by A. J. Thomas
He scribbled a quick note to thank Angelica for arranging this meeting. Not only could Sean’s case give him a chance to step into the courtroom and prove he was a capable attorney, it would give him an opportunity to make damn sure the poor guy didn’t have to rely on Medicaid and disability payments for the rest of his life. The only thing that could impress the senior partners at his father’s firm were dollar signs, and this case certainly had the potential to produce quite a few of those.
“But he hasn’t signed nothing yet,” Hawk continued. “He’s drugged up, but no matter what the CPG assholes think, the drugs haven’t made him act stupid. Do you think you can help him?”
“I believe I can help him recover enough to compensate him for what he’s suffered, yes. We’ll have to file a complaint immediately. That’s the official document that initiates a lawsuit. It’ll allow us to start investigating through formal discovery.”
“Formal what?”
“The discovery process is how parties exchange evidence and documents before trial. Once we file suit, they are legally required to disclose all of their own investigative documents, along with any other evidence in their possession, so we can prepare for trial. I have a feeling they’ve completed their own investigation and are well aware they’re liable in this case, so they might be as eager to negotiate a real settlement as they are to offer a paltry one.”
“It’s just, the man I spoke with this morning said the settlement they offered was more than he’d ever get from worker’s comp, so….” Hawk shrugged again.
“How much did they offer?”
“Five hundred thousand,” Hawk whispered. “It seems stupid to turn it down, but between his medical bills and his student loans, it’s not enough. It would cover the debt, but then it’d leave him broke.”
“I know the amount seems generous, but if CPG is willing to settle, it means they know they’re liable. And if they’re liable, they should compensate Sean for everything he’s lost. Ideally that would include the salary he would have earned over the next twenty to thirty years as a petroleum engineer. I don’t have solid numbers, but I expect he would have earned well over that amount.”
“But that Tillman guy….”
“Mr. Tillman just came off a difficult trial, and he’s suddenly had his own workload increase quite a bit,” Nate said smugly. “This case is going to require a lot of investigation and research, and even then it’s going to hinge on a legal definition that’s a bit flexible. Paul Tillman could probably pawn it off on the rest of the firm, but he asked for a ten-thousand-dollar retainer because he doesn’t want the case.”
Hawk stared at him for a moment, then glanced toward the bed. “What do you need from us?”
“A signed retainer agreement, release forms so I can get copies of Sean’s medical records, and any employment records he’s got,” Nate said, his pen flying across the paper as he tried to record everything. “Along with estimates from the hospital billing department, and the surgeons, for how much his care is likely to cost in the future. They’ll put together a treatment plan to help him recover as much as he can, and we’ll be able to put together estimates for those too, and future medical bills if there should be more complications. In the meantime, I can get details on the accident from CPG and find out if there is anyone else who could be liable for Sean’s injuries. Did they produce an accident report?”
“They said they’d give Sean a copy of it after he signed their release thing.”
Nate smiled bitterly. “Of course they did. I’ll get a copy of all the documentation they produced, but I’ll need to file the complaint to do it, and I’ll need the retainer agreement before I can do that.”
Hawk shifted nervously. “How much do you need for a retainer? I don’t have ten grand lying around.”
Nate waved his hand in the air dismissively. “The retainer agreement is just what it sounds like. It’s a contract to confirm Sean has retained my services as his representative. He doesn’t have to pay me anything up front. A fifteen-percent contingent fee plus expenses is the norm, and I’m willing to proceed on those terms. Of course, if we go to trial and lose, he will have to reimburse me for filing fees and such.”
“And how much is that going to cost?”
“The filing fee is $287,” Nate said without hesitating. When Hawk gaped at him, Nate smirked. “The amount is set by the State of Texas, so I can’t do anything about that.”
“Are you saying he wouldn’t have to pay you unless you win? Except for the fee?”
“Yes.” Nate saw the hesitation, the skepticism, and smiled. “Look, I’ll leave a contract with you along with my card. Take some time to talk it over with him between medication doses, when he’s thinking clearly. It’s not a simple case, and reaching a settlement or getting a judgment in his favor won’t be a quick process. It’s important he understand that going in. Plus, he should understand going to trial isn’t his best option. I can try to negotiate a much better settlement instead. That would mean he’d likely see less money, but he’d get it sooner. With a settlement, we’re talking about at least six months. It’ll probably be closer to one to three years if we go to trial. There are a lot of factors to consider, and he’s got time to think them over.”
Hawk took the contract and carried it over to the bed. “Kid?”
Sean struggled to open his eyes. “He’s cute, he knows his shit, and he knows good music—what’s not to love? Where do I sign?”
Chapter 2
BEING ABLE to rest his full weight on his right leg was a painful milestone. It took Sean six weeks of physical therapy after his orthopedic surgeon said the cast could come off, but it was worth it. The forty seconds he’d managed to stay upright before his leg buckled had been the closest he’d come to being happy since that horrific day four months ago. He’d felt pathetic after his therapist had to help him back up, but she had insisted Sean was making amazing progress.
And he was. The first few therapy sessions had been grueling—he’d been so weak he couldn’t even transfer himself out of the wheelchair on his own—but he’d pushed his body as hard as he could. After each session he returned to the shop too tired to do anything but take a couple of painkillers and pass out, but he was getting stronger. If he kept building his strength, his therapist had promised to clear him to meet with a prosthetist soon.
“You did good today, kid,” Hawk said after Sean was settled in the passenger seat with a sketchbook in hand. He stared until Sean buckled his seat belt, then started the Jeep and pulled away from the clinic.
“It doesn’t feel like it,” he muttered before flipping the sketchbook open to the newest design he was contemplating. The shades of blue, green, gray, and tan on the page created ripples on the surface of a calm sea, with empty patches interspersed to mimic reflected light. The sailboat in the center was still a rough pencil sketch, but he was already tempted to give up and move on to something else.
“I thought you were working on the compass rose thing?”
He turned back to the compass rose he’d drawn in brass, copper, silver, and gray. Around it a jagged, shadowed line made it look like the flesh-toned surface was flaking away to reveal the compass beneath. He wished he had some sense of what direction he was headed in, some idea of who he was supposed to be now, anything that would make the tattoo fit him.
“It didn’t feel right.”
“It’d look great,” Hawk assured him. “I can do it true to the design. I know 3-D effects are your thing, usually, but I can do them just fine. Or Tonya can do them—you know her work is tight.”
“I know it’d look good, that’s not the problem. It’s just, it’s a compass. I don’t really know where I’m supposed to go from here. I thought, you know, finding direction beneath the flesh was kind of cool symbolism, but… there’s nowhere to go anymore.”
Hawk turned Sean’s Jeep toward the southbound ramp for the Gulf Freeway. “It’ll take time, Sean. But for now, in terms of places to go, you do actuall
y need to go meet with your attorney and those company guys.”
Sean flipped through the sketchbook to some of the drawings he’d done in the hospital. When he should have just drawn faceless bodies or headless torsos to get a feel for potential tattoo positions, he’d sketched Nate Delany instead. His short, perfectly styled black hair made his crisp blue eyes stand out, giving him a piercing look that Sean could easily imagine Nate using to his advantage in court. The immaculate suit that he remembered Nate wearing in the hospital had made him look slender, but what Nate lacked in bulk, he’d seemed to make up for in sheer presence. Sean had tried to capture that, but his initial quick sketches of a gorgeous statue in a forbidding posture had quickly given way to drawings born of his own imagination, and he’d ended up with dozens of versions of Nate wearing nothing but bare skin and ink.
Sean swallowed as his eyes traced one of the sketches. “Can’t you meet with him?”
“It’s your case, Sean. Besides, it’s been two months and you’ve canceled six times. Delany even offered to buy lunch.”
“Which will ultimately come out of any money he manages to win for me.”
“That why you don’t want to meet with him? The money?”
“No. I’m totally willing to meet him again,” he lied. “There just hasn’t been a good time. I’ll call him tomorrow and reschedule.”
“No you won’t.”
“Give me a little credit. I know I need to meet with him, and I will.”
“I mean you don’t have to reschedule. He’s going to meet us at the shop.” Hawk pulled off the highway and covered the few blocks to the studio quickly.
Sean stared at the city passing by around them, resisting the urge to snap. He was too tired to argue. “I emailed him a written statement already. I don’t see why he can’t just email me shit.”
“I don’t see why you’re so determined to avoid him. Sean, if you don’t tell me what the problem is, I can’t help.”
Sean glared at him. “You really don’t want to know.”
“Nope. You just don’t want to tell me.”
“He’s hot,” Sean muttered, closing his sketchbook. “That day in the hospital is hazy, but I’m pretty sure I said something to that effect when we first met. I’ve embarrassed myself enough in front of him.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. That’s what you’re freaked out about? He didn’t seem to mind. In fact, I suspect he might share your inclinations.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He stared at all that remained of his left leg. The awkward way the denim fell was disturbing enough; no one should have to see the scar tissue beneath the fabric. “Even if he is gay or bi, I’m definitely not his type. Plus, I’m….” He gestured at his legs hopelessly. He’d come up with all too many ways to describe himself since he was released from the hospital. He’d never been a big guy, but the muscle he’d taken for granted throughout college had withered as he was stuck in his hospital bed. “I think I have more scar tissue than skin, and I’m….” He was broken, although he couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.
He was grateful that his lover aboard the Republic Sea hadn’t come to the hospital, that he hadn’t seen Sean like this. The first few days after he woke up in the ICU, all he’d wanted was to see Bruce Lancaster walk into his room, flashing the charming smile Bruce seemed to save just for him, but after enough of the bandages came off, that wish had crumbled.
He didn’t want anyone to see the extent of his injuries. Not Bruce, not a random sexy attorney, not even Hawk. But the morphine had all but erased the inhibitions that normally kept him quiet and polite, and he’d come on to his would-be lawyer right there in the hospital. Mortified, he’d canceled one meeting after another, using his exhaustion and pain as an excuse.
“Whichever way he swings, you’ve got to talk to him about what’s going on with your case.”
Hawk pulled into the parking lot of the shopping center where Hawk’s Tattoos was nestled between a seasonal tax service and a Chinese restaurant. An expensive-looking sedan was parked right in front of the shop, next to Hawk’s bike, and Nate Delany was leaning against the front fender. His suit this time around was a dark navy blue that seemed to shimmer, and Sean was surprised to realize he hadn’t exaggerated the man’s beauty in any of his sketches. His dark hair was sleek and a bit longer that Sean remembered, but his eyes were the same sky blue that had provided so much distraction while he was in the hospital. If anything, Sean hadn’t quite done the real Nate Delany justice.
“I know,” he said, shoving his pencil into the wire binding of his sketchbook before he gave in to the temptation to draw the man from life.
Hawk pulled into the handicap parking spot with the access aisle and grabbed Sean’s wheelchair. He set it down beside the passenger door and then stepped back, letting Sean manage on his own.
“Thanks,” Sean said, grateful that Hawk had stopped trying to get him in and out of the car. He might not be able to drive himself, but he’d mastered transferring himself in and out of the damn wheelchair as quickly as possible, doing extra pull-ups and dips to rebuild his upper-body strength. It had meant ending each therapy session and workout with his entire body aching, rather than just his legs, but the pain was worth it.
When he rolled around the Jeep to the ramp, Nate greeted him with a huge smile. “Hello, Mr. Wilkinson. I know you’ve got a lot going on with physical therapy and such, so I thought I’d make this as easy as possible and just come to you.”
“Mr. Delany.” Sean nodded.
Another man, with a familiar head of blond hair he hadn’t seen in months, jogged up to them. Cory Alden had been aboard the Republic Sea with him through each summer internship and those three fateful days when he was a regular employee. He wasn’t much older than Sean himself, so they’d had more in common with each other than Sean had with the rest of the crew. They’d been friends until Sean had become so distracted by Bruce that he hadn’t managed to pay much attention to anything else. Unlike Nate Delany, Cory was dressed in blue jeans and a polo shirt with the CPG logo embroidered on the short sleeve. “Hey, Sean.”
Sean caught himself returning Cory’s bright smile. “Hey! What are you doing here? Not under way?”
Cory shook his head quickly. “Nah. Headquarters has us sitting at the dock in Galveston, waiting on inspections and trial stuff. It was great timing, though, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been there when Mr. Delany came by to talk to the crew. I followed him hoping for a chance to talk to you, to see how you’re holding up. And, well, to see if I might be able to help you out.”
“I’m okay,” Sean lied. “Good as I can be, considering.”
“You’re alive,” Cory said, as if that somehow made up for everything else. “But I figured this had to be the wrong place. I thought you lived with your folks? Do you work here or something?” he asked, gesturing to the glass storefront. Every available spot in the window was covered with pictures of tattoos, from photographs of their actual work to illustrations of the shop’s flash offerings. A glowing neon TATTOOS sign hung in the window, and they’d pasted up more pictures around the letters.
“You know Sean from the boat?” Hawk asked from behind the wheelchair.
“This is my home,” Sean tried to explain. “And that’s my cue to be polite and introduce you, isn’t it?” he asked, glancing up at Hawk with a grin. “Cory, this is Hawk, he owns the place. Hawk, this is Cory Alden. Cory and I worked together before everything fell apart.”
“Just Hawk? That’s an interesting name,” Cory said, shaking his hand.
Hawk shrugged. “Why don’t y’all come inside? There’s always coffee.”
Nate grabbed some manila files from the hood of his car and tucked them under his arm. “Lead the way.”
Once they were in the front of the shop, Nate and Cory sitting on the faded thrift-store couch that lined one wall, Sean forced himself to smile. “I suppose there’s no putting this off now, huh? I’m surprised you talked to folks on
the crew—they’re not the easiest guys to get ahold of.”
Nate’s smile twitched. It was just a slight flicker, but enough to make Sean curious. To his credit, Nate recovered quickly, his smile brighter than ever. “I’m a patient man, and although most of them weren’t eager to chat at the port, Mr. Alden here has been very helpful in piecing together the events leading up to your accident. I thought between the three of us, we might be able to sort through some issues, if you’re okay with that?”
“Sure, it’s fine.”
He opened one of the half-dozen folders he’d brought with him and paged through a jumble of loose papers.
“I wrote down everything that happened. What’s left to piece together?”
“Why the bow thrusters on the boat failed, for one,” Nate said, not looking up from the pages. “Why you tried to disconnect the hose and cables from the wellhead when there was an emergency release aboard the boat. Lots of stuff.”
“I’ve got no clue about the thrusters. But I tried to disconnect the hose assembly because Bruce told me to.”
“Bruce Lancaster, your boss?” Nate asked.
“Yes,” Sean managed through gritted teeth. “My boss.”
On the couch, Cory dropped his gaze to the floor. He’d known about Sean and Bruce—it was hard not to, since Sean had moved into Bruce’s stateroom by the end of his first summer internship—but he’d always been decent about it.
“You okay?” Nate asked, glancing at where Sean had wrapped his fingers around the wheelchair armrests. “Are you hurting?”
He was holding on so tight his knuckles were white. “I always hurt,” he admitted. “The doctors have said I can take damn near anything to help with the pain, but I don’t like the way a lot of it messes with my head. I’m still adjusting, that’s all.”
Nate’s smile became softer, and Sean fixed his gaze on the cracked tile floor, not wanting to see the pity in his eyes.
“I can’t imagine it’s an easy thing to get used to.”