Double Trouble

by Deborah Cooke

  0:-)

  Aunt Mary, who has evidently been sainted for her generous dispensation of kindly wisdom

  ***

  Uncertain? Confused? Ask Aunt Mary!

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  So, I can’t say that I was shocked when the elevator ground to life the following Friday and stopped at my floor. I mean, I invited the guy.

  I turned in my chair and watched while James stepped out of the elevator. He was suited up in fine style, looking impeccably European in a suit of greyed green wool. French cuffs on the cream shirt, small gold cufflinks and a brassy gold tie. His raincoat was a London Fog, painfully predictable, but nice enough. He was the power lawyer once more, in charge of his universe.

  He made me a bit nervous, reminded me of how he turned things to his advantage over and over again in the courtroom. I’d hoped for the jeans, as I felt more a part of the same universe when he dressed down. This look made me edgy, aware of all the dark tunnels to unknown destinations as well as the dead ends of the labyrinth.

  Somewhere, a minotaur bellowed.

  “You look expensive,” I ventured.

  He smiled fleetingly. “That was the point.”

  “How goes the hunt?”

  His gaze flicked to the screen, then back to me. “I need to talk to you. Got a minute?”

  It wasn’t an answer and it wasn’t why I’d hoped he’d come, but I nodded anyway. James came across the loft, not wasting any time on technicalities. He looked remarkably stressed, more so the closer he got. He sat down in my other office chair, balanced his elbows on his knees and took a good look at me. I looked back, striving to appear indifferent to his presence when every cell in my body was on full alert.

  I was, in case you’re interested, wearing a pair of old jeans that are the most comfortable things I own and a huge faded red sweatshirt that I had always loved and Neil had conveniently forgotten. Maybe because I had hidden it from him when he started packing. That man had no ability to hunt. In these days, it was holding together by will alone, because it had been washed so many times.

  And now I faced a consummate hunter, the very look of him making me salivate. There’s something to be said for being in a predator’s sights, at least for the adrenaline thrill of it. I wished that I had had the foresight to wear my little La Perla black lace underwire number, but no. I was swinging free.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  Typically, James didn’t mince words. “I’ve been offered a job, and I don’t know whether to take it.”

  “Money is always welcome.”

  “True enough.” That half-smile flickered and faded. James got to his feet and paced off the length of the loft. It was a lot of space and it took him a while, but not long enough that his restlessness eased. He looked, to my amazement, indecisive.

  “So, what kind of horrible job is this?”

  “It’s not the job.”

  “Crap pay?”

  “Nope. Pay’s fine.” He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and stared at the glass block windows. He must have been watching the patterns shift, because you sure couldn’t see out of them.

  “You’re worried about the boys?”

  “Some. I think I could telecommute a bit, but it would still be a change, even with your dad around.” We’d worked the details out mid-week, as my father was amenable to the idea and his doc liked it a lot. Dad was checking out of the place with the pastel walls tomorrow and James was taking the K to do the deed.

  Sadly, with boys, patient and driver, there was no left room for me. Boo hoo. You know that broke my heart, to miss out on the dirty, uh, duty, work.

  “Look. I don’t have all day to play twenty questions.” I got up and marched toward James. “I don’t even know why you’re here. Spit it out and let me get back to work.”

  “Ah, Maralys, always cutting to the chase.” James spoke with amusement. Then he looked at me hard. “I’m here because I don’t know what to do and I respect your advice.”

  “Damn, I thought you’d come for sex.”

  James laughed then. I was a bit disappointed that he thought it was just a joke. I didn’t look that bad.

  Did I?

  James smiled crookedly at me. “You’re good at taking things apart, Maralys, and evaluating the merit of each choice. That’s one of the things I love about you.”

  Love? Who the hell put the l-word on the agenda? I took a step back, but James was thinking and barely noticed.

  Love? Whoa, Nellie. Lookit those hives.

  Surely that was just a figure of speech?

  James’ smile turned rueful. “I’m not good at separating emotion from rationalization and this is a doozy.”

  I folded my arms across my chest to watch him. Love. Hmm. “Your father wants you to come back?”

  “Not a chance. Worse.”

  I gave him a skeptical look. “What could be worse than toiling for the Dark Side again?”

  “Come on.” James led me back to the chairs, his fingers light on my elbow. He claimed his chair again, then pursed his lips, linked his fingers and looked across the loft. He was going to get logical and legal on me. This was not a contact sport.

  Too bad.

  “You know that the reason my father didn’t want me as a partner any longer is that I am not biologically his son.”

  “Even though he raised you and treated you as his son for forty-two years,” I couldn’t help but comment. “We could do the genetics vs. environment argument here.”

  “We could but it’s not material. My father has decided. And I decided more or less simultaneously that I didn’t want to continue to work in such an environment. So, we’re done.”

  “Doesn’t he have to buy out your partnership?”

  “Well, yes. The price is still an issue, but our lawyers will work that out.”

  “You just breed work for each other, don’t you? It’s like a kind of self-fulfilling eco-system. Lawyers hiring lawyers to do lawyer-things to other lawyers.”

  “I’m not suing him.”

  “Is that a point of pride?”

  “I could.”

  “All right, so maybe you have a soul after all.”

  “Maybe?” James had that combative gleam in his eye and his tone turned harsh. “He wants to pay me virtually nothing for all my years of building the practice, all the years in which I was virtually his equal. You’re right, I could just stand aside and let him do that.”

  “But you’re not going to.”

  “Of course not. He’s not going to rip off me or my kids. I worked hard for that, we all made sacrifices and I won’t let him make it virtually worthless.” Then James shrugged and smiled. “It’s not as if I don’t know any good lawyers.”

  “I’ll bet you’ve found a good divorce lawyer.”

  “Mmm. Maybe.” James waved off the issue of Marcia as being immaterial - that cheered me enormously, though this love thing was still making me twitch. Surely it had just been a slip of the tongue?

  James leaned forward, focused on his own issue. Mind in the gutter here was thinking about where else tongues might slip. “The issue is this. Remember when you questioned the merit of my defending known criminals?”

  “And its value to society? Sure. So did Jimmy.”

  “Well, the opposite team wants me on board.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “The DA’s office.”

  I couldn’t understand why he didn’t look very pleased. “That’s great, isn’t it? You’ll be back in the courtroom, slicing dicing and making julienne fries out of witnesses, but doing it for the good guys this time.”

  “True.” James looked hard at me. “Except there’s a particular case that the DA wants me to win.”

  I sat back, suddenly seeing the issue. “Let me guess.”

  James nodded once, curtly. “The Laforini case.”

  “The one that your brother Matt is supposed to cut
his teeth on.” I watched James, seeing that this was a problem but not understanding exactly why. Sibling rivalry I could understand, but he was really torn up about this. “Don’t you think you can win the case?”

  He was impatient with the very suggestion. “Of course I can win it! The evidence is impeccable. The guy’s guilty and the cops did everything by the book. It’ll be a cinch to win.”

  I tilted my head to study him. “Would you have won if you defended him?”

  James grinned, his roguish expression making my heart skip. “Probably. It would have been tougher.”

  “But it’s all in how you present the information.”

  “It’s what I do, Maralys.”

  I could imagine. James had this edge and it wasn’t just charm or intelligence. His mind was agile and he could turn things in a heartbeat to appear to his own advantage. I’d seen it a thousand times. I respected it and admired his confidence in what he could do, but I was also wary of his ability.

  “I don’t know your brother Matt well,” I said. “What’s he like?”

  “He’s quiet. He’s a nice guy.” The implication of comparison was clear. I didn’t argue with him, because I knew what he meant. No one would ever call James a “nice guy”. Nice guys finish last, as they say, and last place wasn’t where anyone with a brain looked for James Coxwell.

  He pushed to his feet and walked, hands shoved in his pockets. “Matt’s done real estate law for years. It’s not glamorous but he likes it. He likes researching titles and finding out obscure trivia about the city. He’s been working on a history of Boston for years. He’s let me look at it once or twice, and it’s fascinating.”

  James made a gathering motion with his hands and there was admiration in his voice, as if his brother’s wonderful gift was an alien marvel. “Matt’s good at taking lots of little bits and discerning the overall pattern in them, pulling them together in a cohesive whole. His wife is a history professor, you know, and that have that ability in common.”

  “Why doesn’t your father take the case himself?”

  “Conflict of interest. He’s a judge and can’t directly represent people himself. He does, though, give copious advice. He’s intending to coach Matt through it, but it’s not what you say in the courtroom that counts…”

  I finished his thought. “…so much as how you say it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, Matt’s the next best option, but he doesn’t have your courtroom flair.”

  James shrugged. “He has no experience in the courtroom. I’m not sure he wants any experience in the courtroom. Matt’s not…” He gestured, seeking a word to describe the difference between them.

  “He’s a gatherer, not a hunter.”

  James turned to me with surprise. “Well, yes.”

  “And if you do this, you’re going to eat his lunch on his first day out there on the savannah.”

  James grimaced. “Someone is going to eat Matt’s lunch.” He sat down heavily and rubbed his brow. “What I’m worried about is how much worse it will be for him if it’s me.”

  “How so?”

  “My father always held me up as the example, he always measured Matt against me and itemized all the ways Matt failed. Matt didn’t fail. He’s different. We’re all different, but my father has never been interested in that.” James looked at me, his brow furrowed. “I don’t want to compound that experience with my choice here.”

  I gave him a moment. “Well, break out the quiche. Maybe you should host a men’s retreat, you know, where you can all play drums and indulge your inner tenderness.”

  “Don’t mock this, Maralys.” His expression was fierce. “It’s too important.”

  “And Matt can’t be a dope. He’s got to know that he’s going to lose.”

  James raised a brow, considering this, and listened.

  I tapped him on the knee. “He might not care.”

  “What? He has to care!”

  “You would care, but you said you’re different. The man couldn’t have survived forty years of being on the wrong side of compare-and-contrast if it really bothered him. He’d have run away from home ages ago.” I leaned closer. “Consider that Matt is probably used to slipping under your father’s radar, so to speak, nodding and mumbling, then disappearing to do whatever the heck he wants.”

  James smiled. “That’s Matt.”

  “He’s got to hate the scrutiny he’s under now. I’ll bet you that he’ll be relieved to get the loss behind him, so that he can get on with his life. Maybe he wants to lose a case, the bigger the better and do it PDQ. You’ve got another brother, haven’t you? Maybe Matt is looking forward to passing the torch down the line.”

  “You are not saying that it’s my duty as his older brother to facilitate this.” James was smiling outright now.

  “No. I’m saying that it’s really nice of you to worry about him, but that I don’t think it’s as big of an issue as you do.”

  He sobered, weighing my arguments as he obviously rolled through them one more time. “You might be right.”

  “In a pinch, you could actually ask Matt.”

  “I guess I could. You eaten yet?”

  It was just about one, though I hadn’t noticed. “No, why?”

  “Obviously because I’m going to buy you lunch as a gesture of gratitude for talking this through with me,” James said. He leaned down and I thought from the wicked look in his eyes that he meant to steal a kiss. I was thinking that would be just fine, but he spun my chair instead. “Let’s go. I suddenly have a craving for a piece of quiche.”

  I didn’t move. “Jeez, and here I was thinking we could celebrate by having wild sex instead.”

  James stopped cold. “Is that an invitation?”

  “Well, duh.” I got up and sauntered toward the elevator, making no secret of my disappointment as I found my coat. “You might be used to the monogrammed and embossed variety but…”

  I got no further than that. James snagged me from behind and scooped me up in his arms, swinging me high. He gave the futon - now neatly folded away - a scornful look, then met my gaze. “You’ve got to get a real bed.”

  I smiled and kicked my feet. “Convince me. Oh, and snag one of those little envelopes from the drawer. I think the yellow Day-Glo would match your tie.”

  “I wasn’t planning to wear my tie,” he growled. That was the last thing anyone said for a while.

  I’ve got to tell you that James Coxwell is one persuasive piece of work. His argument for a furniture upgrade was presented in a very compelling fashion and I was just about convinced…until we ended up in the shower some time later.

  Then he made a big mistake.

  Or I did. I’m still not sure.

  * * *

  Surely you’ve noticed that showers are awesome places to do the hokey pokey, and no I don’t mean the dance. It’s the water, the way it beads on muscles and makes everything slippery smooth, the warmth of it on your skin. It’s the sound of the water too - close your eyes and you’re in the rainforest, doing the wild thing in the wild.

  And I think it’s the creativity required, frankly. You have to think about sex in new and different ways - missionary position is not going to work without someone drowning in the process. Although that might turn on some people, I don’t tend to partner with them.

  So it was that I had my legs wrapped around James’ waist and was doing the shimmy on his electric-blue-clad-hardware (I made an I-Mac joke which was not appreciated, by the way) when the fateful moment came. And after that, came a really bad one.

  “I love you,” he whispered as we slumped against the cold tiles, still tangled up in each other.

  “What?” I braced my hands on his shoulders.

  He blinked. “I love you.”

  “Oh no, we are not going there.” I tried to struggle free but I was at somewhat of a disadvantage, in terms of making an escape. James immediately backed me further into the shower corner and grabbed my thighs so I couldn�
��t put my feet down.

  “Why is that a problem?” he demanded, still hot inside me, his eyes narrowing.

  “Because this is sex. Pure sex. Pure pleasure. No strings attached.”

  “It is not.”

  “It is so.”

  He grabbed my waist and lifted me up, then put me on my feet. His expression was grim as he retreated from the shower and he dried himself off roughly. “I don’t know where you come up with this garbage, Maralys,” he muttered. “Normal people make love because they’re in love or falling in love.”

  “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Maralys with the baby carriage,” I chanted. Goodness knows where that came from, but I felt like an idiot as soon as I said it.

  James gave me a look. “So, is this about love, marriage, pregnancy or all of the above?”

  “It’s about sex. We’re having sex because we like having sex with each other. Someday, one or both of us will change our mind about having sex with each other and we will stop having sex. As long as no one confuses sex with love, this will be a fairly painless transaction.”

  He was incredulous. “You don’t believe that?”

  “Yes, I do. It works.” I got out of the shower and dried myself off, feeling cheated of another whopper orgasm. “Trust me.”

  “Even though you don’t trust me.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t trust me. That’s what the issue is here.” James glared at me, then marched out to the loft.

  How could I trust him? Did he have any idea what he was asking of me?

  I padded after him, and found him dressing with record speed. “You’re leaving,” I said, making a brilliant deduction.

  “Well duh.” James was really angry. He knotted that tie with a vengeance, his gaze boring into mine. “I don’t have just sex, Maralys. I’m not going to have a secret affair and I’m not going to court a woman in front of my sons unless there’s a good chance that she’ll be around for the duration.”

  “There are no guarantees.”

  “No, but if we have mutually exclusive conditions, there’s no point in even beginning something. I always thought that you were waiting for the right relationship. I guess I was wrong.”