by Abby Angel
“Fuck, fine, no ass is worth this,” Chris grumbles. He starts to walk away but I hear him groan and he picks up the card. He avoids my gaze and I just watch him to be sure he’s really gone.
I knock on Elodie’s door. She opens immediately and wraps her arms around my neck, kissing my cheek.
“Thank you, David.” She pulls back and looks to my hand. “Let me clean this up for you.”
“This can’t be how we…” I start and I realize, shit, I was about to say something about how we start our relationship, our dates or something. But that’s when it hits me.
I love her. I really do love Elodie, and way too much to try and fuck her right now when I’m twisted in knots about everything going on. I need to handle my own shit right now. I’m glad I didn’t pummel Mark, and that I went easy on Chris, only hitting him because he hit me.
“How we what?” Elodie asks.
“How we say goodbye. I will clean myself up and head out, I need to take care of some business with Stefan and Julian.” I say, sucking in a breath and holding it while I look at her.
I can tell she thought I was going to seduce her tonight. Sure, I wanted to…and while part of me still does, part of me knows that there’s time for later. I know, that’s possibly wishful thinking. But I love her too damn much to just tangle up our emotions that are already keyed up so high. “It was very good to see you, Elodie.” I reach out and brush my thumb over her cheek.
Her hand closes over mine. “You, too, David. Thank you.” Her hand drops and I go to her sink, washing my hands, drying them, and then leaving before my level head and my cock head start duking it out.
Because one look at Elodie’s face, her perfect body…I don’t know who would win.
21
Elodie
I leave the private practice offices of Sumter, Maxwell, and Degraves with a lump in my throat. The guys called me over to talk to them and…they told me that now, with the trial so close and with everything they’ve discovered, they had to share with me what they think.
I say 'think' because while I know there’s been some utterly crazy shit going on these past few months, I don’t know if I can really believe what they’ve just told me. I mean this is not exactly the kind of leap of distrust you want to make in someone that basically raised you.
“He’s selling…and doing drugs that he’s getting from his hospitals.”
Julian’s words are reverberating off my brain. They don’t quite land anywhere in my thinking. I have to admit, my first thought, besides ‘Oh, the person I love would never do that’ are that a person that is supposed to be so smart, why would he do something so stupid? How does someone amass that much wealth and then do something as boneheaded as sell drugs in the hospitals they run?
I watched Breaking Bad, didn’t he? I mean, come on, there are no degrees of separation!
Okay, so I’m starting to get a little hysterical. I’m doing what one of my girlfriends refers to as emotional driving. I’m squeezing the steering wheel like it owes me money. I’m visiting Al Jefferson in the hospital now, despite him asking me to stay away from Havenfield General Hospital, and him.
Because Julian, David, and Stefan told me that they had real evidence that Al Jefferson was doing drugs and selling them from his hospitals. They had the tox screen, which would never fly in court because of how Julian got it. Al had already had all the other files altered anyway. But they told me that they had someone who could put all the pieces together. I wanted them to tell me more, but I told them I needed to process this information, too.
My angry, hurt driving gets me to the hospital and I’ve processed enough. I want some answers from Al fucking Jefferson and he can’t just ignore me now. I’m here.
When I come up to the desk this time, I ask for him again. The nurse at the desk station looks over her clipboard and then back up at me, not amused by this request.
“I’m family,” I state, my tone a little clipped at this point because I have to do something other than consider going back to school or switching careers to an entirely different industry. I can’t just think about the three surgeons that have stolen my heart right now…I need to confront the man that wants to crush them.
Because he raised me, he paid for my college, and he helped me every step of the way as I tried to make myself worthy of running this very hospital.
She tells me his room number, and I walk to it to finally visit Al. He’s here now because his recovery is taking longer than even to be expected for the kind of car accident that he was in. Al claims that’s part of why he’s suing David, Stefan, and Julian.
I don’t know what to believe anymore.
I remember the tired, angry but surprisingly frail man I visited after his surgery. The man who hasn’t let me come and see him since and barely talks to me now.
“Al,” I say as I walk in. “We need to talk.” “If I wanted to talk to you, I’d answer any of the calls, emails, and text messages you’ve sent me.” Al looks at me with cold eyes. I’ve never seen him look at me, at anyone or anything, like that. “I’ve made it perfectly clear that you are not to be in this hospital and that you are not to contact me.”
I feel like there’s ice in my veins. I suck in a breath and look into those cold eyes so I know he sees how serious I am. “Do you illegally sell pharmaceuticals in your hospitals?”
Al laughs. He laughs for nearly a full minute.
I felt hurt when I came here…but now I’m just starting to feel pissed off. My instincts told me that I should trust the guys, but I remained weary. Still, right now, I have the strongest feeling in my gut that I should run. I’m not exactly the type of girl that runs away from her problems. I mean, my whole world started falling apart, and I didn’t shed a tear. I worked the angles to see what I could take care of. I just didn’t have a lot to work with.
So that’s how I know it is danger that I’m sensing, not my own fear that makes me think I should get the hell out of here.
Al leans in closer when he stops laughing. “You come in here when I told you I don’t fucking want you here, and you accuse me of being some kind of drug kingpin? You get out of my hospital and out of my face, or you’ll be seeing your dead parents sooner than you think.”
The ice in my veins has turned to razors. A cruel, ugly threat that seems needlessly…evil. I stand up and leave the room. I don’t need to engage with Al for another second.
My mind summons the words of one of my favorite role models, Maya Angelou. “When people show you who they are, believe them.” I am not going to get emotional about the devastating blow this was to me today. I’m not going to try to reason out why he did the things he did. I’m going to stay the hell away from him, and tell the three men in my life that have been trying to uncover the truth this whole time.
I’m putting on my big girl panties for now, but I’ll make sure that when this trial is over, I find some way to de-stress.
I think you and I can think of something I might do?
I’m starting to realize that there’s more than just convenience or sexual chemistry in why I lean on David, Stefan, and Julian. No, I lean on them because…I love them.
I don’t know when it happened. I just know that it is true. I love all of three of them. I know that’s pretty far away from what a normal relationship looks like. Hey, when I met them, all I wanted was casual sex!
But somewhere along the way, when they showed me who they were, my heart believed them. And I have to see where that leads.
After the trial -- and maybe another one with this revelation that Al is a drug kingpin (his words!) – Al is my past. Can David, Stefan, and Julian really be my future?
22
Julian
“You three…two,” our lawyer clears his throat and tries to act like us being minus one is okay. “You two stand a very good chance here. So will Stefan, if and when he decides to appear for the trial date that he knows is today.”
Look at Ball Buster, Esquire, here, acting li
ke Stefan, and I don’t know that we need Stefan to actually show up for the trial today.
“I know that we’ve dug up enough, they’re going to throw shit at us, but you can make sure none of it sticks.” I grit my teeth at our lawyer, Stewart Trelawney, who seems to have decided to call Stefan not showing up yet for court to be the final thing he’s going to put up with. This was after he made clear that he wasn’t pleased with my partners and I digging up our own dirt on Al Jefferson and then the three of us refusing to consider throwing Elodie under fire if need be. That was a shitty strategy that would have gotten his ass fired on the spot but we resisted because it was too late to fire a lawyer who was highly competent when he wasn’t being a fucking asshole. Okay, so he’s a lawyer, so he’s highly competent when he’s being an asshole.
David leans closer to me, hand gripping my shoulder. “Not many lawyers were willing to go up against Al Jefferson, so where the fuck is Stefan?”
“I don’t know,” I say loud enough for them both to hear.
Hopefully, Stefan is just running late.
David drops his hand to his side.
“The defendant may present their opening arguments now,” the judge announces.
Trelawney steps into the space between the jurors, defendants, and plaintiff, and looks over the crowd. “Ladies and gentleman of the court, today, you’ll see Titans and pillars of this community face off. It will get ugly; I won’t lie to you. In fact, that’s the important point here. Lying – a thing we all do. But sometimes, you’ll see lies have malcontent, and they do not. The story we will decode today is one that proves my defendants’ innocence. I will show you that what began with an innocent lie, my clients agreeing to not tell anyone that the plaintiff was shot rather than in a car accident, was wrapped up in a shady, unscrupulous lie involving a scandal much worse than any illicit tapes…” Trelawney wins the jurors over momentarily with his words and gets everyone considering this big moral battlefield that’s at stake. He thanks them, and I barely hear any of it as I fidget.
I want to look at Elodie but I know I need to try and focus on the trial and put our best image forward, so I resist…for now.
Al Jefferson’s lawyer, Zachary Cranston, saunters out from where he’s sitting and gives a shit eating grin. “My client’s case here today is a sad one that any city, especially one as great as Havenfield, should have to endure. Still recovering from injuries sustained and attested to be healed by the hooligan defendants, now my client must suffer the indignities that the defendants committed not just to my client but to his own family. I will demonstrate today that the professional negligence that brought this case to court is mirrored in the indecent, immoral acts that the defendants also engaged in that show they have the same disregard with their own personal decorum as they clearly did professionally…” Cranston waves toward Jefferson, like, hey look at this sick old man these big bad doctors hurt, and keeps droning on in circles with a dramatic tone that has some of the jurors actually glaring at David and me.
“…And one of them has not even bothered to appear in court, though what has been known to take up his time lately can’t be the answer.” Cranston raises an eyebrow, and he doesn’t have to say or look at Elodie, because all of the jurors shoot her looks of disdain.
Fuck, I’d say this isn’t starting out too well, is it? So far, not so good. I have to fight to keep from tapping my foot nervously, and in doing so, I tune everything out until I see Terrance making his way up to the stand.
He gives me a smile that doesn’t say, you said I’d be fine and now I’m here in court…but I’m clenching my fists at whatever is about to happen.
The lawyers start setting up and dissecting why he’s here. I got the tox screen without following proper protocol, so Cranston says my “credibility should be called into question” because I would use someone on the grounds that I saved their child’s life.
He flings the word use out like it is an expletive, and the jury is looking at me like I ate a baby instead of saving it.
“He wanted information that hadn’t been tampered with, and he knew that he could trust me!” Terrance says, and I can see him starting to sweat. “And why should we believe that instead of the much more likely scenario that he wanted someone who could tamper with the document to support these claims Julian Degraves is making about my client?”
Terrance starts stuttering, and my ears are starting to ring. I put my hand on my forehead and hope that my lawyer can dig us all out of the shit piles we’re getting shoveled into.
23
Elodie
Julian and David both look pale today. I wished for this trial to be over as soon as possible every second I listened to the lawyers cut apart every word in front of them, but I’m really wishing for it to end soon now that I’m being called to the stand.
I’m being called as a character witness for Al Jefferson. After how he spoke to me when I visited him, he has a smug look on his face as if it means I will kiss his ass on the stand because he threatened me.
I don’t know what he’s caught up in, but I’m not going to be part of it.
“Yes, Al Jefferson is my adoptive father. He paid for my college and even offered my first full-time position as a hospital administrator at Havenfield General Hospital after I served as administrator for several smaller hospitals not in his holdings,” I clinically describe the relationship I once regarded with such fondness.
Now that I know who Al really is, I’ll let the rest of the world know, too.
“So you’ve known him for several years, and considered him a mentor?” Al’s lawyer asks with a smug look on his face too.
I guess they think that because Al threatened me, I’m going to do exactly what they want me to. As fucking if.
“Until recently, I considered him a mentor. Yes, I have known him for many years and I’ve considered him my father until he cut me out of his life and then threatened my life when I visited him,” I say, keeping my tone even. I think I hear a little hurt in my voice...but I don’t need to maintain a steely exterior when I’m trying to make sure that my men go free.
Well, at least David and Julian. Where is Stefan? My heart hurts right now because I fear for Stefan.
I know now that no matter how strange it seems to me, I need all three of my men to have a real happily ever after.
And I need to do everything I can to preserve their careers…even if mine has already been flushed.
I let the reactions of the crowd and the lawyers and the judge, everyone talking over each other die down, and I try not to cry as I prepare to answer the next question, which I’m sure will be terrible.
“Did you not star in a number of lewd tapes starting all three of the defendants, well, some had more stars than others, over the past few months leading up to this trial?” Cranston asks, making a smarmy face as if he’s hit some jackpot.
Then I see the looks of disgust on the juror’s faces.
Oh, that’s right. If a woman does what she wants with her body, she’s shamed for it. “My privacy was violated with the release of every one of those tapes, and they don’t have anything to do with Al Jefferson.” My words are biting because that’s what happened, Al didn’t want anything to do with me after those tapes…
“Your credibility is also at stake because of these videos. You committed acts with men that are accused of medical malpractice in your father’s surgery--”
Maybe I’m supposed to bite my tongue here, but I don’t. “You called me as a character witness for Al Jefferson. Don’t call him my father, as you are trying to forget, he threatened to kill me when I confronted him about the truth behind this lawsuit. I can only be a character witness if I say what you want. Otherwise, I’m not credible? You can’t have it both ways.”
There are some whoops in the crowd. I shouldn’t but I appreciate them. Because so much of Havenfield has put a scarlet letter on my head when those tapes were leaked and designed, I can only assume to hurt me, my guys, maybe even Al Je
fferson. They weren’t my doing, but everyone wants to burn me at the stake because of some orgasms they watched me have. Such bullshit, calling me a traitor when Al threatened my life. That’s betrayal. I trusted him.
Stefan enters the courtroom and the judge has to call the room back order because of all hubbub at Stefan’s appearance...with Mark?
24
David
Stefan finally showed up…with a man that I know is Mark from the file I sent to Stefan so that he could take care of the tapes that kept leaking every time Elodie had sex.
Stefan fucking did it! If Stefan is actually bringing Mark here, it means that confronting this guy about the tapes was more than just enough to get Elodie privacy again, it means that Mark has something useful against Jefferson.
Judging by the smile on Stefan’s face, this case is about to wrap up fairly soon.
Right now, though, Elodie’s shitty ex Chris is called to the stand, following Elodie’s testimony.
I had no fucking clue that Al had threatened Elodie’s life, and I am literally one step away from jumping across this courtroom and strangling the old man where he sits.
I don’t. I have to sit through this shitbag Chris on the stand first.
I watch that fucker limp as he walks to the stand. I didn’t even take him down or hurt his legs in any way, but he’s banging out this performance to the cheap seats. The jurors knit their brows and look at me like I’m the monster here. I keep my face calm and hope that I look normal and reasonable and not like I’m ready to take advantage of the fact that I have two fists and two people that I want to punch.
Trelawney gets the witness now, and his first question is a non-fucking starter, of course.
