3. Maya
Maya leaned against the bar that ran along one side of the private room of Bones Steakhouse. The dimly lit space was finished with lacquered wood paneling and heavy velvet curtains that completely blocked out the bright summer sun outside, enough to make you lose all track of time. She popped a meatball in her mouth, the one the waiter made certain she knew was Wagyu beef when he’d served it to her off a silver platter. There wasn’t enough Wagyu beef in the world to make up for the disappointing case Mr. King had assigned them, though.
“Hey, lady.”
Maya felt a nudge on her shoulder and tightened her grip on the cocktail plate to avoid spilling the world’s fanciest meatballs on the ground. Lauren, the junior associate who was only a couple years older than her, stood there smiling. She was a tall, thin blonde who was the kind of pretty that read former prom queen.
“Hi,” Maya greeted with a smile.
“I guess you got the memo.”
Maya let out a small laugh as she noted Lauren’s similarly bright pink blouse. “I guess I did.”
“On Wednesdays we wear pink!”
Only it was Tuesday, but she smiled and played along.
“I am so sorry we never got a chance to connect yesterday.”
“It’s okay,” Maya assured her. “I know how busy you must be.”
“You have no idea.” She leaned against the bar and closer to Maya. “I’ve been swamped with this new public arts case we took on.”
“Oh.” Maya’s interest and voice went up an octave. “Well, if you need any help—”
“Oh my God, I would never do that to you.” Lauren laughed. “It’s going to be tedious work. And if I’m being completely honest,” she shielded her lips from the rest of the room with her hand, “this isn’t really my thing. I’m just putting in my time so I can get an in-house position at a big Hollywood studio in a few years, you know?”
Maya hummed through tight lips as she nodded away at Lauren’s overshare, not that she was judging her. Hollywood wasn’t her dream, but she respected Lauren for working towards something bigger. That’s what she was doing here, as well. King and Associates was a brief stop on the journey toward making partner track at a big firm up north before she turned thirty. This arts case very much was her thing, though, and she desperately wanted to work on it.
“Well, all the more reason to take some help then.”
Lauren giggled as she reached out and patted her hand. “You should be collecting that nice paycheck, fattening up your resume, eating fancy lunches, and doing as little work as possible this summer because life gets real after this.” She shook her head and looked across the room for a moment. “Actually, there might be something you could help me with.”
“Sure. Anything.”
She would have agreed to serve coffee at their meetings if it just put her closer to the case because once she had an in, she was sure she could prove how helpful she could be to the team.
“So your friend, Reed…”
Maya’s face scrunched at the word friend. They looked across the room to the man in question, dressed for the occasion in a charcoal gray suit with a white dress shirt and navy tie, laughing about something with their boss and two other coworkers she’d yet to meet.
“Is he single?”
Maya’s face fell with disappointment, something that was becoming a trend around this place. Apparently Reed Stanton was the most eligible bachelor in the Atlanta metro area. “I have no idea.”
“How do you not know that?” Lauren demanded, as if it was a crime not to have a burning desire to know more about his personal life. “You share an office.”
“It’s only been twenty-four hours, and I also don’t really care.”
“Well, do you think you could find out for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please? Friend to friend?”
Maya tried her best not to side eye Lauren for her liberal use of the word friend again. As someone who bestowed that title on a very small circle of people, none of whom were in that room, it always bugged her when people threw it around so easily.
“Why don’t you just ask him?”
“I can’t do that. It would look all kinds of wrong.”
Then how will dating the intern look?she thought. Because that’s where this is going, is it not?
“If it comes up, I’ll let you know,” Maya offered.
It certainly wasn’t a yes, but it also wasn’t a no. She wanted to keep this “friendship” in good standing. If she wasn’t going to be able to work on the case, maybe she could at least get the inside scoop from Lauren.
“Thank you.” She sighed with relief as she grasped Maya’s hand again. “And if you need anything at all, just say the word.”
Maya nodded uncomfortably as she tried to extricate her hand. As she looked away, she caught sight of their boss making his way to the other end of the bar.
“Will you excuse me? I need to speak with Mr. King for a moment.”
Lauren nodded and turned to order a drink while Maya made her way down to him.
“Mr. King.”
He turned at the sound of his name. “Maya! How are things going? I’m sorry I missed you this morning.”
She pasted on a happy face and decided to take her shot. “Things are going well. I heard about the public arts case you’re taking on.”
“Ah yes.” He turned away from the bar and gave her his undivided attention “Big case. Should be an interesting challenge.”
“It would be such an honor to have the chance to work on that case. I’m not sure if you know this, but I’ve had a passion for the arts,” she dropped her hand to line up with the hem of her suit jacket, “since I was this high. My mom is a professor of literature, so I was always reading. And we would go to the High Museum of Art for all of the new exhibits when I was in high school. That’s what drew me to intellectual property law, the intersection between the arts and—”
“I didn’t know your mother was a professor. Where does she teach?”
His further interest in her personal life caught her off guard. “Um, Georgia State University.”
He nodded with delight. “Great school. I guest lecture for the Patent Law course whenever time allows. Now that you mentioned your mom’s work, I have to know: is your namesake a prominent poet?”
“Yes, sir. My mom wrote her dissertation on some of Maya Angelou’s early works.”
“Well, I can certainly appreciate your interest in the arts. It’s in your blood, clearly.” He paused for a moment. “I’m not sure if Reed shared this with you yet, but I’ve already assigned you a case and I really need you two to take the lead since the arts case is going to take up the rest of the firm’s resources.”
“Yes, I had a chance to review it this morning and it seems like a straightforward criminal case, a week’s worth of work at the most.”
His brow furrowed with either genuine confusion or amusement. She couldn’t tell, but she found both unsettling.
“Is that your assessment?”
She took a small, uneasy breath. “Yes, that’s my impression from the information we were given.”
He nodded slowly as he studied her for a moment. She stood her ground, shoulders squared and chest proud as she waited for a response which came in the form of a lopsided grin and quiet chuckle.
“Fair enough.”
Shit. She was going to spend her summer representing a small-time criminal with Officer Pretty-Boy. She was seriously questioning her decision to place her trust and future in Mr. King’s hands because it felt like he wasn’t looking out for her interests at all. This all seemed tailor-made for Reed. Her shoulders grew heavy, wanting to slump in defeat, but she refused to let them.
“All I ask is that you take ownership of this case and give it your utmost care and attention. If that only demands a week’s worth of your time, then rest assured I will find room on the arts case for you.”
The corners of her lips lifted into a genuine smile. Finally, a glimmer of hope. She could work with that. “Of course. Thank you, sir.”
“Please. Call me Al,” he insisted.
Her face pinched as the sound of flutes filled her head and reminded her of one of the many old songs her dad used to blast in the car on road trips. “Like the song?”
Al’s face lit up. “Yes. Love me some Paul Simon. Who says your generation has no sense of music history? Maya when you call me, you can call me Al,” he sang loud enough that everyone within earshot was now looking at them.
There was an awkward pause as she stood there not knowing what to say. Heat rushed to her cheeks and she fought the urge to let out the nervous laugh she was holding back. Al, not surprisingly, had a lovely singing voice so that wasn’t the problem. It was just the sheer spectacle of it all. He kind of reminded her of her dad with his deep voice, salt and pepper beard, and shared love for dad rock.
He tilted his head to the side and gave her a small grin. “Maya, are you enjoying yourself?”
She bit down on her lower lip and nodded. It wasn’t quite the lie it would have been ten minutes ago, but it still wasn’t the whole truth.
“Good. Did you try the Bordeaux?” He turned toward the bar again and raised his hand to flag the bartender over before she could even answer. “Two please,” he said, pointing at the bottle behind the bar.
“No. Since we’re going back to work, I didn’t think—” She stopped herself when he began to chuckle again.
“I threw this party for you and Reed,” he explained. “So let me let you in on a little secret: we always send the associates home after lunch. In fact, I always end up letting the entire office go home early. What’s a few hours of celebration for people who work so hard all year long?” He smiled and handed her one of the glasses the bartender had just set down in front of them. “And I know I said it yesterday, but I’ll say it again. We’re happy to have you here, and you have my word that you will be challenged plenty this summer.”
“Thank you, Al,” she said quietly. She believed him because she felt plenty challenged already, but not in the way she expected to be. Hopefully that would change.
He took his glass and saluted her, then walked back into the private room to mingle with the rest of his staff.
She turned and rested her forearms on the bar, sighing as she finally allowed her weary head and shoulders to drop. She felt giddy and nauseous at the same time thanks to the roller coaster of emotions she’d experienced over the past twenty-four hours. She looked at the glass of wine in her hand and swirled the crimson liquid. Might as well she thought before bringing it to her lips.
“You’re drinking?”
She looked to her left to see Reed taking the empty spot beside her. “Yes. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No. I’m just surprised since we’re going back to the office after this.”
“We’re not. Al said we all get to call it a day after this.” His face was blank. “Oh, you didn’t know?”
He shook his head and a grin spread on her lips. Finally, she had the scoop before him. She raised her glass in the air to celebrate. “Cheers.”
“Cheers,” he said, raising the glass of water in his hand, though it sounded more like a question. She looked straight ahead and took a sip of her wine, expecting him to order a drink and move along, but he stayed.
“So how ‘bout them Braves?” he asked after a few moments. “They’re havin’ a hell of a summer.”
“Wouldn’t know,” she answered, still staring ahead.
“Phillies?”
“I don’t follow baseball,” she answered. She could just imagine having to sit there as he ran through every National League team trying to find common ground between them.
“Okay, what do you do for fun then?”
He was clearly trying to drum up some kind of small talk, but, in the name of self-preservation, she was hesitant to learn more about him. She couldn’t afford anymore curveballs when she was trying her best to salvage this associateship. She would keep things completely professional and keep the personal stuff superficial.
“I…” Coming off a particularly busy spring semester, fun hadn’t been on the top of her priority list. “I like to work out. You?”
“I do it because I know it’s good for me, but I wouldn’t say I like it. It ranks up there with doing laundry and mowing the lawn.”
She cast a sidelong glance at his trim physique. He could have fooled her.
“What else?” he asked. “There’s gotta be something.”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “I…”
“You like music. I heard you and Al doing karaoke over here earlier.”
A small laugh escaped her lips. “That’s not what that was.”
“You were listening to music when you walked into the office this morning. You looked like you were enjoying it.” He grooved his neck side to side trying to reenact what he saw. Trying. She almost sprayed her sip of wine across his dapper suit.
“Stanton. Stop.” He didn’t. Instead he doubled down, now getting his upper body into it. A puff of laughter filled her cheeks as she pressed her lips into a firm, straight line.
“What were you listening to?”
Music was deeply personal. That kind of knowledge was reserved for family, friends, or guys who had made it past at least the fourth or fifth date. She most certainly would not tell him that she was listening to the Maya’s Summer of Law playlist she’d created in anticipation of this associateship. In fact, he could never know because she would die of embarrassment.
She shook her head no then grabbed her glass and looked away to find an out, but the first face she saw was Lauren’s, watching her like a hawk over the shoulder of a co-worker. Maya tried to pretend she didn’t see her, but it was too late as Lauren arched an inquisitive eyebrow. She looked at Lauren, then Reed standing next to her at the bar, then back at Lauren again…shit. She was really going to do this even though it went against her self-imposed rules. She groaned then gulped down some wine and turned to face him, her now open stance making Reed give her a curious look.
“So do you have a girlfriend?” she tried to ask casually.
“What?” He nearly choked on the sip of water he had just taken. He probably thought she was nuts, and she couldn’t blame him because this place had her feeling out of her mind. “Uh no. Do you have a girlfriend? Or boyfriend?”
She froze for a split second, equally caught off guard. “Uh, no,” she spat back. Her cheeks were on fire again. “We don’t have to do this small talk thing,” she leveled, motioning her free hand between them. “It’s just weird. We didn’t come here looking to make friends, we came to work, right? So why don’t we just stick to that?”
“I think that’s weirder, but sure, whatever you want.” Now he was the one to look away and raise his hand to wave the bartender over.
She nodded affirmatively then turned and walked away with her head held high though she was rolling her eyes at herself. That was so not smooth, but hopefully it would be worth it. If Al wouldn’t let her on the case, maybe she could live vicariously through her new friend. And maybe if there was some sort of love connection between Reed and Lauren, they would be distracted and she would sort of get the solo position she had come for. She headed straight across the room, watching as Lauren excused herself from the conversation she was only half-engaged in once she saw Maya coming her way.
“He’s all yours,” she whispered once she reached Lauren’s side.
But instead of stopping to squeal and open herself up for a game of twenty questions about Reed Stanton, she kept on walking right past her.