Chapter 18 #2
"Incorrect," Cole says. "It's exactly the right word."
"I practiced law for all of eighteen months," I mutter.
"Granted, I did do very well. I could be a lead prosecutor by now, or a partner, or running my own firm.
" I laugh, hold up my hands, palms facing the ceiling.
"But here I am, instead. Divorced, homeless, and jobless with no work history to speak of within the last decade, unless you count being a hell of a hostess work experience.
" I shake my head and shrug, let my hands flop down on my knees.
"Everything I own is in my car. I have no idea where to go, what to do, or what I want out of life.
" I look at Cole, gnawing on my lip. "And I'm not saying I regret what happened, because I don't, at all—the opposite, if anything.
But I…I probably should get a Plan B. I just…
we…this is all so…" I break off with a sniffle.
"I'm sorry, Cole. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. "
Cole stares at me for a moment. "Hold up. Homeless?"
I laugh bitterly. "Oh, you assumed I took him to the cleaners, huh?"
He shrugs. "I mean, yeah. From what you've said, it sounds like he wasn't even very careful about his cheating."
"I wanted out and fast. And to be honest, at the time I was just so shocked and angry that I didn't care about anything except getting free of him."
"I thought you knew he was cheating?"
I lean back against the headboard, sighing heavily as I nod.
"I did. At leasdt, I strongly suspected.
" I swallow hard, look away. "It's hard to explain, especially to a man who has never been married.
" I look at him sidelong. "I don't mean that as a bad thing.
There are just certain things you cannot possibly understand. "
"Maybe not," he says, "but I'd like the opportunity to try."=
I nod, considering, chewing on what to say and how to say it. "I…I suppose…" I trail off, sigh, start again. "It's hard to even know where to start."
"How you met," Cole says. "How you ended up married to him when it seems like you don't even like him."
I laugh at this, a bitter, cynical bark.
"Oh man, Cole. That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?
" I sigh, a long, quasi-amused gust of breath.
"Fine. You really want the whole sordid story?
I was a young woman with a still-wet law degree who more often than not was assigned to do the tedious, boring drudge work, or the dirty work no one else wants to do, because, even though I was a licensed lawyer, I was still just an attractive twenty-something female no one respected.
I did the bullshit investigative work that is so much of what a prosecutor's office does.
The paperwork. Rewriting and polishing and adding case law to error-riddled, hastily-written briefs and petitions and motions that the quote-unquote real lawyers couldn't be fucked to do themselves properly, because they were too busy shilling for the cameras and going to three-hour boozy business lunches with defense attorneys for the high-profile clients who expect and receive preferential treatment because they're rich. "
Cole nods. "Every industry has its version of the drudge work. For cops it’s filing evidence, parking enforcement, shit like that. For Felix, it's cleaning the sites after the work is done."
"Yeah, but there's no sexism in that, Cole," I point out.
"You're not assigned the bullshit work because you're a man, you're assigned it because you're new.
I was a fucking lawyer, Cole, and every single goddamn day the trial lawyers would dump stacks of bullshit on my desk without a word simply because I had a vagina.
The old men with the big offices would swing by my desk and point at the coffee maker and snap.
I was treated as less than a paralegal. I was just the blonde bimbo with the rack…
who happened to graduate summa cum laude while working full time and taking sixteen to eighteen credit hours per semester, but who gives a fuck about that.
Someone's gotta make the coffee and proofread your shitty motion. "
Cole smirks. "Not that you're bitter."
"Oh no. Not at fucking all." I sigh a laugh. "There was a hazing element to it, though. I did end up in court a few times, and even got to argue a point a couple times. I was good at it—damn good. And the actual lawyer work? I loved it. I really, really enjoyed being a lawyer."
"But then…" Cole prompts.
"But then, I was at a bar downtown with some others from the office.
I was buying a round when this handsome older guy started chatting me up.
I'd been single since I left Three Rivers almost five years before, at that point. Single and celibate, I might add. I was finally feeling like maybe I could consider talking to a guy again. I no longer woke up in the middle of the night crying about Maia or you or both. Or, not every night, at least. My friends, or well, coworkers, really, had been saying for months that I was uptight and needed to get laid.”
Cole pulls a face, chuckling ruefully. "I'm familiar with that conversation."
I frown at him. "Really?"
He arches an eyebrow. "Yes, really. I think you might be overestimating my game, babe.
I wasn't hooking up regularly, nor even frequently.
I dated a very small handful of women from town over the decade and a half since you left, not including Heidi.
" He stares away from me. "There were years in between hookups, Lace.
Years that I…I couldn't bring myself to even be interested in anyone. "
"Why not?"
"You,” I say. “I couldn't get over you. With Violet, it was…
I'd been alone for a couple of years at that point.
The whole thing with the town gossiping about condoms had happened and I was feeling burned and like there was no point.
The guys had been ribbing me for months about how uptight I was.
'You're a miserable bastard, Cole,' they'd tell me.
'You need to get laid.' Or in Nyx's case, he'd say things far more graphic. "
"You don't have to explain or justify anything to me, Cole," I say.
"I don't like thinking about you with anyone else any more than you do me, but it's part of life.
It's normal. It's okay." I tug him down so he's not as upright, and then I snuggle myself onto his chest. "I was lonely and starting to feel the need for companionship.
For sex, if I'm honest. I…I think you probably remember what my sex drive was like. "
Cole splutters. "God, do I." He grins at me, the heat of memory sparking in his eyes.
"Well, it had spent five years dormant. Repressed and ignored. I wasn’t even masturbating."
Cole's eyes widen. "Lacey, babe."
"I had no mental or emotional space for it, Cole. No time. No energy. My entire life was devoted to work, bills, school, and more work. When I started at the prosecutor's office, I was working eighty and a hundred hours a week, six days a week and often seven."
"Jesus. Saturdays and Sundays, too?"
"And midnights and holidays. Who do you think makes sure the trial lawyers are ready to go to court on Monday morning?
Them? Ha! They relied on my legwork. They'd show up thirty minutes before our case was called and cram a read-through of the work I spent all weekend on, and then not use seventy-five percent of it.
" I shake my hands. "Not the point. That's the legal profession and I knew what I was getting myself into.
You want to know how Eddie got his hooks into me. "
"I mean, yeah, basically."
I shrug. “I was lonely, desperate, horny, broken, sad, and barely making ends meet.
Eddie was handsome, charming, wealthy, successful, funny…
and seemed into me. It felt good to have someone pay attention to me.
To feel wanted again. And at first, he did.
I think Eddie genuinely did start out with honest intentions.
He took me on some very nice, elaborate, and expensive dates.
And that felt good, too. Maybe this is shallow of me, but I'd been scrimping and saving and scraping by for years, at that point.
Picking which bill to pay and which to skip so I can still make rent and eat and put gas in my car and pay down my student debt.
And then this really good-looking older guy appears in my life and takes me to the Whitney and to shows at the Opera House and the Fox and the Fisher.
He pays for everything. He holds my hand.
Holds the door. He acts like I matter. He's easy to talk to.
He looks at me like he likes what he sees, and that just feels good, I don't care who you are or what your life is like—when someone looks at you with obvious attraction, it feels nice. "
Cole nods. "It does. Heidi…it felt really nice to feel attractive and desirable.
I think in different circumstances she and I could have had something a bit more real, but she could never totally trust a man again, and I'm…
" he shrugs. "I'm just perpetually hung up on you, no matter what I do.
When I misnamed her the other day, I felt so fucking awful. I didn't even realize what I'd done."
"I feel like that wouldn't have happened if I hadn't shown up, though. Maybe you and she would've—"