Chapter 25 Corners
Corners
Zoey
Iopened my door to find Gage standing there, a to-go bag in hand and a manly, shell-shocked expression on his handsome face. Nana was with him, wriggling in delight.
“That bad?” I asked, stepping back and letting him in. Nana crashed into my legs in some sort of brainless profession of love.
“I brought salads because you probably haven’t had a vegetable in a week,” he said on his way to my kitchen.
I followed with Nana. “It’s not that I have anything against vegetables. I just forget they exist, and then they rot in my fridge. Have you ever had to clean rotted romaine soup out of your vegetable crisper? Of course you haven’t. You probably use your lettuce before the expiration date.”
“You have to keep your perishables on the main shelves and put all your condiments in the drawers. You won’t forget that ranch dressing exists, but you’ll be reminded that broccoli does every time you open the fridge door,” he said, finding two large bowls and a pair of forks.
He began to transfer the admittedly decent-looking salads from plastic containers to the bowls.
My stomach growled, and I was suddenly ravenous.
I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer for him and a sparkling water for me. “That’s actually a helpful tip. How did you pull that out of your well-toned ass?”
“Declan was annoying me with the lightsaber choreography from Star Wars before court, so I tasked him with some ADHD life hack research. Figured it would keep him and his swordplay out of my hair and benefit you.”
I cracked open the sparkling water and poured it over ice into a wineglass. “That’s…eerily thoughtful of you. You really have no idea how this one-night stand thing works, do you?”
His lopsided grin was adorable…and tired. “Might need a refresher. Starting with the one-night part.”
I laughed and made a move to pick up one of the salads. “Come on. We’re eating on the couch.”
“People with broken wrists are only allowed to carry items equal to or less than the weight of a beverage,” he said and carried his beer and both salads into the living room.
I followed with my drink, and we collapsed against the cushions. Nana threw herself on her back and began a dramatic improvisational dance on the rug.
“So. How was your day?” I drawled. The dressing passed my taste test, so I dumped the whole container over the salad.
“It was mostly a disaster.”
“My specialty. What can you tell me?” I asked, juggling my fork to my left hand and awkwardly attempting to stab some salad.
“Not a whole lot with attorney-client privilege.”
“Annoying but understandable.”
“I can, however, tell you about my parents showing up at the courthouse, thinking they were going to show support and discovering that their daughter and son had sided with the defendant,” he said, stabbing a piece of lettuce.
“How did that go over?” I asked through a mouthful of vegetables and chicken.
Gage winced. “I pretty much let Laura handle them while I let the DA yell at me. And then after the hearing, I’m only slightly ashamed to admit that I faked a lawyer emergency to get out of talking to them.”
“Gage!” I said on a laugh.
Nana lifted her head to stare at us, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.
“What?”
“You’re all Mr. Do the Right Thing, and then one whiff of disappointing your parents and you run for the hills.”
“I didn’t run for the hills. I drove the speed limit to Wawa, got salads, yelled at the dog for blowing the horn and scaring an elderly couple, and then I came here. It’s completely different,” he insisted.
It was nice to see that he wasn’t so perfect. Nicer still to know that after a bad day, he’d come here. To me. Besides Hazel, I’d never been anyone’s person before. Not that I wanted to be Gage’s person, of course. That would be stupid. I immediately stopped enjoying the moment.
“So how mad are your parents? And why was the DA yelling at you?”
“I don’t know yet, and because I put pressure on her and the investigators to bring charges.”
“Ah. And there you are in court, defending the person you wanted punished,” I filled in.
“Pretty much. Right about now, Mom and Dad are telling Cam and Levi. Which makes you and Declan the only people in my life who aren’t pissed off at me.”
I pointed my fork at him. “Give it time.”
“How was your day? How did the meds go?” he asked.
The man had just pissed off three-fifths of his family, gone to court to represent the woman who had killed his brother-in-law, and he’d remembered I’d started a new prescription this morning. “Oh. Uh. It was fine.”
Gage’s head met the back of the couch. “Fine? I come over here. I bring vegetables to keep you alive. I bare my soul. And it’s fine?”
“You’re going to make some adorable children feel very guilty someday, just like a good dad would,” I predicted.
“Yeah, I’m awesome. Disco.”
“My day was a roller coaster. I showed up at Hazel’s crying my entire face off because for the first time in maybe ever, I felt ‘normal.’ Which was great but also a huge slap in the face for all the years I’ve been unwittingly ‘not normal.’”
Nana gave up on her floor acrobatics and wedged herself onto the couch next to me. I patted her on the head.
“I sat in on Hazel’s big interview, which she killed.
The magazine is sending an entire department to Story Lake to cover her launch and Reader Weekend and booked the rest of the rooms the lodge had available.
Then I went to the high school and met with an interesting menagerie of teenagers, including your niece, and we conspired on ways to put Story Lake on the map.
Two teenage boys asked for my Snapchat. Then I got so tired I felt like I was slipping into a coma, so I hit up the general store and ate a few handfuls of children’s breakfast cereal straight from the box.
And when that didn’t work, I went to the café and chugged a triple espresso, which in hindsight was stupid and I won’t be able to sleep ever again.
I think it was the meds wearing off and my brain reverting to default brokenness. ”
“Your brain isn’t broken. It just operates differently. Also, according to Declan’s research, you’re supposed to eat regular meals with protein to help keep your energy levels even.”
“Ugh. Why does life take so much planning? Remember being in school and you’d walk into the cafeteria and nice adults would just hand you a tray of food that they prepared? I want that again.”
“There are some benefits to being an adult,” he pointed out.
“Like what?”
“After today, I’m having trouble thinking of any. But if we have sex again, I think I’ll be able to remember,” he promised me.
“You’re adorable when you’re sad and horny.”
“You’re beautiful even when you’re not having sex with me.”
“I’m still weighing my options on that front,” I told him. “The fact that you’re on my couch and brought me dinner leads me to believe you’ve accidentally fallen in love with me already.”
“Or I just want to have sex with you again and I’m being gentlemanly about it.”
“Gentlemanly or manipulative?” I pointed out, enjoying this bantery side of Gage.
“I’d be happy to give a presentation on the difference, but I’m afraid I do my best lecturing without pants.”
“Good to know. So, wanna talk about how you feel about the things you can’t tell me because of attorney-client privilege?”
He shrugged. “It’s just more of the same from this weekend. I feel like the rug got pulled out from under me and everything I was so sure was fact now feels like a question.”
“Maybe you’re having a midlife crisis. Have you been having fantasies about sports cars and women who weren’t born when you graduated high school?”
“That’s an offensive stereotype. Lots of midlife crises also involve golf.”
“How’s your short game?” I quipped. “Just a warning, if you go for the low-hanging fruit and say something about ‘finding the hole,’ I’m not sharing the ice cream I have in my freezer.”
“This all hinges on what kind of ice cream we’re talking about.”
I picked a piece of lettuce off my shirt. “I forget. But I do remember being excited about it when I bought it.”
He smirked and let out a sigh. “I kind of don’t hate this.”
“This what?”
“Your place,” he said, gesturing around the room at the cushions, the knickknacks, the suncatchers. “It feels…happy…and a little chaotic.”
“That’s me.”
“After today, I could use some chaotic happiness—”
A brisk knock at my door cut him off.
“Are you expecting someone?” he asked over Nana’s rabid barking fit.
“No. But in the name of disco, I probably wouldn’t remember even if I was.”
“Gage Preston Bishop, I know you’re in there. Open this door right now, young man,” his mother shouted from the other side of the door.
“Why do I feel like we just got caught mostly naked in your parents’ living room when they weren’t supposed to be home for hours yet?” I hissed.
“Guilt is her superpower,” Gage said dryly. “Stay here. It’s safer.” He put his bowl and beer on the coffee table and crossed the room to open the door. “Hello, Mother.”
“Don’t you ‘Mother’ me,” Pep said. She bent at the waist to lavish the delirious Nana with pets. “Hello, sweetheart. Gram’s not mad at you. No, she could never be mad at your adorable face. Just your daddy’s.”
“How did you find me?” Gage demanded.
She held up her phone. “I tracked you.”
“Remind me to kick Levi’s ass for showing you how to do that,” he said.
“Remind him yourself. Family meeting. Let’s go.”
Gage hooked his thumb over his shoulder at me. “Actually, I’m kinda busy here.”
“Zoey’s attendance is required too,” Pep announced with the kind of confidence only a mother doling out punishment can muster.
“Uh…it is?” Gauging the distance to the back door in the kitchen, I got to my feet.
Gage frowned at his mother. “She’s not relevant to these proceedings.”
Pep put her hands on her hips. “Don’t you get all lawyer lingo-y on me. Not only did I help you study for the bar, I am judge, jury, and ass kicker of this family.”