Chapter 20
The knock didn't come.
Beck was in the shower when he heard the front door open. Then Morgan's voice, mid-sentence, something about the facility schedule and a vendor who'd cancelled for the holiday market. Then Addison's voice, quieter, responding. Then both voices stopping at the same time.
He turned off the water. Listened.
Silence.
He grabbed a towel and dried off and pulled on shorts and walked down the hallway with his hair still dripping, running his hand through the curls to push the water out.
Morgan and Addison were standing in the kitchen doorway.
Kirstin was at the sink with a coffee mug in her hand.
She was wearing his Braves t-shirt. Just the t-shirt.
It hit her mid-thigh and her hair was down and her feet were bare on the tile and she turned around when she heard him and whatever was happening in the room had already happened before he got there.
Morgan's mouth was open. Addison's keys were frozen halfway to her purse.
"Hey," Beck said. "What's up?"
Nobody answered. Kirstin's eyes were on him. Morgan's eyes were on him. Addison's eyes went to him, then the ceiling, then her keys.
He didn't understand the silence. He'd walked out of a shower. He did this every morning. He was in shorts. He'd been in clubhouses for fifteen years where thirty men walked around in less than this and nobody blinked.
"Our blood pressure," Morgan said. "Go get clothes on, Beck."
He turned to Kirstin. She pressed her lips together and gave him a nod that said just do it. He went back down the hallway. He heard Morgan say "uh huh" behind him and Kirstin say "don't start" and Morgan say "uh huh" again.
He pulled on a t-shirt. A regular one, not a Braves one, because the Braves one was in the kitchen and it had never fit him like it fit her. He came back out.
"Thank you," Morgan said. Like he'd fixed a leaking faucet.
Addison caught Kirstin's eye. Beck saw it happen.
The exchange was brief and it held more information than any conversation he'd witnessed between two people.
Addison's face said something he couldn't fully read but Kirstin received it and her chin dipped once, small, almost invisible.
Whatever Addison had communicated, Kirstin had accepted it.
He made coffee. Kirstin leaned against the counter beside him while he poured. Her shoulder against his arm. Her bare feet next to his. Morgan sat at the table. Addison pulled out a chair.
"Okay," Morgan said. "You called us over. What you got for us, Beck?"
He set the coffeepot down. He turned to Kirstin. She met his eyes and the smile she gave him was small and sure and it said go ahead.
"I've been talking to Kirstin," he said. "I've been thinking about my representation. I know it's not really what you guys do, but I trust you. Would Riley/Banks be interested in providing representation?"
Addison and Morgan exchanged a glance. Two seconds. An entire conversation.
"Beck, not that we don't appreciate that, but we plan and organize," Addison said. "And Trevor's good."
"Trevor is good," he said. "But Trevor doesn't show up at a bar after a random text and not ask questions."
"It's not really our lane," Morgan said.
Beck laughed.
"What?"
"It's exactly your lane."
Morgan stared at him. "Explain."
"First off." He pointed at Morgan. "I don't know of anyone else I'd want in a room with a bunch of suits discussing my future. I need someone who runs shit, not gets run." He turned to Addison. "And you. I've never met a more organized person in my life."
Addison's face softened. She glanced at Morgan and back.
"Thank you, Beck. Seriously," Addison said. "And I believe I can speak for Morgan also. We'd love to do it, we would. But we don't have the legal side, which is huge."
Beck felt the air go out of it. He kept the smile because that was what he did. "That makes sense. I thought I'd ask?—"
"What if you did have the legal? In house?"
All three of them turned to Kirstin.
She was still leaning against the counter.
His t-shirt. Bare feet. Coffee in her hand.
But something in her posture had changed.
She'd straightened. Her shoulders had squared.
The woman at the counter was not the bartender and not Jon's daughter and not the woman who'd been standing at the sink ten minutes ago in the soft morning light.
She set her coffee down. She laced her hands together in front of her. She didn't look at anyone.
"I finished law school but never took the bar."
The kitchen went still.
Beck smiled.
"I knew it."
Kirstin snapped back. The vulnerability left her face and the fire replaced it. "You knew what?"
"The way you tore that kid down at the booth at the Shrimp Festival with the statues or whatever."
She laughed. Hard. The full laugh, the one from the bedroom that morning, the one that came from her stomach. "You mean statutes, Beck."
"Whatever. You know what I mean."
"Wait." Morgan was on her feet. "You're a lawyer? That's freaking awesome."
"I'm not a lawyer yet. I haven't taken the?—"
"Details." Morgan waved her hand. "Details, details."
Addison was on her feet. She was doing the thing Addison did when something clicked, the organizational joy that took over her whole body, the barely contained energy of a woman who saw every piece fall into place at once.
"This works," Addison said. She was bouncing. Literally bouncing. "This works."
"She hasn't taken the bar yet," Morgan said to Addison, as if Kirstin hadn't just said that ten seconds ago.
"Bar prep is two months," Kirstin said. "The exam's in February."
"That's three months from now," Addison said.
"I know."
"You'd need to study."
"I know."
"While bartending."
"I've done harder things than study for an exam while pouring drinks, Addison."
Morgan pointed at Kirstin. "See, that right there. That's what Beck's talking about. That energy. In a room. With suits."
Beck leaned against the counter and watched the three of them.
Morgan was pacing. Addison was calculating.
Kirstin was standing in his kitchen in his t-shirt and she'd just told a room full of people the thing she'd been carrying for four years and the room hadn't flinched.
The room had caught it and started building with it before she'd finished the sentence.
He caught Kirstin's eye across the kitchen. She was trying not to smile. She was failing.
Morgan stopped pacing. She planted her feet and turned to Addison and then to Kirstin and the expression on her face was the one that had been running events on Ellery Cove for a decade. The planning expression. The this-is-happening expression.
"We gotta change our name."
"What?" Addison said.
"Yeah, think about it." Morgan spread her hands like she was reading a marquee. "Riley, Banks, and Green. That shit's legit."
Kirstin put her face in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking. She was laughing or she was crying and it might have been both.
Beck picked up his coffee. He took a sip.
The kitchen was loud now, Morgan talking about letterhead, Addison pulling out her phone to look up bar exam dates, Kirstin still standing at the counter with her face in her hands and his shirt on her body and the future opening up around her in a room where nobody had asked her to be anything other than exactly who she was.
He didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He just stood in his kitchen on a Thursday morning and watched three women build something that hadn't existed five minutes ago.