Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Mara
I open my eyes, squinting against the light flooding the living room from the second story windows.
It was a long night. Leo and I finally both crashed on the sectional, Darling between us. The pig is snoring softly as I push myself into a sitting position, my neck protesting after the awkward position I slept in.
“Hey.” Leo blinks at me, bleary-eyed.
His voice is raspy and his hair is messed up, his dark stubble completing his exhausted look.
Darling keeps snoring, ignoring us. Birdie, who was curled up on Leo’s other side, gets down from the couch.
“Shit, where’s Noodle?” Leo springs off the couch.
After snorting softly, Darling lifts his head from the couch to see what’s keeping him from sleeping. I pat him on the back.
“Come on, big guy. Let’s go outside and stretch your legs.”
There can’t be anything left inside his stomach. The stench of shit hangs in the living room even though I took any soiled towels and blankets straight to the laundry room for washing.
We took turns for most of the night. One of us would do Darling duty while the other one did dog duty. Noodle cried nonstop when we tried to corral him with a puppy gate, so we had to either listen to it or let him out and keep track of him. And also, let him out to potty constantly.
“Noodle, you dick,” Leo says from another room. “You’re supposed to piss outside.”
When I glance at my watch, I see it’s six forty a.m. I have just enough time to let Darling out, move towels from the washer and dryer, and go home to shower and get ready for work.
Today is a long day of traffic hearings. I’m using my lunch hour to work with Bruce on domestic cases. I’m going to need a double at the coffee shop: a large coffee and an espresso.
“Darling.” I add the note of sternness to my voice that Suki sometimes uses. “Let’s go.”
He huffs and slowly hefts himself up. I pee quickly while he makes his way to the door that leads out to the backyard. My coat is hanging over the back of a kitchen chair, where I left it when I got here yesterday, so I slide it on and walk outside with him.
It’s freezing. My breath clouds in front of my mouth as Darling meanders around the yard.
He’s walking fine and acting like himself, but I’m still worried about him.
He lost a lot of fluids overnight. After a couple of minutes, he walks back up the deck ramp that leads him to me.
He snuffles at the bottom of my black wool peacoat while I scratch his ears and enjoy a few more breaths of fresh air.
“You be good today,” I tell him.
Leo comes out the door to the yard, brows lowered. He’s holding Noodle out in front of him with both hands like the puppy is a bomb.
“You okay?” I ask.
He glowers at me. “This dipshit slipped in his own shit. I swear to God I’ll pay whatever I have to for someone else to do this next time.”
I don’t let my amusement show, but I’m not not enjoying this. Leo’s always cool and collected. It takes a lot to get him going, but this situation is sapping his sanity.
Which I get. It’s a lot. I want nothing more than to take a shower, crawl into my own bed and sleep all day.
“Darling didn’t potty, but he’s acting fine.”
Leo sets Noodle down on the frost-covered grass and turns to face me. “Good. I’ll ask Caroline to come by and take a look at him.”
“I have to go get ready for work.” I close the sides of my coat to ward off the cold, tucking my hands beneath my arms. “I’ll be back after work, though.”
Leo’s only wearing dark-gray sweats, a T-shirt, a flannel, and tennis shoes, but he doesn’t seem as cold as I am.
“You sure? You already helped a lot.”
I nod, my nose turning into an ice cube. “It’s not benevolence. I don’t trust you alone with Darling.”
“Right. Because I should’ve known the plant that’s been sitting in the living room forever was toxic to pigs.”
It’s a fair point, but rather than concede it, I move on. “No one’s coming over later or anything, right?”
He furrows his brow, puzzled. “Caroline will be. Why?”
“I meant like a hookup. I don’t want to deal with any of that.”
He bursts out laughing. “You think I’d invite a woman over here? Try to seduce her with the smell of shit?”
I shrug. “I don’t know anything about your game, and I don’t want to. If you’ll be on your own, I’ll help.”
“Saint Mara to the rescue.”
“Don’t be such an asshole.”
“Said the asshole.”
Rolling my eyes, I open the door and let Darling inside. “My phone number is on Suki’s emergency contact list. Call me if anything changes with Darling.”
He flashes a smile. “If you wanted me to call you, you should’ve just said so.”
I gape at him, then school my features into a neutral expression. “Not falling for it.”
“Falling for what? We just spent the night together.”
“Good one.” I don’t look at him as I walk into the house. “I’ll see you later. See if Darling and Birdie can teach you how to spell pig .”
“GFY, Mara. Go bust people over parking tickets.”
I’m almost all the way in the house when I turn to glare at him. “Don’t make fun of my job. You get paid to ice-skate.”
“Good boy, Noodle!” He picks up the puppy and carries him into the house.
Once he closes the door, the smell of freshly brewed coffee makes me forget my anger. My nose latches onto the heavenly scent, drawing me into the kitchen like a cartoon character with heart eyes.
“You made coffee.” I give Leo an imploring look.
“Yep.”
“Any chance I could take a cup?”
“If it’ll put you in a better mood, take the whole damn pot.”
I go to Suki’s mug cabinet and pull out her favorite travel mug, which has Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s face on it. I’m so fucking tired, and not at all excited about an entire day of court hearings.
“You know I walked in on you by accident, right?” Leo asks as I fill the stainless cup.
Here we go again. We’ve litigated my humiliation in Carter and Suki’s bathroom to death already, but he won’t let it drop.
“By careless accident, yes. You were so drunk that you didn’t pay attention to the sound of the shower running.”
He’s standing with his back to the kitchen counter, and he puts his hands on the counter on either side of himself. “The music was loud. I knocked.”
It’s still fresh in my mind, though if I could take an amnesia pill to forget it, I would.
Carter and Suki had just had a new hot tub put in, and we all decided to get in it.
Suki loaned me a swimsuit and I realized I needed to shave my legs and bikini area.
Back then, I thought Leo was hot and I was excited about sitting next to him in a hot tub.
But then he walked in on me showering, and I freaked out. He just stood there, looking at me. I was horrified, so I screamed. I didn’t want the guy I was crushing on to see me wearing a green clay face mask and shaving my bush. Which is reasonable.
I’m defensive by nature, and I went from embarrassed to pissed off in an instant. I should have locked the door, but he should have turned and left the millisecond he saw me. Instead, he gaped so long and hard I should have fucking charged him for it.
“It can’t be undone,” I say, securing the lid to the cup of coffee.
“So you’re going to hate me forever?”
It’s not that I hate him; it’s more that I’m certain every time he sees me, he’s picturing me in the shower with my foot on a bathroom shelf, a razor poised in front of my bush.
My legs were wide open. He got a better view of my vag than any man I’ve ever slept with. And it will never not be mortifying.
“I have to get to work,” I say, avoiding his question. “Keep the animals alive until I get back, please.”
He does an impression of a caveman, grunting and saying, “Me try.”
I must be delirious with exhaustion, because I smile at his joke. But of course, I keep my head turned so he doesn’t see it. Everyone else falls prey to his charms, but not me.
Not ever.
My colleague Bruce’s tuna sandwich doesn’t smell much better than Suki’s house did when I left this morning. I grabbed a bag of vending machine Cheez-Its for our working lunch, but all I can smell in his small office is the half sandwich he’s waving around as he talks.
“The caseload’s generally pretty heavy,” he says. “We plead out a lot of first-timers. The biggest mistake I see young attorneys make is not making deals.”
His gray curly hair needs to be cut and there’s a permanent crease between his brows. His dress shirts are often wrinkled and he looks frumpy, but Bruce is a cornerstone of the office. I’ve heard many cases of newbie defense attorneys who underestimated him getting schooled during hearings.
He brushes the breadcrumbs from his fingers, picks up a folder and tosses it to me. I’m sitting in a chair in front of his desk, and I pick up the file and look it over.
The defendant is named Paul Warren, and he’s accused of stalking a woman. I’m sickened by the details of the case: he sent her as many as thirty-five threatening texts a day, was caught hiding in bushes outside her house, and tried to keep contacting her from jail.
“Thoughts?” Bruce asks me.
I glance up at him. “At the risk of being one of those young attorneys who won’t make a deal, I don’t see a reason to plead it. There’s solid physical evidence and the victim is willing to testify.”
He nods, almost smiling. “Bingo. Most cases hinge on the victim testifying.”
He squints at his computer screen, something there catching his eye. “Hang on, I need to respond to this.”
After putting on his glasses, he starts writing something. I take out my phone and check it for the first time since I got here this morning, finding a text and photo from Suki and a photo from an unknown number.
The one from Suki is of her and the girls standing on a sandy beach, ankle deep in pristine turquoise water.
They’re all smiling happily. Charlotte is wearing a T-shirt over her swimsuit, probably because she’s a body-conscious preteen.
A few months ago, she confided in me that some girls at school were calling her Chunklet , and I’ve never wanted to threaten and intimidate minors so much.
I text Suki a quick response, not mentioning anything about last night. She deserves to enjoy this trip. After last night, I have a newfound respect for how much work it is to take care of Darling and Noodle.
Birdie wasn’t much trouble at all. She just doesn’t like being alone, so she follows Leo everywhere. The other two, though, were a lot.
The other photo message is of Darling. He’s lying on his back, his feet in the air and his head turned to the side. And of course, he’s smiling.
There’s a message with the picture: Just to clear up any confusion, this is Darling, not the guy you hooked up with last week asking for Round 2.
I suppress a sigh and put my phone away. Leo thinks he’s hilarious. But if he’s joking, that must mean Darling is doing okay.
Covering a yawn with my mouth, I stand up.
“I’m going to get a drink. Do you want anything?”
Bruce shakes his head. “I left some energy drinks in the lounge fridge if you want one. You might end up running laps around the courthouse, but you won’t fall asleep, guaranteed.”
“Perfect. Thanks.”
I head for the lounge, hoping tonight is better than last night.