by A. J. Thomas
“I’m sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting to see anybody from the ship today, and after what Alden said, seeing Bruce caught me off guard.”
Nate wanted to say it was fine, to reassure him, but he was still too pissed at Harrison, Poole, and Gilman to manage anything reassuring. “That was the point. They brought him here to ambush you.”
Sean snorted. “They brought him here to try. They succeeded because I’m not quite as good at pulling off that whole emotionless-expression thing as you.”
Nate sighed and felt his anger ebb. “You didn’t call him an asshole and storm out, so you’re doing better than me.”
“Yeah, well, you can get away with it. If I tried that shit, they’d call security and kick me out.”
Nate glanced down at Sean, relieved to see that he didn’t look upset. If anything, he looked relieved. Nate’s gaze settled on the drawing in Sean’s lap, a larger version of the red-and-white nautilus shell he’d drawn on a body that looked exactly like Nate’s. The ornately drawn shell filled the entire page, with shading and depth that made it look as though he could reach out and touch it.
“It’s funny,” Nate said, forcing himself to smile. “I’ve spent the last four weeks talking to people about you. They all think they know you pretty well, but they might as well be describing a dozen different people. I’m not sure any of them, including Bruce Lancaster, actually know a damn thing about you.”
Sean seemed to consider his words and shrugged. “There’s not much to know. Not much that’s fit to talk about, at any rate.”
“What’s your favorite song?” Nate asked.
Sean laughed and looked at Nate as if he’d asked him to try to will his leg to grow back. “I can’t pick one song.”
“Favorite band, then?”
The incredulous look on Sean’s face didn’t change.
“How about your own personal top ten?”
That brought a smile to his face, at least. “It’s still a hard question. I like older heavy metal, classic stuff like Metallica and Iron Maiden, plus newer metal like Slipknot’s good. I like a lot of rock, obviously,” he said, smoothing out the T-shirt he’d mangled under Bruce’s scrutiny. He rattled off the names of a dozen more bands, mentioning some of his favorite songs and some he wasn’t crazy about. “I like good music, that’s all. There are even a few country artists I listen to.”
“Just a few? In Texas?”
“Well, I do know every Johnny Cash song, including all the covers he performed,” Sean went on. “But that’s because Hawk owns all of them on vinyl and CD. Why does it matter?”
“Because I asked your shipmates about it. I’m obsessed with music, so I always ask about it. I figured a kid who grew up in a tattoo parlor and was into heavy metal might not fit in too well with a bunch of old roughnecks. It turns out that they all had a different answer. One swore you only listened to country, one said you were too stuck up and stiff to listen to music, and Bruce Lancaster and Cory Alden both said you only listen to classical. None of them know you’re a tattoo artist, either. Not one. Lancaster said you like to draw and you were still into comic books. I asked them about your family, and all of them think you live with two loving parents up in The Woodlands.”
“I never told them the truth,” Sean said, as if that explained everything. “I’ve got no clue why they assumed anything about where I live, but I never said anything specific.”
“You lied to them?”
“I….” Sean seemed to consider the question. “Yeah, I did. This might come as a bit of a shock to you, but it’s actually kind of hard to relate to people who haven’t had the same life experiences you have. The first thing college taught me was that kids who had grown up in places like The Woodlands and got spending money from their mom and dad each month would never, ever be able to understand… me.” He twirled the pencil in his hands, his eyes narrowed. “It took me years in high school to analyze all of the assumptions that were behind the things people in my classes talked about, and once I got it, I could finally communicate effectively with them. But when they found out I was different, they stopped trying to communicate with me. I used college as a blank slate, a chance to experiment with mirroring others’ behavior so I could try to fit in. It was nice. College is transitory, but work… that was supposed to last decades, and I didn’t want it to suck.”
“Different communication styles between different socioeconomic levels, you mean?”
Sean nodded with a tired grin. “Pretty much. I knew when I accepted the CPG internship that if I wanted a full-time job with them, I’d have to make a good impression. And there is no way a kid who grew up in a tattoo studio in south Houston and listens to heavy metal is going to make a good impression on a conservative boss who hates tattoos and doesn’t listen to anything but classical music. It wasn’t hard to mirror the communication styles of my classmates, so I did the same thing with Bruce and the crew. I let them come to their own conclusions about my life, but it didn’t hurt anybody.”
“You ever consider that lying about who you are might have hurt you?” Nate asked, even though he wasn’t quite sure why.
“No. Absolutely not. What hurts is being sixteen and having everybody in class talking about how they celebrated Christmas with their families. I slipped up and told them the truth about my holidays, and it sucked. Telling people the truth makes them uncomfortable. Then they don’t know how to deal with their own discomfort, and they can’t imagine any way to respond that will make them feel as if they’ve made me feel better, so they just withdraw from every interaction with me altogether. Granted, sometimes I push people just to see what it takes to make them uncomfortable, but only when I don’t need to rely on their opinions of me.” Sean smirked at him. “Or when I’m bored.”
Nate stared at him, trying to reconcile the cute man in the rock-band T-shirt with the complicated explanation he’d just given. Sean’s own demeanor made it easy to forget that Sean had completed high school and college on his own while working full-time—and apparently while subjecting the rest of the world to a complicated sociological analysis more appropriate to a PhD candidate than a kid. Nate had managed grades similar to Sean’s during college, but the only thing his parents had expected him to do was focus on studying, and even then he didn’t think he could have handled the hard science and math classes Sean had breezed through.
The look Sean was giving him was challenging, but also amused. “You’ve been honest with me,” Nate said, confident only because everything Sean had personally said to him corresponded with what he’d learned from Hawk.
“The truth is what bugs people. I wanted to see what it would take to bug you.”
“Should I feel flattered by that?”
Sean shrugged. “Most folks aren’t flattered when they learn that someone just wants to mess with them. Normally I don’t do it. Letting people make up their own happy lies is easier all around.”
“I’ll admit, sometimes people are callous and don’t know how to talk to people who’ve lived different lives. That’s fair. But you shouldn’t have to lie about your own background and interests to make other people feel comfortable.”
“What difference does it make?”
“What difference?” he asked, flabbergasted. “You didn’t even tell the truth to the people you were close to. Like Bruce. You were together, weren’t you? And he doesn’t know the first thing about you. He hates the two things you seem to love—tattoos and heavy metal. He talks about your art like it’s garbage, even though it’s how you supported yourself through college. Has he ever even seen your drawings?”
Sean’s gaze dropped to his sketchbook again. “He never wanted to.”
“We need to talk about this,” Nate said, as delicately as he could. “I need to know exactly what happened between the two of you. Because right now they are using whatever happened with you two to try to manipulate you.”
Sean nodded, apparently agreeing with Nate. There was a hint of a smile on his f
ace, though. “I don’t think they were expecting you to call him an asshole. That was interesting, if nothing else.”
“Well, I’m glad I could surprise you. Do you want to head back to the shop?” he asked, nodding at Sean’s Jeep. When Sean shrugged indifferently, Nate smiled. “Come on, let’s go for a walk and—” He stopped and slapped himself in the forehead. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…. I’m just sorry.”
Sean chuckled. “They didn’t reprogram my brain to avoid normal figures of speech when they gave me the wheelchair. We can go for a walk.”
Nate sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I guess I should have just asked, huh?”
“It’s fine.”
“Okay. How about we get some tacos and you can tell me the whole story?” Nate suggested, heading down the sidewalk.
After a moment, Sean sped up to join him. “How about we trade stories instead?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll tell you about Bruce, if you tell me why you let me think you were working with Mercer, Delany, and Goodman. And how you got fired.”
Rather than being accusatory or hurt, the expression on Sean’s face was playfully confident and endearing. Nate had received a few photographs of Sean that CPG had in their possession, including the photo used for his company ID, and a couple of candid pictures from the ship showing Sean smiling and happy. Nate had spent more time than was appropriate staring at those pictures, wishing he could see that smile in real life. This wasn’t quite there, but it was close.
“What’s that look for?” Sean asked.
“I will tell you anything you want to know. But I don’t recall ever saying I was with Mercer, Delany, and Goodman. There’s a ‘Tillman’ on the end now too,” he added.
Beside him, Sean chuckled. “Fair point. You never actually said you were working with them. But when Hawk asked, you avoided the question. You introduced yourself instead, knowing that anybody with a grain of intelligence would hear your last name and presume you were the Delany in the firm’s name.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “I suppose we had a miscommunication, then.”
Sean rolled his eyes. “No, we didn’t. A miscommunication is what happens when someone understands something differently than you intended. In this case, I think you communicated exactly what you intended to.”
Nate couldn’t help but laugh. Dealing with Sean was definitely going to keep him on his toes. “You’re absolutely….” He stopped himself from blurting out the word beautiful because it would be creepy and awkward. “You’re right. But my story for yours, right? We’ve got a deal?”
“We do.”
“Okay. The Delany in Mercer, Delany, and Goodman is my dad. I just started my own practice. Your case was my first, though I’ve got a few other clients now. I worked for his firm for two years, but I left. I was not fired.”
“So your dad, like, owns the law firm?”
“He was a founding partner,” Nate clarified.
“Why would you quit? And did you really quit? Because that Harrison guy left me a voicemail warning me that you’d been fired.”
Nate noted the Harris County Offices on the next block up and tried to remember what restaurants were nearby. “Do you enjoy spicy food? We’re not far from Market Square, and there’s a place there that has the best duck gumbo I’ve ever eaten.” It also had plenty of indoor seating, so it would be less awkward than asking Sean if he wanted something from a food truck.
“Duck?” Sean looked nervous. “People eat duck?”
“It’s really good,” Nate promised. “Come on, I’ll buy you lunch and we can get out of the heat for a bit.”
Treebeards was only open for lunch, and it offered a menu of Southern and Cajun comfort food that could have rivaled anything served in New Orleans. He seldom had a chance to enjoy it, though, because his dad’s firm was on the far side of the downtown business district. Nate had forgotten that the restaurant was a cafeteria-style place. Even though it was technically accessible, he didn’t see how someone in a wheelchair could actually order.
“Do you want your own tray?” he asked uncertainly. “Or would it be all right for me to put everything on mine?”
“I… if you wouldn’t mind carrying mine, that’d be cool.”
Despite his skepticism, Sean actually ordered the duck gumbo. It was cool enough to eat by the time they got to the table, and his eyes lit up at the first bite. Nate found himself staring as Sean licked his lips, catching a drop of thick roux that trickled down toward his chin.
Catching his gaze, Sean smiled. “If you’re fighting the urge to chant ‘I told you so’ over and over again, you don’t need to bother. I admit, it’s really good.”
Nate swallowed hard, forcing his imagination away from musings about what Sean’s lips would feel like against his own. “You should try the sausage jambalaya sometime.”
“If spicy food is your thing, you’ve got to try the ginger pork at the Chinese place next to the studio,” Sean said with an amused grin. “But first, you were going to tell me why you misrepresented who you worked for.”
“I’m never going to be able to get anything past you, am I?”
“I hope not.”
“Okay. I went to work for my dad’s firm right after law school,” he began. He took his time describing the long hours he’d put in, the way the firm was structured to train and promote new associates, and how he’d ended up essentially doing all of Tillman’s work for him. He couldn’t go into details about the case he’d helped Tillman win, but he told Sean enough to convey just how much work had been involved. “The day after the verdict came back, I was expecting to finally move up to handling my own cases rather than being a glorified assistant. Instead I was called into my dad’s office and lectured about the impropriety of taking credit for another person’s work. Tillman had talked to him first, trying to cover his own ass, and made me out to look like some kind of entitled slacker who was trying to use my connection to the firm to skate by. So I quit. That was the same day Hawk met with Tillman, and something about your case made Angelica want to help you. She thought I might be able to help, so she gave me Hawk’s number.”
“Do you not get along with your dad?”
“My dad’s a great man,” Nate said. “But he’s more concerned about appearing to be a great man than he is about being my dad. He believed Tillman. I put in sixty to eighty hours a week for two years trying to show I was willing to work hard for them, but it became quite clear that no matter what I did, I wouldn’t be able to escape the whole ‘senior partner’s son’ stigma.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? Why didn’t you tell the rest of the firm what he was doing?”
“I did. The only person who believed me was Angelica, and that was because she was there watching me write all of my boss’s briefs and motions until two in the morning. Either way, he didn’t want your case, probably because Hawk doesn’t look like the type of client he’s proud to stand beside in court, so he demanded a huge retainer instead of working on a contingent fee.”
“So… this is kind of your first case?”
“I did twenty-seven tort cases in my own internship, including two that went to trial. I won both. I’ve done everything but oral arguments in dozens of cases for Mercer, Delany, and Goodman over the last two years. And how much experience I have isn’t going to be the deciding factor in your case. Whether or not you’re considered a seaman under the Jones Act is really all that matters.”
Sean cocked his head to the side. “He didn’t believe you? Your dad?”
“No, he didn’t. He didn’t see anything I did as an intern, and he wouldn’t work with me. He wouldn’t even read the briefs I wrote, all because he had to be impartial. If I had ever gotten any time in the courtroom, he might have believed me, but Tillman made sure that didn’t happen.”
“Will he see you do this?” Sean asked.
Nate shook his head. “I doubt it. I haven’t seen him since I quit. He called a coup
le of times right after I left, but I didn’t trust myself not to say something horrible, so I didn’t answer. But I promise you, I’m damn good at this.”
“I already figured that out. Your dad’s firm wasn’t the first Hawk went to. But you were the only one who actually seemed to know anything about the law. Everyone else said they’d have to do some research and wanted a retainer before they’d get started. When I was sober enough to use my phone without getting the numbers mixed up, I called a couple of them back and asked about that Jones Act thing you mentioned. One of them didn’t know what it was, but pretended he did, and the other one said it only applied to people who work for merchant marine companies.”
Nate shook his head quickly. “That is absolute bullshit. It was a full-time position assigned to a commercial vessel, and your job contributed to the performance of the vessel’s mission. That’s all the Jones Act requires. ‘A commercial vessel’ doesn’t mean that it has to be involved in shipping, just that it’s not a Navy or Coast Guard vessel. It applies to fishing boats, for Christ’s sake. But to be fair, Angelica told me a bit about your case before I went to the hospital, so I reviewed every applicable law you might recover under.”
“I figured, which is why I decided to trust you. I was mostly curious about why you didn’t admit you were working on your own.”
He shrugged. “After two years of having everybody doubt me, I guess it’s what I’ve come to expect. So, your turn.”
Sean sat back, his gaze roving from the empty bowl in front of him and around the restaurant as if he was desperate for a distraction. “I agreed, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Fine. Bruce and I were sleeping together.”
Nate stared at Sean, waiting for him to elaborate. After a few quiet, awkward moments, it became clear he wasn’t going to add anything if Nate didn’t prod him. “I need to know how your relationship started, what it consisted of, that sort of thing.”