by Erin Lyon
“Good. I’d love to see him get the smack-down.”
Judge Warner entered and immediately started going through his calendar. There was one other motion to compel ahead of ours, but the issue wasn’t nearly as black and white and the judge ordered the information be produced. My stomach started to twist into knots a little, like it did every time I was about to be in front of a judge. Do all attorneys feel this way, or does it eventually become old hat? I’m kinda thinking I’m always going to want to yack when I first start to speak.
Our matter was next, so Elvira—I mean Beatrice—and I headed up to the table.
“Good afternoon, Your Honor. Kate Shaw for Beatrice Adams.”
I glanced down the table and the elderly attorney was no longer blocking James Harris. Now I seriously felt like I was going to be sick, but not from nerves anymore. This isn’t happening.
“Gregory Lancaster for James Harris, Your Honor.”
James looked over at me and stared a minute before recognition dawned. Then he smiled and gave me a little wave. Unlike Matt in the orange jumpsuit, James was well dressed and had held up well over the years. I dated him in high school. Briefly. Have I mentioned that I didn’t date that much? How is it possible that I keep running into ex-boyfriends in court when there really aren’t that many of them? There aren’t. Honestly.
Can you die of embarrassment? I think I might be about to test that theory. My face felt like it was on fire, so I can only guess what shade of red it was.
“Ms. Shaw?”
“Yes, Your Honor?”
No efforts at hiding his amusement today. “Are you acquainted with Mr. Harris?”
“Yes, Your Honor. A very long time ago.”
“I take it you did not realize he was the opposing party?”
“I did not, Your Honor.”
“Ms. Adams, are you okay proceeding?”
Beatrice looked at me, confused. I leaned in to her and whispered, “I know James from high school. We dated. The judge wants to know if you feel there’s a conflict.”
Beatrice let out a sharp bark of laughter before whispering back, “Is there a conflict?”
“None.”
“As long as you’re on my side, I’m good.”
“I am one hundred percent on your side.”
Beatrice smiled. “Sounds like he was an asshole back in high school, too.”
“Yep. He was.”
“Alright then. Let’s kick his ass.”
“Your Honor,” I continued, “Ms. Adams does not feel there is any conflict.”
“Okay. Let’s proceed. Mr. Lancaster, your motion.”
Lancaster basically laid out the same weak argument he’d made in his moving papers.
Judge Warner cut him off. “Mr. Lancaster, I have read your motion. Do you have anything to say beyond simply reading your argument to me?”
“Just that during their seven-year contract, partnership resources went into supporting Ms. Adams’s business, and that entitles Mr. Harris to some interest in that business.”
“As you stated in your motion,” Judge Warner snapped. Luckily, I’d gotten the very good “don’t just rehash your motion to the judge—assume they’ve read it” advice and had taken it to heart. “Thank you, Mr. Lancaster.”
“Ms. Shaw, is the matter submitted?” The other great advice I’d received is that when a judge doesn’t give you a chance to argue and just asks if the matter is submitted, you’re winning and you should shut up.
“Submitted, Your Honor.”
“Very well. The motion is denied.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said. “And, Your Honor, we included a request for monetary sanctions in the amount of attorneys’ fees in our opposition?”
Judge Warner flipped through his file. “Attorneys’ fees in the amount of three thousand four hundred seventy-two dollars are awarded to Ms. Adams.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said again.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Lancaster said, sounding significantly less happy saying it than I did.
I picked up my file and satchel and Beatrice and I headed out of the courtroom. Once we were outside, she turned to me, wide-eyed.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw James and his attorney walking out of the courtroom. I put a finger to my lips to get Beatrice to hold her comments till they had passed us.
Not surprisingly, James was not smiling when he looked at me this time. As he started past me, he said, “So nice to see you again, Kate.” Pretty sure I detected a note of sarcasm.
“You, too.”
He stopped in front of me with his arms folded across his chest. He did a quick up-and-down glance at me that I’m pretty sure I was supposed to notice. “So, sweet little Kate Shaw ended up as a bloodsucking lawyer, huh?”
I did my best to hide my surprise at the remark, since I knew that was his goal. “Well, I just wanted a job where I get to stand up to bullies and assholes, you know?”
He chuckled. “Okay, maybe not so sweet anymore.” As he turned to leave, he added, “Looking good, Shaw.”
“Good-bye, James,” I said, in my best none-too-friendly tone.
Once they had disappeared down the stairs, I smiled at Beatrice.
“That was awesome!” she said in a loud whisper.
“It was. We’d obviously won before we even got here, which is what I was hoping for. Jared’s opposition was really good.”
“Clearly!” Beatrice said, beaming at me. “What were the sanctions for?”
“Oh. When an attorney brings a motion to compel discovery and loses, the other party is entitled to attorneys’ fees associated with defending the motion. Jared had calculated the costs of defending against this motion to be a little more than thirty-four hundred dollars.”
“That’s great. I didn’t know I’d get back any of the money for this. Today turned into a very good day.”
I smiled. “I’m glad. Hopefully this will encourage James to stop going after your business now.”
“Not likely, but it’s a nice thought.”
Beatrice and I parted ways and I headed back to the office.
I was back at my desk, checking emails, when my phone buzzed with another Facebook notification. It was a friend request from Beatrice. I grunted. Just like Rochelle, she fell into that cool but client zone. Hm.
I went to Jared’s office. He was flipping through one of five stacks of paper on his desk. I tapped on his door frame and he looked up.
“Hi,” I said. “I know you’re swamped, but I wanted to let you know your opposition killed it. By the time Warner got to me, he just asked if the matter was submitted.”
Jared smiled, looking tired. “Great. Thanks for covering that for me.”
“No problem. Didn’t even have to argue. Oh, and we got our requested sanctions, too. Beatrice was thrilled.”
“Awesome. Now if I could just magically get through these five thousand documents by Wednesday, life will be perfect.”
“Let me know if I can help.”
“If only. It’s just that I’ve worked with this client for ten years and I know it inside and out, so it would take anyone else twice as long just to figure out what they were looking at. Thanks for the offer, though.”
“Quick question,” I said, before heading back out. “How do you handle when a client tries to friend you on Facebook?”
He tipped his head to the side and smiled. “I’ll let you know if it ever happens.”
Well, crap.
I sat down at my desk and checked my phone. One text from Logek.
Call me.
Hm. Usually not a good sign.
I dialed and she answered on the second ring.
“Hey. Got your text. What’s up?”
“Derek never stopped seeing Hannah.” Hannah was Logek’s nemesis—simply by being the girl Derek apparently had to sleep with while he was still signed to Logek. Logek’s voice was quiet, and I knew her well enough to know it was because she’d been crying and
was trying not to get going again.
“Oh, honey. How? What happened? How did you find out?”
She sniffed. “Well, she called me. Because she wanted me to know that he was staying with her part of the time.”
“Oh, god.”
“And I guess she went through his phone and saw our texts and gathered that we were seeing each other and felt certain that I didn’t know they were still together.” And at that point, crying was game on again.
My eyes misted over. Son of a bitch! Dammit, Derek!
“I just feel so stupid,” she said, in a quiet, breathy voice.
“Logek, no. He’s stupid. Not you.”
“But I fall for it every fucking time.”
“Because you love him. That doesn’t make you stupid—it makes you human.”
More crying.
“Are you home?”
She sniffed. “Yes. After the phone call, I faked a migraine and went home.”
“I’ll be over right after work. Do you have wine?”
Now she laughed for a minute before falling back into tears. “Of course I do.”
“Are you hungry?”
“Not in the least.”
“I figured. I’ll see you soon.”
“Thanks, Kitty Kat.”
“Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
At five o’clock on the dot, I was walking past Mags’s desk.
“Look at you, sprinting out of here,” she said with a smile.
I frowned. “I’m on best friend’s heart just got stomped into a million pieces duty.”
“Oh no! Logek’s man that I met when we went out last time?”
“Yes. And that asshole is a repeat offender.”
Mags gave me a pout. “I’m sorry. And I’m totally available if you guys need someone to break his kneecaps,” she said, looking disconcertingly sincere about her offer.
I smiled at her and headed out the door.
After swinging by my apartment to change out of my suit and grab a box of Girl Scout cookies (because she may not feel like eating, but that really has nothing to do with whether or not she’ll be in the mood for Girl Scout cookies), I pulled up to Logek’s.
I knocked once and went inside, since the door was unlocked.
I poked my head around the corner, into her bedroom, and there she was, my Logek, curled up on her side on top of her bedcovers. I crawled onto the bed and lay down behind her, draping my arm around her and giving her a squeeze.
And, as seems to be the case with women and emotions, that show of support completely wrecked her. She broke down into loud, wet sobs. They lasted a while. I couldn’t help but think of the first time we’d been through the Derek Debacle. There was more anger, less heartbreak. This time, apparently, she was buying into the whole “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” school of thought and felt she had no one to blame but herself. I didn’t have that problem. This was all Dick Derek’s fault. I wonder if Mags was serious about her offer?
Logek’s phone buzzed. She looked at it but didn’t reach for it.
“Do we know who it is?”
“Yep.” She picked up her phone and handed it to me without reading the text.
I went into her texts and saw that there were a few unread texts from Derek. I opened the text thread and scrolled back to the first postapocalypse text.
Hannah told me she talked to you. Please hear me out.
I’m done hearing you out, Derek. I’m just done, period.
Logek. Please. There’s more to the story. At least let me explain.
When Logek didn’t respond to that, he followed up with:
You have to talk to me.
Wrong there.
I love you Logek. I’ve always loved you.
Dick.
Yes, I’ve still been seeing Hannah but we aren’t exclusive. She made it sound like we’re still together. We aren’t. I still see her but it’s not serious anymore.
Yikes. I kinda hoped she stopped reading before she got to this one.
I’m coming over.
Guessing she definitely didn’t read that one.
“His last text said he’s coming over.”
Logek sat up hurriedly, wiping her face dry. “No, no, no. I do not want to see him.”
I scooted off the bed. “I’m gonna go lock the front door.”
I went into the other room and threw the dead bolt on the front door before heading to the fridge and grabbing a bottle of wine. Once I had it opened, I brought the bottle and two glasses back into her room.
I sat cross-legged on the bed next to her and poured two glasses of wine. I handed one to her and she sat up to take it, mirroring my position on the bed.
“Fuck!” she said emphatically. I smiled. We tapped glasses and both took a long swig of wine.
“Get it out, girl,” I said.
She smiled at me. She was amazing like that. This girl could take hits like nobody’s business, but give her an hour to cry, swear, and drink and she’d do you proud every time.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.” That last one had some serious vigor.
“Attagirl,” I said.
“Why do I have so much trouble with men?” she asked.
“Because you’re beautiful and they follow you like moths to a flame. So you have plenty of screwup material on hand at all times. And you like bad boys.”
She laughed. And cried a little. And nodded. “Shit. I do. Why do I do that? Shouldn’t I have outgrown that by now?”
“I guess we could ask Daniel that.”
“Ouch. Right,” she said with a scowl.
“But bad boys are fun,” I added.
“How would you know? You’ve always gone for good guys.”
“Until my last good guy dumped me flat. Since then, I’m pretty sure I’m dabbling on the dark side.”
“Mmm. Adam. Still dabbling there?”
“Not really. But Dave is definitely bad boy material.”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”
We both went quiet and, after a moment, Logek grimaced and some more tears streaked down her face. “I’m so tired of failing,” she whispered.
“You didn’t fail, honey. You loved and you lost. And that’s living, not failing. I’d rather love and lose a hundred times as opposed to never taking the leap.”
She nodded. “I just wish I could have one contract go the distance. Feel like someone could love me for a full seven years.”
“Oh, they could love you a lot longer than that. Come on, aside from Derek, you’ve never even been dumped. Their longevity has not been the problem.”
“True. But the only man I saw myself going the distance with—even re-upping with—is definitely not a one-woman man.”
“There are others. He’s not the only man out there that you could feel that way about.”
“My own statistical research proves otherwise.”
I laughed. “Then it’s time for a new research study.”
There was a loud knock on the front door and our eyes went wide like we’d broken into a liquor store and just got caught drinking behind the counter.
We heard Derek’s muffled voice. “Logek. Please talk to me. I know you’re home. I see Kate’s car here.”
I looked at her and raised my eyebrows. She could decide if she wanted to talk to him or not without my input.
She wobbled her head side to side, causing her blond ponytail to sway. She blew out a sigh and headed to the front door. I followed her out, thinking it might be time to give her some privacy.
I saw her whisk away a couple more tears before opening the door.
As soon as she opened the door, Derek stepped in, probably figuring he had a small window of opportunity before she slammed the door in his face again.
“Logek, at least talk to me,” Derek said. He quickly looked over to where I was standing and then back to Logek. “Kate, could I talk to Logek alone for a few minutes?”
“She can stay,” L
ogek interjected. Oh yay. This won’t be awkward at all.
Derek sighed. “Fine.” He ran his hand through his wavy blond hair, pushing it back from his face. I knew Logek loved it when he did that. Unfortunately. “I never lied to you.”
“Well you sure left out something pretty damn important.”
“Hannah and I aren’t together anymore.”
“You’re still fucking her.”
“But she isn’t my girlfriend.”
“This conversation is pointless.” I had to agree. Derek genuinely didn’t seem to think he’d screwed up royally.
“No, I’m just trying to make you understand,” he said, putting his hands out in front of Logek like he was trying to calm a skittish animal.
“I do understand. You left me for Hannah. Then you led me to believe you two were over and that you regretted losing me—”
“I do regret losing you,” Derek interrupted.
“I’m not finished,” Logek shouted, pointing a finger at his chest. He immediately fell silent. “You broke my heart when you took off with her. It wasn’t that I expected us to suddenly be exclusive just because we started seeing each other again, but you should have known—unless you’re the dumbest asshole on the planet—that I would have a problem with you still seeing her.”
After Logek was silent a moment, Derek said, “Then I must be the dumbest asshole on the planet. Despite the way Hannah made it sound to you, I’m not cheating on her. She knows we aren’t exclusive. So, since I’m not living with her and I’m free to see who I want, I thought that would be enough for you.”
“This is useless. It’s like we’re speaking two different languages,” Logek said, with an exasperated glance in my direction.
“Well, I never have been able to get inside your head. I wish I could, but I just don’t understand the way you work.”
“That fact is painfully clear.”
“I’m sorry, Logek. I really do love you. We just never seem to be in the right place,” he finished quietly.
Logek nodded. “I agree.”
“Would it make a difference if I stopped seeing Hannah altogether?”