Chapter 25
The Anchor's parking lot was half-full when Jake pulled the Range Rover onto the gravel, the familiar crunch under the tires loosening the tension he hadn't realized he was carrying.
Friday night. The case closed. Emily beside him in jeans and a blouse she'd pulled from one of the bags she'd started leaving at his place, her hair still damp from the shower they'd shared an hour ago.
She was looking at the building in the same manner she'd looked at it the first time he brought her here.
Taking it in. The weathered wood siding, the string lights on the deck, the neon beer sign in the window that had been flickering for as long as Jake could remember.
But something was different in her expression now.
That first night, she'd been assessing. Tonight, she was arriving.
"Ready?" he asked.
"Yeah." She didn't move to open her door. "Just give me a second."
Jake waited. He'd learned that about her over the past month, how she needed a bit of time to gather herself before walking into spaces that mattered. Not nerves. Processing. Emily Callahan didn't do anything without understanding what it meant first.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."
They walked in together, his hand finding the small of her back without conscious thought, and the noise hit them like a wave.
Laughter from the corner booth. The jukebox pushing a heavy bass line into the room.
Glasses clinking. The energy of a Friday night at The Anchor, which had its own rhythm separate from every other night of the week.
Tommy spotted them first.
"Tampa's own, Walsh and Callahan." He was already on his feet, arms spread wide, grinning like Christmas had come early. "Crime Fighters Incorporated. The reason I'm buying rounds tonight instead of working overtime."
"You were never working overtime," Jake said.
"I might have been. The possibility existed.
" Tommy pulled Emily into a hug before Jake could intervene, and Jake watched her stiffen for just a fraction of a second before she relaxed into it.
Progress. Three weeks ago, she would have held herself rigid the entire time.
"Callahan, you magnificent prosecutor. You absolute destroyer of criminal enterprises. "
"Tommy, you're drunk."
"I'm celebratory. There's a difference." He released her and turned to Jake, and the hug was rougher, the kind of embrace that involved back-slapping and a headlock that Jake ducked easily. "And you. Finding Costa in a smokehouse. Classic Walsh."
"Angela found Costa. I just followed."
"Humble. I hate it." Tommy slung an arm around each of them and steered them toward the corner booth where the rest of the group had already gathered. "Come on. Gator's been holding court for an hour and Ray's pretending he doesn't want to dance."
"I don't want to dance," Ray said from the booth, not looking up from his bourbon. "I've never wanted to dance. The concept of dancing has never appealed to me."
"He definitely wants to dance," Claire said. She was sitting across from Ray, a margarita in front of her, and she caught Emily's eye with a smile. The kind of smile that said we'll talk later and I'm proud of you and you look happy all at once.
Emily slid into the booth next to Claire, and Jake took the spot across from them, beside Ray. Their knees bumped under the table. Neither of them moved away.
Gator appeared with two Dos Equis before Jake could signal for drinks, setting them down with the efficiency of a man who'd been reading rooms for thirty years. He looked at Emily, his expression unreadable, and then he nodded once.
"Good work, Counselor."
"It was a team effort."
"Everything's a team effort. Doesn't mean the team doesn't have a captain." He turned to Jake, and the look he gave him was different. Older. The look of a mentor who'd watched his protégé do the thing exactly right. "Your girl's got steel in her spine, Walsh."
"Damn right."
Gator headed back toward the bar, and Jake felt Emily's foot hook around his ankle under the table. Brief. Gone.
The first round of drinks became the second, and somewhere in there food appeared without anyone ordering it.
Wings that made Emily's eyes water. Sliders that Tommy inhaled without tasting.
A basket of fries that got passed around the table until it was empty and nobody could remember who'd finished it.
Ray told the story of the time Jake had accidentally walked into the wrong courtroom during his first week as a consultant and sat through twenty minutes of a custody hearing before realizing his mistake.
Jake retaliated with the story of Ray's disastrous attempt to learn to surf, which had ended with a borrowed board in three pieces and Ray insisting the ocean had a personal vendetta against him.
"The wave came out of nowhere," Ray said, defending himself.
"The wave came from the ocean," Tommy said. "That's where waves come from. That's the whole thing with waves."
"It was specifically targeting me."
"The Atlantic Ocean decided to assassinate you personally."
"I'm not saying assassinate. I'm saying the wave had intent."
Emily was laughing, her shoulder pressed against Jake's, and he could feel the vibration of it through his whole body.
She belonged here. That was the thing he kept coming back to.
She'd walked into this bar a month ago as a guest, as someone being introduced, and now she was here like she'd always been here.
Like the space at this table had been waiting for her.
Claire caught his eye across the booth and gave him a small nod. The kind of acknowledgment that passed between people who understood what they were witnessing. Her best friend, finally letting herself have something good. His life, finally complete in a way he hadn't known it was incomplete.
The next hour passed like hours passed at The Anchor when the family was together.
Stories that had been told before but got better with each telling.
Arguments about baseball that nobody actually cared about.
Ray holding forth on some policy change at the U.S.
Attorney's office while everyone pretended to listen and Tommy made faces behind his back.
Jake watched Emily navigate it. How she laughed, how she pushed back, how she let a moment land without interrupting it.
She'd found her rhythm with this group somewhere in the past month, had stopped treating every gathering like a performance she might fail.
Now she was just present. Taking up space like people do when they know they're allowed to.
Claire said something that made her laugh, a real laugh. Jake felt the pleasure of watching someone you loved be happy in a place that mattered to you.
"Take it in, Jake." Tommy's voice was low enough that only Jake could hear, and there was none of his usual humor in it. "She's special."
Jake didn't look away from Emily. “I know.”
"No, I don't think you do. Not all of it.
" Tommy took a pull from his beer. "I've known you for twenty years and I've never seen you look at anyone the way you look at her.
You always held something back. With everyone.
Even us, sometimes. Like you were keeping a piece of yourself in reserve in case you needed to cut and run. "
Jake didn't say anything. Tommy wasn't wrong.
"You're not holding back with her." Tommy leaned in.
"Whatever piece you were keeping, you gave it to her.
I can see it." Tommy grinned, and the seriousness passed as quickly as it had arrived.
"Also, you're terrible at hiding it, so maybe work on that if you don't want the entire bar knowing your business. "
"The entire bar already knows my business."
"Fair point. Carry on with the staring."
At the bar, Gator was talking to Claire.
Jake noticed because Gator didn't talk to anyone he didn't have to, and Claire was the kind of person who usually made him retreat into monosyllables.
But she'd said something, and Gator's face had changed, and now he was actually laughing.
Not the polite laugh he deployed for civilians, the one that didn't reach past his mouth.
A real laugh, caught off guard, like she'd landed a punch he hadn't seen coming.
Jake watched his mentor try to recover his composure and fail.
Claire said something else, leaning in like she was sharing a secret, and Gator laughed again, shaking his head like he couldn't quite believe what was happening.
He spoke back, and Claire's expression shifted into delighted surprise, and then she was laughing too, the kind of laugh that made people at nearby tables turn and smile without knowing why.
"What the hell," Jake said, mostly to himself.
"Claire," Ray said, following Jake's gaze. "She does that. Gets under people's defenses without them noticing. It's why she's a good prosecutor."
"Gator doesn't laugh like that. I've known him my entire adult life.”
"She's been working on him since the first night you brought Emily here. Told me she was going to crack him open like a walnut." Ray took a sip of his bourbon. "Looks like she figured out the combination."
"He never talks to anyone outside the crew. Not really talks."
"Maybe he needed someone who wouldn't let him hide." Ray shrugged. "Claire doesn't take no for an answer. That's her superpower."
Whatever Claire said made Gator actually put his head down on the bar, shoulders shaking. She reached over and patted his back like she was comforting a friend, and Gator straightened up with tears in his eyes from laughing, which was genuinely an event Jake had never witnessed in his entire life.
"How the hell is she doing that?" he said to Emily.
"My friend is a miracle worker." Emily's voice was warm. "He needed someone who wouldn't let him hide. She's that person for a lot of people."