Practice Makes Perfect

by Carsen Taite

  “Duly noted.” Wynne laughed and shook her head. “After all that and no dinner, you woke up before the crack of dawn, composed a legal brief, including citations, on your phone, and then brought me breakfast?”

  Campbell shrugged. “It’s no big deal. You just looked so peaceful sleeping that I hated to wake you up.”

  “I don’t remember the last time I ever slept this late.” She stretched her arms over her head, but the usual creaks were replaced by a relaxed, languid feeling. “And I gotta tell you, it feels pretty good.”

  “Then enjoy it. Drink your coffee, eat your breakfast.” Campbell held up her phone and stood. “I’m going to get dressed and take this to the office. I’ll have it formatted and ready to file before noon.”

  Wynne watched Campbell walk across the room to where her clothes were folded neatly in a chair—another task she must have accomplished in the predawn hour. Every step Campbell took in the opposite direction chipped away at her newfound sense of relaxation and happiness. “Don’t go.”

  Campbell turned and waited, but Wynne hadn’t thought past the elemental need for Campbell to stay. Her brain started spinning. “I can email the motion to Jennifer, and she can get it formatted and filed. And then…” Suddenly, it occurred to her that maybe Campbell wanted to leave. She had a life, things to do. Maybe this had been a one-night stand to her. Lord knows they hadn’t discussed what any of this meant.

  “And then?” Campbell asked.

  Wynne paused. She’d been trained not to ask a question if she didn’t know the answer, but that was for work and this wasn’t. She had no idea how these feelings about Campbell fit in with her future, personal or professional, but she did know exactly what she wanted in this moment. She wanted Campbell Clark, all to herself. “And then you can stay here. With me.” She patted the bed beside her. “Right here.”

  Campbell’s face burst into a big grin. “There’s nothing I’d rather do.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Campbell walked into her firm lobby, surprised to see Graham Bunn had managed to survive his first day and was back behind the receptionist desk.

  “Greetings, Ms. Clark,” Graham said, his voice bright and cheery. “I placed some mail on your desk, and mere seconds ago you received a call from a Wynne Garrity with Worth, Ingram, Nash, and Reed. She asked that you contact her this afternoon, but she specified it was not an emergency. I have her number here. Shall I type this information up and email it to you?”

  Any other day, Graham’s over-the-top formalism would have gotten on her nerves, but Campbell was still walking in the clouds of post-wonderful Wynne Garrity sex, and she wasn’t going to let anything bring her down. “Graham, although normally it would please me greatly for you to send me this missive, I know Ms. Garrity’s number and will call her posthaste.”

  He beamed at her response, and she strolled back toward her office, pleased she’d made his day. Her euphoria lasted until she reached her door and saw Grace sitting in one of the chairs across from her desk. She made a show of looking over her shoulder. “Uh, if you like, maybe we can get you your own office.”

  “Don’t be a smartass. Where have you been all morning?”

  Campbell took a breath and searched for calm and a partial truth. “Working. Motion in the Leaderboard case. Judge’s secretary said if we got it filed by noon, they could get us on Friday’s docket. Why? Whatcha need?”

  “I’ve got a lead on a pharmaceutical firm that’s looking for new outside counsel. They’d prefer someone with a deeper bench, but I told them we could handle anything they throw our way. I know you have Rhea’s depo to prep for, but I was hoping you could join me and Abby for a meeting at their office late this afternoon—a show of force like we did for Leaderboard.”

  “Absolutely.” Motivated by guilt, Campbell blurted out her agreement before she could think of all the reasons it wasn’t a good idea. She had planned to have dinner with Wynne and finalize her depo prep, but she owed this to Grace and Abby, and she wasn’t going to let them down. “The depo isn’t until tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll have time for any last-minute prep in the morning.”

  “Perfect,” Grace said. “I’ll get you some notes before the meeting.”

  “Sounds great.” Campbell sat at her desk and rummaged in her bag for her phone so she could call Wynne to let her know about the change in plans, but Grace wasn’t showing any signs of leaving. Trying for nonchalance, she said, “Graham seems to be working out, although he has a very odd cadence to his speech. Kind of Renaissance fair meets Downton Abbey, but without the cool accent, if you know what I mean.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to tell me?”

  Campbell’s stomach sank. Grace knew about her and Wynne. Had Abby ratted her out? If she had, then she only knew part of the story, and not anything about what had happened last night. Still, if she was caught, she’d need to come clean about all of it. She couldn’t have a big secret like this standing between her and her friends. “I can explain. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but it did.” She paused to think of a way to get Grace to see that what she felt for Wynne wouldn’t interfere with her work, but Grace interrupted her.

  “One day your impulsiveness is going to get you in big trouble, but now that it’s here, Abby has fallen in love with it. I kind of like it too, but you have to stop buying things for the office without checking with us first. And we have to be able to afford it. Not just you, but all of us.”

  Campbell stared at Grace, while she tried to catch up, but after a minute, she gave up. “What are you talking about?”

  “The circa nineteen sixty Coke bottle machine that’s in the kitchen. Abby already has plans to stock it with beer and cider.” Grace cocked her head. “What did you think I was talking about? Are there more deliveries on the way?”

  Campbell forced a laugh to cover her relief. “No, I promise this is the last one.” In the excitement over the Leaderboard case, she’d completely forgotten about the Coke machine that she’d found on eBay. “I’m glad you like it. I bought it a while back and had almost forgotten. I promise I got a great deal.”

  Grace stood. “You should go check it out. You know, before Abby fills it up with all her faves.”

  “I will. I just have one quick call to make and I’ll be right there.”

  Campbell waited a few seconds after Grace shut the door, and then she let out a huge breath. You should’ve told her. She knew it was true, but she’d been so relieved to hear that Grace was calling her out about the Coke machine and not the fact she was sleeping with the enemy, that she’d clammed up. Plus it was pretty much impossible now to think of Wynne as the enemy. They’d been working well together, and she’d grown to like her. A lot. She’d seriously misjudged Wynne, thinking she was Stoltz’s lackey, but after the way she took charge in the bedroom, Campbell knew she’d underestimated Wynne’s independence, and Wynne in control was blazing hot.

  Wynne answered her phone on the first ring. “Hey you.”

  “Hey yourself. Graham, our receptionist du jour, said that you called.”

  “I did. I have some bad news. Stoltz is coming back this afternoon instead of tomorrow, and he wants to meet tonight to get an update on how everything has gone so far, so I can’t see you tonight.”

  Campbell was disappointed, but she could hear the regret in Wynne’s voice and didn’t want to pile on. “I totally get it. Besides we could both probably use a good night’s sleep after last night, and I’m fairly certain that if we get together sleep is not on the agenda.”

  “I’ll miss you tonight,” Wynne said. “Is that weird to say?”

  Campbell’s heart fluttered as Wynne’s words echoed her own feelings. “Don’t ask me. I feel the same way.”

  “I’m sorry I’m not going to be able to help you get ready for Rhea’s deposition.”

  “No worries. This way I can work without being distracted by your sexy self. How about I email you my outline later tonight? If you see anything that I need to a
dd or change, we can work it out in the morning.”

  “Deal.”

  “And, Wynne?”

  “Yes?”

  “Text me when you’re home for the night. Okay?” Her words were followed by a long pause. Either Wynne hadn’t heard her, or she had and was offended. “Wynne?”

  “I’m here.”

  “I hope that didn’t sound presumptuous.”

  “It didn’t. It was actually pretty sweet. Took me off guard.”

  “Because you don’t think I’m sweet?”

  “No, it’s more like I’m not used to sweet.”

  Campbell heard the trace of sadness in Wynne’s voice and wondered about the source. She made a mental note to ask her later. “Well, get used to it.”

  After they hung up, Campbell walked out of her office and headed toward the firm’s combo kitchen/break room. She could hear Abby telling Grace what drinks she planned to load into the Coke machine, and the exuberance in Abby’s voice made her smile. If she told them about Wynne right now, all that joy would be crushed under the weight of their worry about the impact of a Campbell-Wynne affair on their ability to win the competition for Leaderboard’s business. Little did they know that despite her sexy romp with Wynne, Campbell was ready to show Braxton Keith and everyone at Worth Ingram that she was capable of taking Rhea Hendricks and her frivolous lawsuit down, and she would start by knocking tomorrow’s deposition out of the park.

  Her revelation could wait one more day. Maybe two.

  * * *

  Wynne hung up from Campbell’s call feeling melancholy. Campbell probably thought she was overly emotional, but she couldn’t help it if she found Campbell’s caretaking nature sweet and rare. People like her didn’t come around every day.

  She heard a knock on her door and looked up to see Jennifer framed in the doorway. “Come on in,” Wynne said.

  Jennifer handed her an envelope. “I just wanted to give you this and let you know that he’s scheduled to land at six, and he’ll be taking a car from the airport.”

  “Thanks. Any idea why he changed his plans?”

  “Not a clue, but he called this morning and when you weren’t here, he asked to speak to Daniel. I have no idea what they talked about.”

  Wynne didn’t either. She shrugged it off. If Stoltz had an urgent need for something, he could’ve just called her on her cell. Considering more than half of his “urgent needs” involved mundane tasks that weren’t even remotely time sensitive, she was secretly glad he’d reached Daniel instead of her.

  Wynne reached for the interoffice envelope. “Do you know what’s in here?”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes. “I do, but you need to read it for yourself to get the full effect.”

  Wynne shook out the single sheet of paper. It was a memo from the firm’s executive committee on what appeared to be new firm letterhead.

  We are pleased to inform you that effective immediately, Worth, Ingram, Nash, and Reed will be utilizing a new firm logo and hereafter will be referred to by the acronym, WINR (pronounced “winner”), rather than Worth Ingram or any other permutation of the current full-length name. Our firm website has been updated, new stationary has been distributed to the staff, and you will be receiving new business cards shortly. It is our sincere hope that this new branding will appeal to a multigenerational audience and assist us in attracting diverse new business.

  “They’re kidding, right?” Jennifer shook her head, and Wynne pointed at her desk. “They want to attract a younger client base with more start-ups, so they’re trying to be hip by using an acronym that sounds like a bad vanity plate. And what hip business sends out a printed memo in an ancient, interoffice envelope?”

  “You’re preaching to the choir,” Jennifer said. “Time for you to make partner and change some things around here.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Wynne worked like a fiend the rest of the afternoon, stopping only once to forage in the break room fridge for one of the yogurts she kept at the office that other associates made fun of but loved to steal. She found a strawberry, not her favorite flavor, and started to peel back the lid when an image of Campbell, wearing only her robe and carrying a tray of breakfast tacos popped in her mind. Campbell wouldn’t settle for a low-fat yogurt, and neither should she. She shoved the yogurt back in the fridge and pulled up a delivery app and ordered a pizza.

  She stopped by Jennifer’s desk on her way back to her office. Jen’s brow was scrunched in a frown, but Wynne wrote it off to the chaos of Stoltz’s schedule. “Hey, Jen, I just ordered a pizza, big enough for both of us in case you’d like to share. Can you let me know when it’s here?”

  “He’s here,” Jen whispered.

  “What?” Wynne struggled to make sense of what she was saying. Her food couldn’t be here already—no one made pizza that fast. “Who’s here?” She watched Jen jerk her chin toward the closed door of Stoltz’s office. Damn. “I thought he wasn’t getting back until six at the earliest?”

  “He took an earlier flight. He wants to see you.”

  Of course he did. Wynne’s gut twisted, and her appetite disappeared. She hated when he went on these tears, and she hated even more not knowing what she was walking into. Based on previous experience, his client meetings hadn’t gone well and he was looking for someone else to blame. She took a deep breath. “The pizza’s already paid for. Just put it in the break room because I don’t think I’ll be having any. Do you mind tipping the pizza guy? I’ll pay you back.”

  Jen waved her away. “I got it. And I’ll save you a slice, just in case.”

  Wynne appreciated the gesture, but the idea of a greasy pizza on top of a Stoltz-induced ulcer was a complete no-go. Deciding to get this over with as quickly as possible, she marched up to Stoltz’s door and knocked aggressively on the door.

  “If that’s you, Garrity, get in here.”

  She pushed through the door prepared to deal with whatever Stoltz planned to dish out. “What can I do for you?”

  “For starters, you can start acting like a team player.”

  The veiled accusation was so out of left field, she wasn’t sure how to respond. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m fully committed to this team.” She choked out the last word because Stoltz had never run their section like a team. He was the star, and they were all merely supporting players. She had dedicated every waking moment to making him shine, and she resented the implication she’d been anything but loyal. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  He handed her his phone. “Then would you like to explain these to me?”

  She stared at the screen, confused about why he would have a photo of her on his phone. She looked up at him and he rolled his hand, motioning for her to keep looking, so she scrolled to the next photo and froze in place. She was wearing her sleeveless, cornflower blue shirt, and in the background was the bar at Winebelly, but those things were only context. The real focal point was her hands, laced through Campbell’s hands, and her eyes gazing into hers. For a second, she was transported back to that moment—warm, inviting, full of portent. She’d had no idea she was being photographed. If she had, would she have changed anything about last night?

  “Well?” Stoltz asked with a sneer.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “That’s not important. What is important is that you seem to have a loyalty problem. We need Leaderboard’s business, and it’s up to you to make sure we keep it. Whatever is going on with you and this tramp, it needs to end now. She’s using you so she can steal a client right out from under your nose. From now on, when you work together, you’ll bring that clerk Donald, or David, whatever his name is along. He’s your buffer so you don’t let the pretty girl distract you from what’s really important. Now, go. I want a thorough status report on my desk at eight thirty a.m., and I want you back in this chair ready to go over it with me. Get your head in the game, Garrity.”

  He picked up his phone and started punching n
umbers, his way of telling her she was dismissed. Her legs were wobbly when she stood, but she forced one foot in front of the other until she’d cleared his door. Jennifer shot her a sympathetic look as she walked past, but Wynne didn’t pause to commiserate.

  Wynne was angry, and she felt betrayed by whoever had taken that photo and given it to Stoltz, but she had to admit that in some respects, Stoltz was right. She never should’ve slept with Campbell while they were in competition. It muddied things between them, and although she didn’t believe for one second that Campbell was using her, it had the appearance of impropriety even if neither one of them took advantage of their relationship to win Leaderboard’s business.

  But she had slept with Campbell, and she didn’t regret it. Her one night with Campbell had been more fulfilling than all her dates with other women combined, and although she had no idea how they were going to make things work between them, she was committed to finding a way.

  I should call her. Wynne pushed the thought away. Campbell was busy preparing for Rhea’s deposition, and telling her about Stoltz’s discovery would only be a distraction. Knowing Stoltz, he was probably banking on her telling Campbell about his suspicions to knock her off her game. Well, she wasn’t going to do it. If she was going to win Leaderboard’s future business, she was going to do so fair and square, and if everything went right, she would win Campbell too.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The next morning, Wynne poured her third cup of coffee and hoped it would do a better job at keeping her awake than the last two. After a rocky night of not much sleep, she’d come into the office at six a.m. and prepared an extensive status report on the case for Stoltz, complete with an index and the colored page separators that he liked. It contained copies of the complaint, answer, all the discovery, and an outline of their strategy for the case, “their” meaning the one she and Campbell had developed. She could’ve had Jennifer do the organizational part, but she wanted to convince Stoltz that she was fully committed even if it meant she basically worked around the clock.