by Zoe Chant
“That last part would be nice, actually,” Tiffani said thoughtfully. “You could make sure they both stayed out of your house. But I wouldn’t want to live forever.” She gave Martin a shy kind of smile. “I just want to make the most of the life I have.”
He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek.
A burnt sienna crayon bonked him in the middle of his forehead. It was a small price to pay.
*
“I know that wasn’t the lunch either one of us had exactly been hoping for,” Tiffani said as the two of them walked back to the courthouse hand-in-hand. “But I’m glad we did it.”
They had left a little bit ahead of Theo and Jillian. More accurately, Jillian had announced that she and Theo would be taking an “absurdly” long time to herd all the children together. They’d have to escort them to the bathroom in groups and collect their artwork with promises to return it once they were back at the youth center.
Theo, she said, was stuck with it because he was honor-bound not to leave her alone to this particular h-e-l-l on earth, but they weren’t. And besides, she’d added with a sparkling grin, they would probably like some time to themselves.
Martin hadn’t needed a second invitation to clear out of the restaurant a little early. They had lost some peace and quiet this afternoon, but the slow walk back to work made up for it. They were companionable and relaxed.
“It was nice to get to spend some more time with your family,” Martin said. “Even like that.”
“Well, you knew the way to my heart, saying I did something to help make Jillian who she is.”
“I think Jillian would say you did too.”
“You know, I see Jilly and Theo together all the time. I mean, I knew right from the start that he adored her, he might as well have had little cartoon hearts floating around his head. I could just see how well they fit with each other. She needed him. She still does.”
“He needs her too.”
Tiffani nodded. “Finding out that the universe knew that right away, that’s not much of a surprise to me at all. I can see it whenever I look at them.”
Theo and Jillian did make an especially obvious and loving mated pair. They both had kind hearts, independent streaks, deep reserves of loyalty, and iron wills. Jillian gave Theo some much-needed practicality and he gave her... something outside of that. A belief in fairy tales as well as principles.
That was almost what Tiffani needed too. Almost, but not quite. Tiffani needed to see that romance could fit in beside the practical—that it wasn’t unrealistic or too good to be true for her to have the life she deserved.
“And...” Tiffani took a deep breath. “Jillian said she could see the same thing when she looked at us.”
Bless Jillian Marcus. Martin needed to borrow Theo’s florist and send her something.
“I’m glad,” he said quietly. “I do adore you, you know. And it’s not just chemicals or some kind of temporary rush. I know I have a head-start in knowing what you mean to me, but it’s not unheard of—love at first sight.”
“No, it’s not. It’s just that believing in it is the kind of thing that makes women like me seem really, really gullible.” She took a deep breath. “But... I told myself yesterday that the problem with Gordon, the problem with everything about my life before, wasn’t that I made the wrong choice. It was that I didn’t break away. I was a trophy wife, and I let myself be a trophy, this... inanimate, shiny thing. I started to believe that all I could control was the polish. It was my fault, not Gordon’s. I could have gotten up at any point and walked out, if I’d just woken myself up. I could have been myself a long time ago if I’d just been a little braver.”
Martin wanted to step in and say exactly how much he thought the burden of fault there fell on Gordon Marcus, who had belittled her into that sense of low self-worth, but he could sense that she was working up to something. It took everything in him to hold his tongue, but he held it. He wanted to give her her own voice.
She could hear the words from him a thousand times, but they wouldn’t really matter until she said them herself.
“So I’m being brave now. If this turns out to be a horrible mistake, I’ll walk away. If I burn out on my second chance, I’ll get up off the ground for my third. But I’m not going to not take the risk of falling in love with you when you’re so incredible. And I’m not going to hold back just so I don’t get hurt—when I don’t think you’d ever do anything to hurt me.”
This was so much more than a promise of future dates. This was a promise of her heart and her trust. He intended to honor and cherish both forever.
Tiffani looked up at him, her eyes bright. In the strong sunlight, he could see a slight scattering of freckles across her nose.
She smiled, looking almost mischievous.
“You know, this is the look on your face I was hoping for when I said that. I wanted to blow you away. For the little bit of time that I planned the speech at all, which was about ten seconds.” She lifted herself up on her toes and kissed him. “Okay, Martin, we’re on. Sweep me off my feet and I’ll sweep you off yours.”
She probably didn’t mean literally, but he did it literally anyway, picking her up and spinning her around in a brief circle, his arms tight around her.
A promise not to let her fall, no matter what.
Chapter Thirteen: Tiffani
The walk back with Martin meant Tiffani was once again glowing when she returned to the courthouse.
Day two of this obvious, uncontrollable happiness. She couldn’t even believe it.
She felt like someone was going to stop her in the hall and ask her for her secret—which was sadly not publicly available. You couldn’t say “take two pegasi and call me in the morning.”
She was a perfect match for the perfect guy. And she was actually starting to believe that. No wonder she couldn’t stop smiling.
It helped to remember that being perfect for him didn’t mean she had to be perfect herself. Maybe she just had to bring one particular thing to the table. Martin was a little on the straitlaced side, the kind of man who had no idea how to have a midday rendezvous in a hotel; maybe she was here to show him how. And to participate very enthusiastically.
Then a thought came along to sour her mood a little: maybe in the end her role here was just to be what Gordon had always wanted her to be. Fun.
You know what? Let’s have a twenty-four hour moratorium on thinking about Gordon.
That might be a good idea. Gordon had been a real—
You know what else? That still counts as thinking about him.
She needed to stop this. Stop dwelling on the fears he’d instilled in her and the time she had wasted on him. If she didn’t want to live forever, then she really couldn’t afford to waste all this time contemplating the mistakes of the past.
Things had happened. She had learned from them. And now, here she was—and here was a pretty nice place to be.
Okay. She tested the barrier of the new wall she’d built up in her mind, waiting for it to fall down at the slightest touch and send all her old insecurities rushing in.
It must have been strengthened by the fact that her lips were still tingling from Martin’s last kiss. It was holding firm for now.
Too bad her sense of direction wasn’t doing the same. She almost walked into Bruce Tompoulidis—the law clerk must have been heading out on an errand for McMillan.
“Earth to Tiffani,” he said, smiling.
It wasn’t a nice smile.
Still, Tiffani tried to be friendly. She was going to have to work with Bruce for the duration of the trial and maybe even beyond that. She wanted to be on good terms with him if she could.
“I’m sorry. I was just... making resolutions to change my life forever.”
“You missed the boat, then. You’re supposed to do all that in January.”
Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he really had gotten over the awkwardness of yesterday’s rejection.
She said wryly, “I forgot t
o buy a calendar, so...”
He chuckled. “Well, I’m glad to have run into you. Literally.” He handed her a slip of paper. “The judge needs his dry cleaning picked up from the place around the corner—here’s the ticket—and everyone wrote down their coffee orders here.” Another piece of paper.
That second piece of paper was filled out on both sides.
“Just go around collecting the money from everyone afterwards,” Bruce said.
There were almost twenty names on the sheet and most of them belonged to people she’d never spoken to before. Well, there was nothing she could do about it now. Her first interaction with them would just have to be standing there while they fumbled around looking for exact change.
And if they were anything like her, they wouldn’t have it. A lot of people didn’t even carry cash anymore. So she would have IOUs from people she barely knew—one way or another, this was going to end with her getting stiffed on the price of at least ten of these specialty coffees.
She would never have minded treating someone, but she minded getting ordered to do it for a whole group, especially when money had been tight for her lately.
He hadn’t given her any money for McMillan’s dry cleaning, either.
“You probably won’t be able to carry all of it at the same time,” Bruce said. “Since we’re talking a couple of suits plus all those coffees. Get the suits first, drop them off here, and then go back for the coffees—if you walk fast, it’ll be fine.”
Why did she have the feeling he would have been stuck doing this himself if he hadn’t run into her?
More importantly, why did she have the feeling she wouldn’t be getting hit with all of this if she hadn’t turned him down for drinks last night?
They got caught up in a little bit of a staring contest. Tiffani backed off first—she couldn’t afford not to. He had been there longer than she had, and he could make her life miserable if he wanted to.
“I’m happy to help, but I really have to make sure to be on time. You know the judge isn’t exactly thrilled with having me on this case. Could we maybe split this up?”
Bruce’s expression was so cold it might as well have had frost on it.
“You know,” he said, “you only really smile when you want something.”
Wow. She hated him.
Never mind being diplomatic. If he was going to make her life miserable anyway, she was at least going to earn it.
She smiled so widely her lips hurt. “Can you guess what I want now? It involves you, my foot, and a particular part of your anatomy.”
“Oh, she’s feisty.” He looked at his watch. “Tick-tock, Tiffani. You wouldn’t want to give the judge even more of a reason to think you’re an airheaded bimbo.”
Well, that took care of her glow.
The line at the dry cleaner’s was long. When she finally made it to the register, she wasn’t surprised out that McMillan hadn’t paid up front. She put it on her already stretched-to-the-breaking-point credit card and made extra-sure to keep the receipt—not that it was easy to imagine presenting it to McMillan and asking for reimbursement. Maybe someone in the steno pool would know a good way of dealing with it.
She was surprised no one had warned her about Bruce the way they’d warned her about McMillan. Maybe he wasn’t always like this. The stress of working for McMillan could be getting to him.
She could understand that, but he didn’t have to take it out on her. Before Martin, she might have just taken it as an unavoidable part of the job, but he’d shown her she could earn people’s respect. So she was going to fight for it.
And she would fight dirty, if necessary.
Luckily, she was much better at her job than either Bruce or McMillan wanted her to be, including the part of her job that was apparently about dealing with passive-aggressive bullshit.
And if Bruce Tompoulidis thought she had spent years as a society wife without knowing how to run the living hell out of some errands, he had another thing coming.
She made it back to the courthouse with time to spare. A sincere plea for help got one of the temporarily unassigned court reporters to agree to distribute the drinks for her. Tiffani held back just one, keeping it in her hand when she headed into the courtroom.
Bruce stopped her. “Where’s my coffee?”
“Oh, shoot,” Tiffani said. “You know, I think they must have forgotten yours.” She raised the cup to her mouth and took a long drink, letting him see the order notation on the side: exactly the specialty drink he’d ordered, right down to the two pumps of caramel.
“It’s a shame, too,” she went on, “because your order sounded so delicious. I liked it so much I got one of my own.” She checked her watch. “Looks like we’re about to start. I’m sorry you’ll have to sit through so many hours of this trial without coffee, Bruce. At least it’s going to be really interesting stuff this afternoon. From what I heard, they’re going to really go in-depth on all those corporate shareholder guidelines from this morning. They’ll even have charts.”
He smirked. “I’m going to be in the judge’s chambers for the rest of the day. But nice try.”
“I thought so,” Tiffani said. She took another long drink of his coffee.
*
It took Tiffani exactly two minutes of being back in the courtroom to improve her mood.
Bruce’s coffee was genuinely delicious, for one thing. When she tasted how good a huge infusion of caramel could make something, she couldn’t believe she’d spent so much time ordering skinny lattes and only ever using fake sugar.
More importantly, being back in the courtroom meant she was back with Martin, and he was even more delicious than the caramel. He smiled when he saw her, his serious face breaking into stunning, real delight at being in the same room with her.
Seeing him made all the stress just disappear. It was like sliding into a hot bubble bath and feeling all her muscles loosen.
She couldn’t believe how lucky she was.
“Ms. Marcus, why are you smiling?” Judge McMillan inquired, his voice dripping acid.
Thank God court wasn’t back in session yet and there weren’t many people there yet to hear him talk to her that way. Even though she was relaxed now, it still burned.
She said, “Because I’m happy, Your Honor,” keeping her tone deliberately mild.
Unfortunately, Judge McMillan reacted to happiness in his general vicinity the way the Grinch reacted to Christmas.
“With everything that’s going on, with everything that we have to contend with to smoothly take this trial to a just conclusion, do you really think you have time to sit there daydreaming to yourself? Don’t you think your concentration should be on the trial?”
She thought she had won him over a little yesterday with her blatant suck-up appeal to his vanity—the jury needs your leadership, Your Honor!—and the fact that when she really hadn’t been paying attention to anything that was going on, she’d covered it up by agreeing with him. But apparently McMillan’s jackass status got reset every morning.
“At the moment, Your Honor, I don’t have anything to type. And I already transcribed my notes from this morning. I’m ready and waiting for court to be reconvened.”
Martin gave her a little twitch of a thumbs up behind McMillan’s back. He was leaning forward slightly, like one more comment from McMillan would make him spring into action to protect her.
McMillan himself scowled but couldn’t seem to think of any objection to this. “Well. Try to keep your mind on your work.”
“Of course,” Tiffani said coolly, crossing her ankles under her desk.
Martin leaned back again. She smiled at him, trying to thank him from a distance for both supporting her and letting her fight her own battles.
People slowly began to filter back into the courtroom. It helped her out by diffusing some of the sexual tension.
She was glad Martin hadn’t seen her conversation with Bruce. She had the feeling his patience for someone talking to h
er like that would be low, and as much as she would get a thrill out of being defended, she would be better off in the long run if she could shut down her jerk boss all on her own.
Besides, she didn’t want him to spend the whole afternoon steaming. She knew a lot of people didn’t think court reporters had the most interesting job in the world, but she would have taken it over courtroom security any day. Martin had joined the Marshals for adventure and the desire to see what he was made of. At the moment, he was stuck leaning against a wall waiting for something to happen. And hoping it wouldn’t.
Today wouldn’t exactly live up to his childhood dream. She wanted to make sure it would be no worse than it had to be.
“ALL RISE!” the bailiff bellowed.
Tiffani forced herself to turn all her attention to her steno machine.
The funny thing, she thought, was that Theo had been right when he had made her job sound like a sacred task. At least, it was one that resonated with her on a bone-deep level. She had spent her whole adult life dealing with whirling rumors, innuendoes, and blurry memories. It was good to know that she was helping to contribute to some absolute record of what was being said and decided right in this room. Years from now, anyone who wanted to could consult her notes and find the whole story of this trial, accurate down to the word.
Including the words that had no business being in that courtroom at all.
“Stop the bulldozers! Stop the bulldozers! Stop the bulldozers!”
Tiffani reflexively recorded the protest but had to stop herself from adding, “Stop what bulldozers?”
A bunch of gray-haired men and women had risen from their seats. One particularly tech-savvy gentleman had cued up some inspirational music on his phone.
The courtroom had been struck by elderly flash-mob protesters.
Elderly flash-mob historians, apparently. They were now unfurling butcher’s paper placards that read things like A CITY NEEDS ITS HISTORY and STOP DEMOLITION and PROTECT HISTORIC HOMES.
A sprightly woman with a cotton candy-like puff of white hair moved into the aisle and proved to have a booming voice to rival the bailiff’s.