today.”
“Honey, your secret is safe with me. I’m in public relations. Secrets are my specialty. I know the dirty laundry of half this city. I got your back.”
Nodding, I drag myself to the kitchen and break out the wine. I’m gonna need a whole lot of wine.
“You know,” she adds, “it’s ironic that you could date a coworker but not a client.”
“We don’t have a fraternization policy, so I can bang my coworkers all I want. Which, ewww, no thanks. Have you seen those guys? Beer guts and balding. Except for Nathan, although I’m not feeling that anymore. Not after Josh. But…”
“But what?”
“But I can get into some serious trouble if I’m not careful. I’m either his attorney, and that’s it—no more messing around—or I find someone else to represent him.” I drop my voice. “Ken, sleeping with a client is considered a major conflict of interest, the kind of thing that can get you disbarred.”
Even though my firm turned him down during that interim period when we got together, the only way I know him is because he contacted me to rep him. I don’t think I’m being paranoid to think I’m crossing a line if I continue to see him.
And if I go to Malcolm and tell him, whoops, I slept with Josh Cartwright, who may or may not want another attorney at our firm to rep him?
I shake my head. I’ve come too far to risk everything.
But before we hang up, Kendall, ever the problem-solver, helps me formulate a plan.
“Give yourself a week or two,” she says. “Be his attorney and get some space to think and look at this rationally. You can always find him another attorney. There’s no need to make any rash decisions in the meanwhile.”
No rash decisions. I think I can handle that. It’s about the only thing I can handle at this point.
After the longest week known to man where Josh and I kept all communication through email—I can’t bring myself to text him—I’m still not confident about the choice I made. He’s infiltrated my life more than I thought. Josh is everywhere. He’s in my kitchen, my living room, my bed. Everywhere I look, I see him. Icing my ankle. Washing my dog. Fixing me lunch. Making me come apart while he watches me with those amber-colored eyes.
The one thing I can’t wrap my head around is how devastated I feel about the loss of a man I only recently met. I wasn’t this upset over breaking up with Elliot, and I dated him for a year.
Kendall says it was the intense sex. That Josh got me to open up in a way Elliot never did. I can’t say she’s wrong.
Like a creeper, I stalked his blog all week, but that made me miss him more. Made me hide my phone at night so I wouldn’t be tempted to text or call.
Maybe it would be easier if he had written me off. If he hadn’t cared, hadn’t wanted more. But no. His blog entries this week were dark, moody posts of him in silhouette. No architecture. No cityscapes. Just his body, twisted in his crisp, white sheets sans captions, except for that one on the first night: “Missing her.”
And then there were the thousands of comments from women all over the globe offering themselves to him, telling him “She’s not worth it,” “Let me ease the pain,” or “Forget that cunt.” How people read that much into one lone caption was mind-boggling.
As his attorney, a part of me worried his stark posts would affect his brand and turn away his fans. If anything, though, it made his fan base more rabid, more vocal, to the point where his blog trended all week on Twitter. I have Kendall to thank for that factoid.
My dad taps on his iced tea with his fork, the sound of silverware on glass jarring me from my thoughts.
“You gonna eat your breakfast or just push it around your plate all morning?” he grumbles, a frown marring his otherwise handsome face.
“I’m eating.” I shovel in a bite of eggs and make a point to chew loudly so he can see the proof. A patron sitting at the table next to us gives me a weird look, and I close my mouth.
“Always a smart-ass.” My dad chuckles and runs his hands through his shaggy graying hair. “No idea where the hell you got that from.”
“Takes one to know one, Pops.” I muster a smile and force myself to try to enjoy a Saturday morning with my favorite person.
My dad doesn’t look like a dad. Not really. He’s in shape from more than two decades of being a firefighter, and he has that blue-collar silver fox thing going on that some girls love. I’ve always been close to my dad, so maybe that’s why the idea of going out with an older guy repulses me, but my friends always crushed on my old man. And I don’t miss the way our young waitress gives him the eye every time she stops by our table. Please, God, no.
Despite my best efforts to encourage my dad to find a nice woman his age to settle down with, he’s always been a bit of a loner. He’ll never admit that my mother destroyed his heart, but I think he’d rather have a bowel obstruction than put himself out there again. Yes, my dad felt so fucked over, he hasn’t had a significant relationship since she packed her bags and left us.
That’s a depressing thought.
I put my fork down, too tired to put any more effort into eating.
“You’ve lost weight.” He motions toward my plate. “You’ve hardly eaten anything. And every time someone walks by out there, you jump outta your skin. What’s going on?”
We’re sitting at a restaurant across from the park by my house, and I made the mistake of grabbing window seats. Whenever a runner streaks by, my heart sputters in my chest because, deep down, I’m hoping to catch a glimpse of Josh. Utterly and totally pathetic, I know.
Shrugging, I decide to come clean. “I was kind of seeing someone, but it didn’t work out.”
That gets me a deeper frown. “Some bum broke up with you? I didn’t even know you were dating someone.”
Shame flames my cheeks. Anyone who says talking to your dad about your love life is not embarrassing is a liar. It’s almost as bad as when I had to sneak maxi pads in our grocery cart growing up. “It was new, and I broke it off with him.” Unfortunately.
He grunts and grabs his coffee. “He probably wasn’t good enough for you anyway, sweet pea. Don’t lose sleep over a guy who isn’t worth it.”
“That’s just it. I think he is worth it. But it’s complicated.” So damn complicated.
“It’s better this way, being single while you’re young. If I could go back and do things over again, I’d tell myself to wait to get married. There’s no rush. You’ll get a little older, and you’ll figure out what you want, and then you can find a nice man who’ll take good care of you.”
I roll my eyes. I don’t need someone to take care of me. He knows this. But my father will always want me to be protected, and having a husband at some point down the road must check th
at box. However, that’s not the thorn my mind snags on.
“Dad, I’m not a kid anymore. I’m twenty-seven, so it’s not like I haven’t had any life experience. I somehow managed to go to law school on the other side of the country on my own, if you’ll recall. Besides, what’s wrong with being young and in love?”
“Don’t remind me about your time at Georgetown. The most stressful three years of my life.” He wipes his face with his hands, and I laugh. “And honey, there’s nothing wrong with falling in love when you’re young. Not really. But being in a serious relationship in your twenties can blow you off course. I know how a man’s mind operates. A guy could come along, get you pregnant and expect you to stay at home and take care of him, and then all of your dreams go down the drain. You’ve worked too hard to get to this point in your career.”
A brief flash of what my life with Josh could be like—having children, spending lazy weekends in the park chasing our wayward pets, renovating our house together—and that honestly sounds amazing. Would I stop working to do that? No, of course not. And Josh doesn’t seem like the kind of man to demand that of his wife.
Yeah, I’m not getting ahead of myself here.
I try to listen to my father, who is preaching the dangers of falling in love with the wrong person like the endeavor to love is a disease just waiting to lay waste to my hopes and dreams.
My dad never gave me grief about dating Elliot, but maybe he didn’t think we were serious. I suppose we weren’t if Elliot broke it off so easily.
I grab the salt shaker, twirl it on the table.
“Is that what happened to you and my mother? You made her give up her dreams?”
