The Bad Judgment Series: The Complete Series (21 page)

Not anymore.

“
T
here’s been
a car circling the block since you got here,” Toby said, casually throwing Walker his keys. “I’m guessing you’d be expecting that.”

“White Range Rover?” Walker asked.

“White Lexus,” the valet said.

“Ah, I’m getting them confused lately,” Walker said and smiled. He handed Toby another wad of bills. “For your service,” he said, and Toby beamed at him.

“Hope to see you again, Mr. Walker,” he said.

“I really hope so, too,” Walker said.

“
I
think
we need to tie up some loose ends,” Walker said, apropos of nothing, when we were getting out of his car back at his house.

“Okay,” I said.

“I need to call my sister. She’s on vacation with her boyfriend,” he said, while shaking his head no at me. “No she’s not,” he mouthed, and I could barely make it out in the darkness of his garage. I nodded.

“I need to go to my apartment,” I said. “I need to get some stuff that belongs to Proctor and I also need to talk to Mike.” I mumbled the last part and Walker raised his eyebrows.

“Okay,” he said, his eyebrows still raised.

“Okay,” I said. I was suddenly completely and utterly exhausted. “I need to go see Richie, too.”

“Okay.” He paused for a beat. “Want to have lunch first?” He smiled at me, a lopsided, exhausted smile, and I smiled back.

“Okay,” I said, and grabbed his hand. “But let’s make sandwiches here. No more ordering out.”

“
I
’m waiting
on the stairs,” Walker said again, belligerently, “so stop telling me not to. Just go.”

I looked at him miserably. Mike was up there, in my apartment. I’d called him and asked him to meet me. I had a two-part agenda: (1) I was going to break up with him and (2) I was going to make him take all of his stuff out of my apartment today so that I didn’t have to do this again. I needed to be done with it.

But Walker waiting for me on the stairs was going to stress me out.

“Please?” I asked. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist, breaking all the rules. “I don’t want him to feel worse than he already will.”

Walker put his hands into my hair and my body jolted with electricity. “Nic, I’ll do anything you want,” he said, lowly, pressing his hips into mine and dragging his lips across my forehead. I felt shaky, dizzy, and suddenly wet. I reflexively pressed my hips against his and I could feel him getting hard against me. My breath was coming fast.

I almost let him take me right there, on the stairs. I struggled to press myself against him through our clothes.

“I’ll do anything you want,” he said again, running his lips over my forehead in a tantalizing fashion, “except compromise your safety.” He pulled back from me and I breathed in sharply, the world coming back into focus.

“You. Are. Evil,” I said, frowning at him, willing my heart to stop thudding in my chest.

He smiled at me wickedly and ran his hands up and down my sides, sending shivers of heat through me. “That was awesome,” he said, and laughed.

I stepped back, pouting, and smoothed my hair down so Mike didn’t see me looking all sexed up. “I’ll be back,” I said, straightening my shirt.

“Remember
,
” he mouthed at me, and I nodded. Remember what we talked about, via writing on a piece of paper back at his house, about not speaking freely in my apartment. It was probably bugged, too. The white
Lexus
had followed us here; there was every reason to think that they were listening to us.

Not that Mike and I had that much to talk about.

“Hi, honey,” Mike said as soon as I walked through the door. He hugged me and gave my face several rapid kisses, pouncing on me like a Golden Retriever — one who hadn’t been out for a walk in nine hours, and was wondering if his owner was ever coming back.

“Hey,” I said, steeling my body and pulling away from him. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but I didn’t feel as bad as I should. I felt bored, annoyed even.
Couldn’t Mike tell that I’d outgrown him? Was it really necessary for me to spell it out for him, and embarrass us both?

“How are you?” he asked. I saw him looking at my dress and I knew he could tell that it was new. Hell, I looked different. It wasn’t just the dress. He wasn’t dumb.

“You look…nice,” he said, warily
.

“Thanks,” I said. “Sit down.”

“Are you really doing this?” he asked, without moving. “To me? Because of him?”

I shook my head and grabbed his hand, leading him to the couch. I sat down as far away from him as I could and crossed my legs, worried that he would somehow sense the fire that had encased my body only moments earlier. “It’s not because of him, Mike. I swear. It’s because of me.”

He looked at the floor, his face red and his eyes suddenly wet.

“This just isn’t what I want,” I said, and grabbed his hands. “It’s like I woke up a couple of weeks ago and realized that I wanted more from my life. And that’s nothing personal against you. I just was on the wrong path. I couldn’t see it then. But now I do.”

To my horror, Mike sniffled. “I should have proposed,” he said, miserably. “I wanted to. I just wanted to wait until I made equity partner so we could buy a house and everything would be perfect…”

“Everything
will
be perfect,” I said. “For you. Just not with me. You’ll make equity partner and you’ll have a pretty girlfriend and you’ll buy a house. You’ll get married and have kids. And it will all be perfect, everything you’ve worked so hard for.”

“But how do you
know
that?” he asked, and he wiped the tears from his eyes.

Because you are decent looking, because you went to MIT, and because you make a ton of money,
I thought meanly.
Some woman who’s pushing thirty is going to snap you up, pick out a ring, order a china pattern and get you to impregnate her before you even know what hits you. Duh.

But he would be happy. Mike was a decent guy and he deserved a decent life. Not an exciting life, but a decent life.

It was something to strive for, I knew. And maybe I’d get a decent life someday, when all the excitement died down.

“You have to get your stuff. I have to go,” I said.

“Back to work?” Mike asked, wiping his eyes one final time and rising to his feet.

“Yep,” I said, lightly, not wanting to go into any details, and went to grab him a bag.

Ten minutes later we went down the stairs. Walker was sitting at the bottom of them, watching the road through the windows on the side of the door.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Mike wailed, looking at me indignantly. “He’s
waiting
for you? This is what you meant by back to work?”

I nodded towards Walker. “He’s a little paranoid,” I said, and smiled lamely. Walker stood up to all six-foot-two of his gloriousness and I felt more than a little sorry for Mike, who now looked like a Golden Retriever that had been badly betrayed.

“Broden Walker, this is Mike Williams. Mike Williams, this is Broden Walker.”

“Nice to meet you,” Walker said, and smiled at him.

“You’re a smug son of a bitch, aren’t you?” Mike asked, with more animation than I’d heard come from him in years.

“Not really,” Walker said and shrugged. “I just look like one.”

Mike looked deflated. “I should fight you,” he said.

“But you went to MIT
and you know better,” Walker said, almost kindly. “Do you need a ride?”

“No thanks,” Mike said glumly, and turned to me. “Is this goodbye?”

I nodded at him, and suddenly I felt a crushing sadness well up inside of me, a sadness for what I was leaving behind, and all of the uncertainties of the future. And now that we were saying goodbye, it was real: goodbye to all the nights watching baseball, in our sweats, and all the hopes and dreams I’d had back then. I wasn’t that girl anymore. I couldn’t go back. I’d changed, and none of those old things fit anymore. Mike included.

“Goodbye,” I whispered, and pulled him to me. He hugged me back and then released me, leaving without another word.

“What time is it?” I asked Walker, a minute or so later, when I’d stopped staring off into space, thinking about all the ties that I’d cut in one day.

“Four.”

“Can we have margaritas back at your place?” I asked. “Please?”

“You’re the boss,” he said, and grabbed my hand.

T
hree margaritas
and a very large plate of nachos later, Walker and I were sitting on his couch, watching the news. Our fake-talk was feeling mostly normal now, for better or for worse. It was our secret way of maintaining some semblance of order, of taking action, of staying alive and playing the game.

I just wish I knew what game we were playing. With whom.

Walker sat right next to me on the couch with his arm around me and I let him, not sure of where the new lines were between us, if there were any. He was still my client and I would still be disbarred if I had a physical relationship with him. To date, we had a semi-physical relationship and certainly an inappropriate emotional attachment; both were about to explode, I could feel it. The attraction between us was thick, making my limbs feel heavy my head ache. There was a physical heat between us that made me feel like I was burning when I was near him, which was all of the time. I didn’t know if he could feel it, too.

But he was still my client. I couldn’t fuck that up for him, no matter what my body wanted.

But my body wanted it bad.

I tried to make myself focus. There was no follow-up story about the driver on the news, but at least there wasn’t a companion story of some new act of violence. I couldn’t concentrate, and we couldn't talk, so I decided to make a list, because that’s what I always did to calm myself down.

Things to Do.

(1) Return laptop — download any pertinent docs first.

(2) Get a new cell phone.

(3) Make sure all my personal bills are paid.

(4) Get a P.O. Box for professional mail.

(5) Register my new address with the Bar.

(6) Get gap malpractice coverage.

(7) Make sure David files a Withdrawal.

(8) File an Appearance.

(9) Go see Richie and the boys.

(10) Make some sort of plan.

(11) Avoid sleeping with my client.

(12) Fire Lester Max.

“Oooh, we forgot to go back and ask the Board to fire Lester Max today,” I said. “Too many margaritas.”

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Walker said, squeezing my shoulders and watching the news.

I had to make myself stop looking at his gorgeous face and his tousled black hair, so I went back to my list. I refused to even think about number eleven, especially with Walker’s arm around me, but I had to put it on there to be thorough. Number ten was the real bitch. We were going to have to make a plan about how to move forward. I couldn’t really picture us going to trial while people were being killed and we were being followed and wire-tapped; I also couldn’t really picture myself going to the police to tell them our crazy story, even though it was true. I wasn’t sure what they could do, if anything.

I had to get prepared for the trial, though. I didn’t have enough time to ignore it, even with everything else going on. To make sure that I mounted a defense for every allegation, covered every base, and made sure that I had enough supporting cases. None of this was going to be easy without an extensive legal team and the help of Lester Max. It might be impossible.

But I could organize it. I knew I could. And as for Lester Max? I could subpoena him, I could depose him, I could do all sorts of nasty things to him.

I must have had a big smile on my face because Walker turned to me and smiled back. “What’re you thinking about, Nic? It can’t be the Red Sox, ‘cause they are blowing it this season.” He motioned to the sportscast on the flat screen.

“I’m planning your defense,” I said, and smiled some more. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

“You are such a lawyer. You were just born this way, weren’t you? Analyzing things and making lists?” He peeked over my shoulder and I clutched my yellow legal pad against my chest so he couldn’t read it.

“I think so,” I said. Then I frowned. I started thinking about the rest of the items on my list, particularly items eleven and nine.

I flipped the pages on my notebook to a clean page and wrote.
I have to go to Somerville to see my dad.

First thing tomorrow,
he wrote back, then:
Ready for bed?

I nodded, my heart pounding all of a sudden.

Let’s do what we did the other night,
he wrote,
but let’s do it on the bed.

OK,
I wrote back.
Safer and more comfortable. But I’m not going to DO IT with you.
I blushed crimson as he raised his eyebrows at me.

I wasn’t asking you to.

I blushed harder, if that was possible, and stared at my feet. He nudged me.
Just kidding,
he wrote.
I was totally asking you to.
He looked up at me hopefully and we both started to laugh, silently, so that the people who were listening to us still thought we were just watching the news.

I can’t,
I wrote.

I know,
he wrote back, and grabbed my hand. He pulled me up and wrapped his arms around me, his body encasing mine, his lips crushed against my hair. I put my face on his chest and let myself run my fingers down his ripped torso. Waves of heat rolled through me and I felt my body doing things on its own that I would never have approved of. Like earlier, on the stairs, I pressed myself against him, trying to get him inside me through our clothes. He leaned down and kissed my neck and I moaned, and then he stopped. He took a deep breath and exhaled, stepping back.

He leaned down to whisper in my ear, so quiet I could barely hear him. “I can’t keep doing this. One of these times, I’m just going to take you, standing up, wherever we are.”

I was squirming, wet and sticky. I looked up at him, wanting nothing more than to rip his clothes off, and mine, and let him take me wherever and however the hell he wanted, but the good girl in me won again.
Damn.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered back, and then he put his whole body against me again, his cock enormous and rock hard through his cargo shorts.

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered hotly. “I love the way you make me feel. I want you, Nicole.”

I let myself rub against him and kissed his neck, heat rolling through me like I was going to burst into flames. “I want you, too,” I whispered back. “But later, when we can.”

He grabbed my ass and pulled me against him once, really hard, and I could feel an unbearable ache in between my legs.
Could we fuck with our clothes on?
I thought wildly.
Would that get me disbarred?
But at the mention of the word “disbarred” my desire contracted and I stepped back, and I was just left feeling unsatisfied, confused, and slightly angry.