The Hard Way

by Austin Bates

  Issac owned a loft apartment with casement windows, hardwood floors and an open floor plan on the first floor with an island kitchen. Noah released a frustrated breath as he gestured at Issac’s place.

  “What happened to ‘I don’t have money’?” Noah asked.

  “What happened to ‘I’m sorry for offending you and making assumptions about your character’?” Issac shot back.

  “I didn’t say that last part,” Noah said as he took off his coat and placed it on the coat rack by the door.

  “I said it for you.” Issac disappeared into what Noah assumed to be his bedroom and then reappeared in more casual clothes, a pair of jeans and a thick gray wool sweater that complimented the grayish-blue color of his eyes.

  “What?” Issac asked of Noah’s stare. Noah shrugged and set his things down.

  “Nothing. Let’s get started on this case. I need to try and be home by at least nine or Jade will go crazy.”

  Issac took a seat on his L-shaped couch. “What do you mean by go crazy?”

  Noah sighed and raised his eyes upward as he took off his shoes and walked over to the couch.

  God, I can actually see him trying to figure out whether small talk is related to the case or not, Issac thought as he set up his own laptop and placed it on the glass table in front of him.

  “Well, she’s been feeling a little neglected since I started working for Walsh, and she’s right to feel neglected. She’s only seven and her father is never around, and she spends most of her time with Grandma when she’s not in school.”

  I’ve never really seen him be this human before. Not since his first day at Walsh, Issac thought. “That doesn’t sound so bad. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s all for her.”

  There was a new light in Noah’s eyes as he nodded his agreement. “Yes! Exactly, that's what I tell myself when I can’t make it to her little plays or watch a movie on cable with her. Parenting is hard. Really hard. No one told me it was going to be easy, but no one told me that when you’re finally doing the right thing for your kids, that it could tear you up inside.”

  Embracing this rare moment of closeness with his desk mate, Issac chanced another question. “Did you carry her?”

  “Yes. I was seventeen when my ex and I found out that I was pregnant with her. I was so reckless, didn’t even consider that we could have a kid and that I would be the one out of the two of us to carry her. Cullen, Jade’s father, has done really well for himself. He pays child support on time, he loves spending weekends with her, he’s even engaged.” Noah sighed, and shared a woeful glance with Issac.

  Issac chuckled. “Don’t look at me, I offered to take you out. You shot me down!”

  They shared a laugh and Noah shook his head, which Issac now knew that he did partly to clear his mind of the guilt that he felt when he thought of why he did any of this.

  “Let’s focus on this for a while,” Noah insisted.

  “Sure, but then I’m going to buy us that dinner I was talking about earlier. Not just because you’re cute either. I’m starving,” Issac said.

  Noah felt the blood heating up on his neck and face. He pointed at his notes from their meeting with Mitchell. “So, I think that the best way to tackle this case is to just destroy their defense with witnesses. If this happened to a bunch of other people, but their cases have gone unreported, maybe that will persuade the judge to rule in Mitchell’s favor.”

  “And in favor of Mitchell’s wallet.”

  Issac felt like he was staring at himself from another room as Noah ran through his proposed plan for Mitchell’s case. Noah saw every case from an organized angle, he saw the middle, the end; his brain recognized hazards before they had an opportunity to make it the floor of the courtroom. His clients saw him as far more than a means to an end, they were grateful for him and his efficiency, they valued the man that Noah was behind his day job.

  I, on the other hand, have stumbled through every case I’ve been assigned so far. Blindly presenting arguments, losing some and winning some, but too many of those wins didn’t come easy. Noah probably talks to a jury of sheep in his sleep.

  Issac nodded and followed Noah’s finger as he pointed at Mitchell’s documents, and as he gestured to reviews on the Flex & Fit website. Issac went into the kitchen and returned with a large bottle of red wine.

  Noah chuckled. “Are you trying to woo me with more demonstrations of affluence?”

  Issac mock gasped. “He knows how to flirt!” He grabbed two wine glasses off of the wooden rack and handed one to Noah. The sweet wine splashed against the glass and when both glasses were full, Issac set the bottle on the table in front of them.

  “This is how you work?” Noah asked.

  “This isn’t how you work?”

  Chapter 7

  Issac had been having the best week that he’d had in months. He and Noah had delivered a win for Mitchell in the Flex & Fit case, and he had received one of the largest payouts that he had ever gotten while working for Walsh. Noah had started inviting him to lunch at least once a week in the last few weeks, and Tristan sent him an instant message the night before, asking him if he could make it to his basketball game on Friday night. He had pushed his concerns of what Charlene and Gordon might say if he showed up to support Tristan and already planned on going.

  He all but skipped up the stairs to third floor of Walsh, and exchanged friendly waves with his colleagues. Issac had purchased a brand new navy suit that he decided to break in today, partly because he wanted to treat himself and also because he wanted Noah to see it. Issac was more than aware that he shouldn’t get his hopes up with Noah just because he asked him out to lunch once a week, but he certainly didn’t do that with anyone else in the office.

  Everyone else at Walsh saw Noah as all business and no bullshit. Issac was the only one that saw the layer underneath the young, talented lawyer. He saw the man that worried about his relationship with his daughter, that told him stories about co-parenting when your ex has moved on, and that would share one drink with him before he rushed home to bury himself back into his work.

  Issac entered their cubicle and made a show of his normal good morning to Noah. “Morning, handsome!” he chirped, setting his laptop on top of his desk.

  Noah looked over his shoulder, and his eyes scanned Issac from top to bottom. His eyes narrowed, and when his imagination got the best of him, he turned his attention to the Case Counter.

  “Good morning,” he offered, stiffly.

  “So, I was thinking, do you have any plans this weekend?”

  “I don’t have Jade, so I’ll probably be reviewing case material. Why?” Noah’s voice was serious, all business. Issac withheld a sigh. I’m making so much progress.

  “I thought you might want the pleasure of tolerating my company over wine and overpriced food.”

  A laugh escaped from Noah’s tightly clenched and chiseled jaw. “Is that right?”

  Issac grinned. “Yeah, my treat. However, I’m sure that you thought I was paying anyway, being the Deputy Mayor’s son and all,” he teased.

  Noah’s eyes rotated from this work and to Issac’s face, and back to his work. Sometimes you have to focus on the priorities. There’s always gonna be time for drinks with… a cute guy. A cute guy with a job. A cute guy with the same job as mine that understands the demands of it and knows about my daughter and wants to take me on a date to blow off some steam. And maybe to blow some other things.

  “Noah?” Issac asked.

  Noah looked from the papers that were piling on his desk, which were usually tightly bound by an extra-large binder clip. The glow of his laptop called out to him, the tunnel with three hours of work down it stared back at him.

  “I’m really not interested in… dating. You get it, right? This is a demanding job—”

  “It’s not really that demanding, but you make it demanding. Do you ever come up from your portfolios to breathe?”

  “I don’t have time for that in my life right now. I
barely have time for friends. Or… anything in between,” Noah said, nervously looking from Issac’s disappointed expression and giving his loyal gaze over to his computer screen.

  I guess that counts as our interaction for the day, Issac thought, his own pile of cases calling out to him now that he’d gotten his desire to ask Noah out for a second date off of his chest.

  ***

  Issac’s head hung low as the ruling was announced to the courtroom. The judge, an older man who had been practicing law since before Issac was a thought, had ruled in favor of the defendant. A dark feeling hung over Issac as he reached out toward his client, Wesley Collins. Wesley decided to take the neglectful owners of the Baltimore’s Babies Day Care to court when he found out that his three-year-old son, Eric, had wandered over to a sharp tool that had been left out from maintenance the day before. Eric played with it and cut himself down his forehead. He had to have eight stitches that night, and Wesley felt that the daycare workers on duty that day were responsible.

  How do you lose a case like this? When a kid gets hurt, usually, it’s so easy to throw the defendant under the bus for negligence, since a kid doesn’t know what they’re supposed to be doing. I can’t believe that their argument was actually sustained, Issac agonized, as Wesley took the sleeve of his shirt and dabbed at the corner of his eyelids.

  “I missed work for this,” he said, through a soft sob that he had been trying to conceal.

  “Wesley, I’m so sorry. I wish there was something else that I could have done—”

  “You could have won the case!” Wesley shrieked, capturing the unwanted attention of everyone in the room. The defendant’s lawyer smirked on the opposite side of the room. Rage bubbled in Issac’s chest, his pulse quickened, and he pleaded with Wesley, “I’m so sorry. Please let me know if there’s anything that I can do going forward.”

  Issac silently packed up his things as Wesley collected himself. When Issac had scooped all of his papers into his suitcase, he turned to Wesley. “Wesley, let me give you a ride home.”

  Wesley’s eyes lingered on Issac’s face, the battle going on behind his eyes revealed that he was fighting with how disgusted he felt and wanting to accept the help and at least save himself the bus fare.

  Wesley nodded, and Issac led the way out of the courtroom; Baltimore Babies’ lawyer brushed past them on their way out of the building. The other man’s suitcase knocked against the back of one of Issac’s knees. Issac turned to meet him, eye to eye, and the opposing lawyer smirked.

  He just can’t keep that smirk off of his face, huh?

  Issac’s eyes wandered back to Wesley, who trudged behind him with his head hung low, avoiding eye contact with any of the legal figures around him or the press that had gathered outside of the court house. Issac whipped around. “Hey! You, you soulless piece of trash!”

  The opposing lawyer’s condescending chuckle acted as gasoline for the fire building inside of Issac. The lawyer called out and said, “Maybe you need to select a different career. This one clearly isn’t working out for you.”

  Issac thrust open the doors and quipped, “We’ll see how much of a winner you guys are when every news network in Baltimore skewers that faulty day care! You’re corrupt! Enjoy your ride with the devil’s little workers!”

  Wesley gasped as they jogged down the stone steps, and Issac pulled on his arm, acting as a human shield from the flash of the cameras and the jarring questions from the press.

  “Mr. Collins, how do you feel knowing that Judge Heely ruled against you because you were running late to collect your son?!” A red-haired reported shoved her microphone into Wesley’s face and Issac swatted it out of the way.

  Another reporter followed up, a younger man hollered after Issac, “Mr. Fitzgerald, is this a difficult loss to accept when your father has so much pull throughout the city?”

  “You keep my father out of this!” Issac snarled, elbowing his way throughout the crowd and to his car. He unlocked the doors and he and Wesley hurried in.

  Issac navigated the crowded parking lot and Wesley spoke up, his soft voice feeling louder than ever in the middle of the thick tension between them.

  “Thank you. We tried. Maybe Baltimore Babies has that judge in their pocket. You never know these days.”

  Issac’s glanced at Wesley. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be dirty like them, then. I tell you what, if you ever need a lawyer again, I’ll take your case pro bono, and this will never happen again.”

  “I appreciate that, Issac.”

  Issac’s fingers clenched tight around the steering wheel as he peeled off towards the apartments that Wesley lived in. It can’t happen again.

  Chapter 8

  A tan, burnished leather dress shoe pelted the wall, bounced off of the white surface and collided with the wall. Issac wriggled his foot out of another shoe, flexed his foot, and watched it hit the wall as well. Normally, he wasn’t so careless. Although he was raised with some wealth, and had wanted for nothing, Issac valued expensive things as if they couldn’t be replaced. However, he abused his fancy Oxfords today because he had run out of the mental capacity to care for anything that wasn’t the mild depression he felt stirring inside of him at having lost Wesley’s case.

  He collapsed onto his sofa and pulled his knees to his chest. Where is the really good wine? Tonight would have been a great night to have some help like they did at his father’s house, someone that could run out and grab your wine, bourbon, whatever your choice of poison was.

  When he couldn’t hold back the defeated sigh that escaped him, he sat up, running a hand through his greasy strands. I’m due for a shower, he thought, rising to his feet and walking over to his bathroom. He peeled off his slacks and rolled his dress shirt up his torso, flinging it onto the bathroom floor. His fingers kneaded the knots that had formed in his shoulders as he leaned over and turned the hot water on.

  He stepped out of the shower when his skin had pruned, and all of the dirt had been seared off of his body. Stubborn drops of water clung to strands of his hair. It was the first time in a while that the front of his hair had grown long enough to kiss his eyebrow the way that it did now. He didn’t disturb it, and reached into the medicine cabinet in front of him, spritzing cologne along his shoulders, down his abdomen, and a small spray around his cock.

  Issac moved to his bedroom and changed into a dark gray cashmere sweater and a pair of dark jeans.

  ***

  It was five drinks later when Issac sidled up to a lithe man alone at the bar. He waved at the bartender, and he slid a drink down to Issac. Issac nudged it toward the man sitting next to him, and he grinned, taking Issac in.

  “You’re buying me a drink?”

  “Is there any other way to win a guy’s heart these days?” Issac asked, raising his voice over the loud music coming from the rest of the club.

  He shrugged. “I’m not really about winning very many hearts these days, to be honest. I’m more into something… quick and dirty.”

  “Quick and dirty?” Issac repeated. He took a quick sip of a shot the bartender had passed to him. The alcohol burned going down, and Issac blinked hard, returning to the moment. “Does quick and dirty have a name? Or do you just want to leave it at that?”

  “I’m Nick,” hi said, standing to his feet and grabbing the coat that was hanging on the back of his chair. “Are you against taking this party on the road?”

  Issac smirked and slapped a twenty down for the bartender. “Let me pull the car around,” he said, standing up, and willing himself to ignore the dark spots in his vision. He felt more centered as he took each step towards the exit, admiring his own ability to remember his pleases and thank yous despite being plastered.

  The cold air was sobering as well; he’d need a little of that for the night of marathon fucking he intended to have with his cute stranger. He pressed down on the unlock button on his key fob and wandered over to his car.

  He slid in, relieved when he felt the seat warmer turn o
n. He started the engine and tapped his foot against the gas, and he moved forward. Nick was leaving out of the front doors of the bar and waved at Issac as he moved the car forward.

  A couple flitted past the nose of the car and Issac felt the steering wheel completely slip through his hands from the small maneuver he had been trying to do to avoid bumping them. A guttural sound came out of the back of his throat as the car propelled itself towards a light post.

  Screams erupted from the late night crowd that had been congregating outside of the bar, and Nick’s eyes widened as he ran back inside of the club.

  Oh no. Oh no, Issac thought, fumbling with the lock on the door and all but falling out of the driver’s seat. The sound of sirens in the distance made his heart sink. Fuck. Fuck. The media, his sober brain thought, and he ran around to the front of the car to see how bad the damage was.