IRL: In Real Life (After Oscar, #1)(73)
I shrugged. “Don’t see how any of that matters now. I’ve got to get back to the shop. Poor Crystal is there by herself.”
She hesitated only slightly but didn’t press the issue of Wells. “Any luck hiring someone to replace Kyle?”
I stood up and cleared our lunch trash into the nearby can before making sure she had the remote and her water bottle close at hand.
“Haven’t had time to even look at the applications on my desk, much less set up interviews. I’m going to go in early tomorrow to take a crack at it. I won’t be able to take time off tonight to bring you dinner, but I should be able to take a lunch break around eleven tomorrow to drive you home.”
“Bill can come get me. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”
I thought about Mom’s next-door neighbor and how much we’d relied on him these past few months. I wanted to make sure he was able to have his own life now that I was back in town.
“I don’t want to overburden him, Mom. Plus, I enjoy our time together. Maybe that makes me selfish.” I smiled and leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. I recognized the mild scent of her favorite face lotion and mentally thanked Bill for the millionth time for being a lifesaver. I was sure having her special things from home helped soften the blow of being at the hospital. “Get some rest. I picked up a new puzzle from the shop for you to start on when you get home. It has famous women in science on it.”
“Am I on it?” she teased as I walked out of the room.
“Not yet,” I called over my shoulder. “But one day you will be.”
28
Wells
Apparently fixing your life included swallowing your pride.
When I finally decided what I needed to do, I realized I needed James’s help. Which would include asking him for a favor. Which required a level of humility from me that I wasn’t sure existed.
Attempting to contact him at his office hadn’t worked, so there I was, standing on the front step to his personal residence.
Like the desperate jackass I was.
I knocked on the door a second time and was about to go for a third when it swung open, revealing a man wearing a skimpy purple superhero costume. My eyes jumped from the helmet resting on the top of his normally neatly combed salt-and-pepper hair to the silver belt slung low around his sculpted, spandex-wrapped abs. It turned out that the lawyer was way more fit and trim than I’d expected.
“Hello, James. Or should I call you Jungle Fury?” I tried to hide my smirk but failed utterly.
His eyes narrowed with thinly veiled distaste. “What do you want, Grange?”
“I tried you at your office and your assistant said I could find you here,” I lied. I took a deep breath and said something I hadn’t said in years. “I… I need your help.”
He stared at me for several long moments, my request apparently shocking him into silence. “For what?” he finally asked, clearly suspicious.
“It’s a legal matter involving Conor.”
He let out a snort of disgust and started to close the door. I threw myself against it, wedging my foot in the jamb to stop him from cutting me off. “I know I fucked up with him, and I hurt him and you must hate me for it. You should.”
“Damn right,” he growled. He pressed harder on the door.
“Please, James, just hear me out,” I continued. “Then, if you don’t believe me, I’ll go, I swear.” I wasn’t someone who begged for anything in life, and James knew that. He eyed me through the crack in the door.
“My usual retainer is $20,000. For you it will be $50,000.”
“Done.”
If he was surprised at how quickly I accepted his terms, he didn’t show it. Instead he swung the door open, admitting me to a marble-tiled entryway dominated by a sharp-cornered glass table topped with a steel vase overflowing with some kind of whip-thin silver stems that looked more like blades than any kind of floral arrangement. Without saying a word, he led me past a sweeping concrete staircase that dominated the center of the house and deeper into the brownstone. I caught glimpses of more rooms, all decorated with the same cold austerity as the front hall.
He stopped by a simple wooden door tucked in the back corner and pushed it open to reveal a cluttered but cozy study. “Wait here while I change. You can use the time to wire the money to my account.” I stepped into the room, and he closed the door behind me without another word.
It took less than two minutes to give Deb the instructions about making the transfer. If she was curious about why I was suddenly paying Conor’s lawyer a retainer, she didn’t ask.
While I waited for James to return, I explored the room. It was small, and the rich mahogany bookshelves lining three of the walls made the space feel even smaller, but not claustrophobic. The fourth wall was dominated by a large fireplace flanked by french doors that led out into a courtyard nook featuring several dormant flowerbeds and a concrete statue of what appeared to be one of the Three Musketeers. If he’d been sculpted by Dali.
A solid wooden desk with a scarred top flanked one side of the fireplace, while two well-worn and comfortable leather chairs sat on the other side. The remaining space was filled with stacks of books of every subject and genre from a biography of Hamilton to a compendium of Stan Lee’s comics over the years.