by T Gephart
“Nevada, my apologies.” He grimaced and laughed. “Still, you’re back now.”
Deciding he’d been left out of the conversation for too long, Mike interjected, saving me from needing to volunteer any more. And I would have kissed him if it wasn’t completely inappropriate or if I was attracted to him in any way. Unlike Stefan and I, he grew up on the other side of the country in Rhode Island. His dad was a county judge back on the east coast, and his mother, brother and sister were all lawyers.
Both guys were different sides of the same coin. Tall, good-looking with dark hair and brown eyes and looked like they still rowed crew on the weekends. They came from upper class white families who probably posed for Christmas portraits in matching sweaters. But to their credit, neither of them were jerks, or at least if they were, they were hiding it extremely well. Which was good enough for me.
Not sure if it was Mike or Stefan who decided we were going to be friends, but throughout the course of the day the motion was raised, seconded and passed. And unless you counted Prim—which I didn’t—I was severely deficient in the friend department in the city. The Larssons were a grey area, so for the sake of collecting data, I hadn’t counted them as “friends” per se. The last thing I wanted to do was go down the rabbit hole, analyzing everything about what each member of that family was and wasn’t. And if I was really honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be just friends with Alex anyway. Lord knew what he wanted.
Gah, it was all so confusing.
So, while I wouldn’t be cutting my palm and swearing a blood oath to Stefan or Mike, there’d be at least two people who’d report me as missing within twenty-four hours if I was kidnapped. That was of course assuming my mother didn’t beat them to it, she who used the “group chat” like a roll call every morning.
“Shit.” Mike rolled his head from one side then the other. “It’s like studying for the bar all over again.”
Stefan glanced at his watch as he raised a brow. “It’s also six o’clock and we’ve been sitting here since lunch.”
“Lawyer hours, boys.” I yawned, stretching my arms above my head. “You really didn’t expect to finish at five like a regular job did you?”
We all laughed, knowing nine-to-five wasn’t going to happen for us any time soon. Instead, we packed our folders neatly, filing information appropriately for each associate, and then dispersed so we could drop off all the important files at the corresponding desks. I got a smile and a thank you from Louise, while Mike and Stefan got grunts and hand waves from Jarrod and Bill. And with our deliveries completed, our first day had come to a close.
Mike had decided he needed a beer or two, telling us he’d discovered a sports bar not far from work. Plans were made, with Stefan agreeing to join him, the bonding of the newbies set to continue after hours.
“You coming?” Stefan asked, watching as I grabbed my handbag and slung it over my shoulder.
I wanted to say yes but the words stalled in my mouth before I agreed. “I can’t tonight. Maybe next time?”
He nodded, turning his attention to Mike. “Guess it’s just the boys then.”
“Don’t worry, Maya. I’ll save anything important for when you are around.” Mike winked.
Stefan grinned, pretending to look disappointed. “You know I only agreed to come to be polite, it was Maya’s company I was hoping for.”
My eyes widened, surprised that I had been sitting next to him all day and he hadn’t even hinted he was interested. Or if he had, I had been really bad at reading it.
“Jesus, Maya. I meant you would be more interesting than him.” Stefan laughed, totally reading my expression. “I’m not hitting on you. I don’t date people I work with. And by the way, you looking so horrified isn’t doing wonders for my ego.”
It would have been easy to be embarrassed, but I wouldn’t allow myself to be. Pushing myself out of my comfort zone with people I didn’t know all that well was going to be happening a lot in my future. It was time I started getting used to it.
My lips spread into a cheeky grin as my eyelids fluttered. “I was only horrified because I thought you’d been reading my secret lusty thoughts all day.”
It was his turn for the wide-eyed stare, a cough making its way up his throat.
“Gotcha.” I laughed, pointing at him with amusement.
“How come no one is thinking I was hitting on them?” Mike narrowed his eyes, his hands firmly on his hips as he looked between us.
“Which one of us would you hit on?” I asked, not sure if it was inviting trouble.
He took a minute, considering his answer. “Neither. I don’t date lawyers.”
Stefan grabbed his chest, trying to look hurt. “Twice I’ve been injured.”
My phone buzzed with an incoming message, my eyes cutting to the screen and seeing Alex’s name in the preview. My finger flicked across the glass and my heart kicked up a beat as I pretended the message didn’t excite me as much as it did.
I’m downstairs, ready to be used and abused after your first day.
My smile was automatic as I quickly typed my response.
How did you know I was done? Are you spying on me?
Yes. I slipped the security guard a hundred and he gives me hourly reports.
I knew he was kidding but I laughed out loud as I responded.
Creepy. But I like it. Be down in five.
STEFAN AND MIKE WERE ALSO ready to go so we took the elevator down to the ground floor together. It made me strangely nervous, to know they were going to see him, but it wasn’t like I could barricade my arms against the door and not let them out. It would probably raise more eyebrows, besides both of them had pulled out their phones and seemed more interested in their screens than me or our journey. With any luck neither would even look up, tossing me a goodbye as they went to their sports bar.
I saw him the minute the metal doors parted, a floating buoy in a sea of gray, white and glass. He had his back turned, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows to the noise of traffic and people. I took a moment just to appreciate him, the muscular perfection of his frame in his designer suit. I was guessing it was designer, he could have picked it up from a thrift store, but the way it looked on him made it look like a million bucks.
He turned and smiled, and suddenly his spectacular body faded to the breathtaking glow of a cheeky Larsson grin and the most amazing blue eyes. I could drown in those eyes, literally take my last breath looking at them and not have any regrets.
“How was your first day?”
He spoke first, giving me a minute to gather my thoughts that had scattered. Mostly about how blind I must have been in my youth.
“Great. It was great,” I answered with a smile.
“Good, I want to hear all about it. My car is over here.” His head tipped to the door.
Without saying goodbye to my newfound friends I followed Alex out of the door. His car was parked at the curb, the lights flashing as he hit the fob.
His eyes twinkled and I knew it meant trouble. “Let’s go. I’ve got a surprise for you.”
“I hope it’s to further our plans of world domination?” A nervous laugh bubbled up my throat. “We didn’t really get to it the other night.”
“Trust me, you’re going to love it.” He held open the door and waited for me to get in.
I wasn’t usually big on surprises—hello, my father saw to that—but if it was one thing I could do, it would be to trust him. Especially when he was wearing the same look he wore when we stole Nick’s car and drove to Malibu. He instinctively knew exactly what do or say, and it had been one of the best nights of my life. Ironic considering I had a boyfriend at the time and hadn’t shared any of those feelings with him. Guess that’s how I knew what we had was special. It had been one of the last times we’d been together, and one of my favorite memories. Something I’d carried with me for years after. Maybe we’d be going to Malibu? This time without the grand theft auto.
We talked as we drove, him t
elling me about getting to assist one of the partners of his firm and me filling him in about my day. The air was warm and the windows were down, the breeze blowing into the car as tension and unease blew out.
It wasn’t until we got to a rundown hotel in Lynwood that I started to have questions. We definitely weren’t going to the beach.
If surprising me was the objective of the evening, he’d well and truly done that. My eyes peeled open wide as I surveyed the burned-out building across the street. The windows had been boarded up, the bricks charred black with a homeless person camped out on the stoop.
A helicopter flew overhead while a siren blared in the distance, and I was positive the group of men standing around on the corner were not part of a barbershop quartette.
“Um, I thought we were going out for dinner?” I looked back to the hotel, its flashing sign advertising vacancies, and suddenly eating was the last thing on my mind.
He reached across—the calmness in his eyes matched by his smile—and squeezed my knee. “Just trust me.”
And so help me, I didn’t have a choice.
We could be walking into a drug den, looking to turn some pseudoephedrine into meth and I’d have followed him in. Although, I really hoped that wasn’t what we were doing. Apart from the legal implications, I hadn’t been great at chemistry.
He exited the car first but I wasn’t far behind, our strides even as we walked to the door of the hotel while I tried not to freak out. I’m sure there was a plausible explanation why he’d taken me to a cheap hotel in a shady neighborhood. I knew it couldn’t be to make all of my dreams come true and have sex. With both of us living alone, we didn’t need an alternate venue. Which meant it had to be something else. Pity most of the things I imagined would need an industry-strength drop cloth and five gallons of bleach.
Jesus, I was being stupid. This was Alex Larsson, someone I’d trusted for more than half of my life. He knew my family, and I knew his, surely if he’d had hidden serial killer tendencies I would have seen them.
Of course, that was what they always said in the news grabs. “He was such a sweet man, I never would have suspected it.” Meanwhile the “sweet man” had three dismembered bodies buried in his backyard and a hard drive full of hard-core snuff porn.
He put a hand around my waist and I involuntarily jumped. Too busy thinking about how hot his mug shot would be to notice how close he’d gotten. “You okay?”
“You’ve never lied to me before.” I turned and put my hands on his chest. “So I need you to answer a question before I go in.”
Not sure standing in the parking lot was a hell of a lot safer, but I took comfort in the added witnesses. Even if their testimonies would probably never stand up in court.
His eyes glanced at my hands on his chest. “Okay, what do you need to ask?”
“Are you going to kill me?”
It didn’t sound any less absurd coming out of my mouth than it did in my head, causing him to laugh loudly. “Do you think if I was going to kill you, I’d admit it?”
He had a point, and God help me his smile wasn’t helping. I shoved him roughly, feeling even more ridiculous for having thought it in the first place. “Maybe you’d have a moment of integrity, feel like you owed me. You know, for old time’s sake?”
“Is that why you are coming so willingly to your apparent death? Nostalgia?” He grabbed my hands and held them to his chest as he grinned. Yeah, he was capable of a lot of things, but killing me wasn’t one of them.
“I was curious.”
“Well, curious, let’s go inside where I promise I won’t kill you.” He led me to the door and we walked inside.
His hand was still around my waist as we breezed right past reception. The lady behind the counter looked up, gave him a smile of recognition and went back to whatever she’d been doing before. He clearly knew where he was going, strolling down the hall like he’d done it a million times before. And just before we reached the exit, the sad empty pool visible through the glass, he pointed to a door.
“Through there.”
I didn’t bother waiting for him to turn the knob, my hand twisting it as I took a breath and pushed the door open.
It was a function room, or at least that was what it had probably meant to be, the faded walls and carpet almost an identical shade of brown. It was filled with people, waiting around in lines that snaked up and down while their faces wore what was possibly worry or fear. At the far end was about six card tables, the kind you’d find in your grandmother’s basement that was brought up at Christmas time so the kids had somewhere to sit.
Only two of the six tables were occupied, a man and a woman both wearing business attire, busy in conversation with the people who were sitting opposite them.
I felt him behind me, his hands on my waist as he leaned in closer. “It’s a legal clinic. I started volunteering when I was in law school in the summers when I was home, but I stayed on after I graduated. Most people can’t get to the office during business hours so they rent out the conference room here. At the very least we can give them some advice and emergency intervention if needed, and then refer them to one of the clinic’s regular staff if they require more than that. Sometimes all they really need is help filling out forms.”
Wow, and I’d been worried he was a murderer.
Pretty sure he was at the opposite of that spectrum, and if anyone was the monster it was me.
“Alex, this is—” I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say, emotion getting stuck in my throat. “You’re amazing.”
He beamed, pleased by the adulation. “You might want to hold off on the praise. I brought you here with ulterior motives, we’ve been short staffed the last couple of weeks and I was hoping I might be able to sweet talk you into helping out. I promise I’ll feed you later.”
“Sweet talk me? I’d been ready to commit a class B felony in the parking lot and then willing to walk into my own demise. I’d say using the law to help the people who needed it most is not going to take any kind of convincing. How can I help?”
He snorted, my earlier suspicion revealed in its entirety. “Jesus, Maya. What the hell goes on in that head of yours? What class B felony?”
“Making meth, can we focus now?” I rolled my eyes, hiding the grin. “Where do you want me?”
We were greeted by a man who looked to be about forty, Alex handling the introduction. His name was Don, and when he found out I was there to help, you’d have thought he’d won the lottery, giving me some forms and showing me where I could set up.
Alex took the desk beside me, shooting me a wink as he sat down with his first client.
We worked together, side by side, tirelessly without saying a word to each other. And though it had only been a few hours, I’d discussed everything from unlawful evictions to custody disputes. It was nothing like I’d experienced at my firm earlier, my research work, while necessary, not as exciting as actually making a difference in someone’s life.
When it was time for the clinic to end, there was still a bunch of people who hadn’t been seen. Their protests not quelled by the promise that they could return next week. I guess for some of them next week was too long to wait.
I felt terrible, wishing there was something I could do as they were ushered outside. The lawyers were left alone in the room to process whatever paperwork they needed, the guilt of my fantastic life almost eating me up alive.
“It’s hard the first few times. Don has been doing this for years, man can be a hard-ass but even he’s struggled closing the doors a few times. I’ve even offered to stay back by myself in the hope of getting through everyone. But you can’t and it doesn’t help anyone if you end up burnt out.” Alex rubbed my back while my eyes stayed on the closed door. “Come on, I promised you dinner and I am becoming really terrible at delivering on my promise.”
“So we just go?” I asked, wondering how I could walk past the people who would no doubt still be in the hall.
His hand laced in mine
, it was oddly familiar and yet I couldn’t remember holding hands like that before. “Yeah, and then we come back next week. I know it might not feel like it but we made a difference tonight.”
“I want to come back,” I said with zero hesitation.
He squeezed my hand a little tighter. “I knew you would.”
Dinner ended up being tacos from a food truck and a couple of sodas. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I scarfed down my food like an animal. I didn’t even care how unattractive it might look, too focused on feeding my stomach.
When it was time to go home I was oddly disappointed. It was late and we both had to get up early the next day, but I just wasn’t ready for it to end.
“You want me to walk you up?” Alex asked, stopping in front of my apartment building.
I was tempted to say yes, and not because I was worried about walking around on my own. But I knew that would be selfish, and he was probably tired. “No, I’m fine. My landlord, Prim, has a pair of binoculars and sits by the window day and night, pretty sure she doesn’t sleep. If there was anything to worry about, she’d have already called the cops.”
“Prim sounds like my kind of lady.” He laughed.
“What, creepy with a tendency to spy on other people? She’s probably in her 50’s but has a rather fetching housecoat. I can introduce you if you’d like?”
He shivered, raising his brow in what was quickly becoming his signature move as he lowered his voice to a sexy rumble. “Baby, you had me at housecoat.”
Those words should not have been arousing. Sure, he’d called me baby, but it had been in jest and not as a tool in seduction. Yet for all my smarts and common sense, that one word vibrating between his lips was enough for me to press my thighs together.
I had waited too long.
Too long without having sexual contact and now I was in the danger zone. So desperate for it I was about to leap across the center console and rub myself against him like a cat.
Meow.
Jesus. I really needed to get out of the car.
“I should go.” My hand couldn’t work fast enough to open the door so I could eject myself from my seat. “Thanks so much for everything.”