3. Laura
laura
. . .
T he small girl with mousy brown hair and bags under her eyes squirmed as she sat in the seat across from me with a large bouquet of blue flowers placed in a yellow vase. The flowers were too extravagant and covered half her body as she held onto them.
She came in confident, almost enough to fool me.
Her head was held high, her shoulders squared. First impressions were important, and she just about nailed hers. But when she told me who she worked for and was met with silence, panic sank in.
Because it wasn’t a first impression at all. I had been hounded by her and her boss for far too long and for no apparent reason. I was expensive, and each minute they were eating up of my time with their nonsense was a notch taken out of my billable hours that was reserved for actual clients.
“I’m a criminal defense lawyer,” I reminded her, frustration filling my voice. “In New York. It’s not in my portfolio to take on spoiled Hollywood starlets.”
The most spoiled at that.
The actor in question was America’s most lovable gay woman. Posters of her were found all the way from California to New York. I passed by at least one almost every day.
She was not in need of a criminal defense lawyer. Or any lawyer, for that matter. The agency she did business with was one of the best, and they had entire rabid teams ready to bite at the legs of anyone who so much as crossed one of their clients’ arbitrary lines in the sand.
They were almost as recognizable as she was.
“Harley insists. If you would just?—”
“Do you know why I say she’s spoiled?” I asked, my eyes narrowing at her.
I leaned forward, waiting for her to speak.
She opened her mouth, then closed it quickly.
The way she swallowed indicated that whatever was about to come out of her mouth would only anger me further.
“Sixty-seven times. You have both called my office sixty-seven times. The shortest of the calls lasted three minutes, which means you have officially taken up over two hundred minutes of my time. Over three hours. You are aware of how much I charge per hour, are you not?”
“Your rates for even misdemeanor charges are over five hundred. Harley has more than enou?—”
“And my retainers can be up to three hundred thousand,” I interrupted, tilting my head.
“Maybe Harley has more than enough to afford that, but at the end of the day, who I want to take on is my decision. Don’t insult me by assuming all you need to do is throw money at me and I’ll roll over and play dead. ”
Red crept up her neck.
“I am sorry to bother you, but Harley really wants you. No one else will do?—”
“Thirty thousand two hundred dollars in gifts,” I continued with a sigh. “Bags. Flowers. Shoes. Pens. Anything else you thought could sway me.”
In fact, they had sent me more gifts than I ever received from even the most extravagant and well-off clients. From even the most crazed suitors .
Not that I ever allowed anyone to get close to me. They were just as much of an annoying distraction as this Harley was turning out to be.
“I—”
“Tell me something, Ms.…”
“Penelop-pe Murphy.”
She stuttered slightly, and I almost felt sorry for her.
Almost.
“Ms. Murphy . Tell me, did I call you after receiving any of those?” The tapping of my nails against the desk pulled her eyes to my hand. “Did I suddenly change my mind?”
She shook her head as her hands gripped the vase harshly, her knuckles turning white.
Pity . The flowers smelled good and would have looked great on the far-end table. But accepting those would only diminish my point.
“No.” Her voice was losing its strength.
“No,” I repeated and motioned for her to leave. “They all ended up in the trash. I won’t take your boss. You can leave.”
She stood and placed the flowers on my desk. Condensation from the vase fell onto the wooden surface, and annoyance had my blood pressure rising.
“I don’t want the fuck?—”
“You never threw away the flowers,” she said, her eyes becoming sharp. “Not one.”
The fucking balls on this one.
She had sat there in my office, quivering, leading me to believe she was weak.
But there was something stronger behind those eyes of hers. Maybe her confidence wasn’t a front at all. For the first time in our interaction, a burst of curiosity burned in my chest.
If this is just her assistant, what will Harley be like?
I knew of her. Her agency. A bit about her career. But the research I had done was surface-level and not enough to give me any insight into how the fuck they got this type of confidence when facing me .
I clicked my tongue. I didn’t have time for this. Curiosity was a distraction I couldn’t afford, and I had a full client list.
“ Leave .”
I didn’t miss the small, triumphant smile that spread across her face. As soon as the door shut behind her, I clicked the button on my desk phone that connected me to the receptionist.
“Give her name and photo to security,” I said as soon as she picked up. “Don’t let her come in again. If she tries, have her escorted from the premises.”
“Understood,” Ana said, then paused. “Are you still going to visit Mrs. Hayes?—”
“ Shit ,” I hissed under my breath.
How could I have forgotten? She was far more important than any other bullshit I was going through.
“Yes,” I said and stood. “Call her and tell her I’ll be a bit late, but I’ll pick up her favorite.”
I paused for a moment, letting my eyes fall over the fragrant blue flowers. They were the same color as the shoes I had picked out for the day.
Something zapped through me. A type of sinking realization that had my breath catching in my throat.
No one in my line of business believed in coincidences.
“By the time I’m back, have a file on Harley Hart and her associates,” I ordered.
I didn’t want to admit it, but those two seemed to know far more about me than I knew about them. And that was unacceptable.
The stark smell of antiseptic tickled my nose as I sat across from an occupied hospital bed.
Mrs. Hayes sat up with a satisfied smile on her face, both hands cradling the greasiest cheeseburger I’d ever had the pleasure of seeing.
If I hadn’t come to terms with my own horrid relationship with my mother years before, I might try to seek a deeper connection with the older lady. Might try to cling to the kindness she gave me and pretend she was my mother.
But that would be silly. And a waste of time.
What wasn’t a waste of time was just being in her presence. Being a friend.
She was a stark reminder that some people were just good . Not everyone went through life wanting to hurt others or looking for ways to change their lives.
Some people just lived.
“So you’re the one who brings my mother that shit,” a familiar voice said from the door.
Mrs. Hayes’s eyes lit up.
“Sloan! I told you not to come if it was too out of the way?—”
Sloan entered the room, and a fresh-faced Lillian followed her with a huge smile.
“Guilty as charged,” I said with a smile and waved to Lillian.
Sloan owned the other half of the club Ax ran. On more than one occasion, I had found myself stuck in a courtroom with this girl, practically fighting for both our lives since she couldn’t stay out of fucking trouble.
She had dyed silver hair, multiple piercings on her ears and face, and her pale skin was covered in tattoos. She never tried to hide them in court, much to the distaste of some of the other lawyers we dealt with. But her appearance wasn’t important. Not when she had me.
Lillian was her better half, an angel I had the pleasure of meeting at their wedding. They had eloped but shortly after had wanted something bigger. She had dark curly hair, slate gray eyes, and warm tawny skin.
I made it a strict rule not to intertwine my personal life with the clients’, but after spending so many hours with the flirty tattooed girl, I couldn’t help but have a special place in my heart for her.
And it’s nice to see two people fit so well together.
I gave up on my own once foolish dreams of love sometime in high school. As it turned out, teenage hormones were a distraction. One I couldn’t afford.
So instead, once I knew the type of pleasure you could get from someone, I focused on that instead.
But just because I was positive this wasn’t in the cards for me didn’t mean I needed to be a salty bitch about it.
The wedding was also where I happened to meet her mother. I was taken with her immediately. Her warmth. The way she cared about everyone around her.
At first, it made my heart hurt. It was hard not to compare her actions against my own mother’s. But the logical side of my brain took over almost immediately and stuffed those silly little emotions back into a small box.
Where they belonged.
“Hospital food is so bland,” she said with a sheepish grin and leaned into Lillian as the girl wrapped her arms around her with a smile. As much as she chided my actions, she just wanted to see her mother happy.
“Not for long,” I commented as I stood. I had already stayed in the hospital for far too long. “Three more days until you’re discharged, right? Though hopefully this time you’ll stay away from ladders, hm?”
I almost had a heart attack when I heard the woman had been hospitalized due to a hip fracture. Just like Sloan, in the short time I had known her, she made a lasting impression on me, and I was ready to help wherever needed.
“Promise.” She sent me a smile. “Good luck on your trial. Not that you’ll need it.”
I sent her a wink and said my goodbyes to the other two in the room.
As soon as I stepped out of the hospital, my phone rang .
Ana.
I answered without hesitation.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“I need you back here ASAP… We have an issue.”
And just like that, my good mood had been replaced by a sinking feeling.
What now?