Life's Too Short (The Friend Zone #3)(6)

“Lose the gum, please,” I muttered, opening the file. “I didn’t get much sleep.”

She plucked the gum out of her mouth and stood there holding it, as I flipped through pages. “Yeah, you’re, like, more emo than usual today.”

I took a deep breath. “I think I might cut out early.”

She blinked at me. “Okay, you’re not gonna, like, go home and start writing depressing haikus, are you? Because that would be really unfair for me to have to read that stuff.”

I scoffed. “No, I am not going to go home and start writing haikus.”

“Good. Though you should know that your horoscope today said your life is about to change drastically.”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “You read my horoscope?”

“We’re both Capricorns?” she said impatiently, like this was something I should know.

She put a hand on her hip. “You never go home early. You’ve been super off for like two months now. You haven’t been going to the gym—”

“How do you know I haven’t been going to the gym?” I mumbled, talking to the file I was flipping through.

“Because my boyfriend goes to that Life Time Fitness and he says you would go like every day and now you don’t go at all. You barely finish your lunches, you’re all mopey. What’s your deal?”

I puffed my cheeks and looked away from the paperwork in front of me. “I don’t know. I’m not having the best year. And Rachel and I broke up.”

“Good, I hated her.”

I scoffed, looking at her. “Excuse me?”

She shrugged unapologetically. “Never liked her. And her Instagram looks like a sock puppet account.”

I wrinkled my forehead at her. “A what?”

She made a frustrated noise. “Oh my God, you are such a boomer! A sock. Puppet. Account?” she said, slower, like that would somehow convey the meaning. “A fake?”

I pressed my lips together with a tight nod. “Well, that makes sense,” I said. “And it would have been nice if you would have pointed that out sooner.” I closed my file. “I just need to take a personal day today.”

Becky made a resigned noise. “Fine. I’ll clear your schedule. But I swear to God, Adrian, you’d better get out of this funk. Why don’t you, like, adopt a dog or something?”

My mom had said the same thing a few weeks ago. Apparently dogs are the answer to all life’s problems.

“Don’t get a cat,” she went on. “It’ll walk around pushing your drinks off the coffee table. You’re not emotionally strong enough for that.”

I snorted. “Thanks for the tip. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“I have a friend who runs an animal rescue. They need people to foster dogs. Want me to get you one? If you like it, you can adopt it and if you don’t, someone else will.”

A dog wasn’t a horrible idea. I guess I could bring it to the office or something. Make Becky walk it while I was at court. I did miss feeling like I had a purpose.

I spent a lot of time with Mom and Grandma, but they’d moved to Nebraska with Mom’s new husband in October.

This was the event that had started me on the downward spiral Becky was picking up on. I was going to be alone for the holidays.

They’d invited me to join them, but I didn’t care for Mom’s husband, Richard. I hadn’t gone to their wedding in August, and I refused to join them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Rachel’s visits had been the only thing I’d had to look forward to.

The sudden gaping black hole in my personal life was the nail in the coffin of my mood.

Our junior associate, Lenny, poked his head into the office and looked around Becky, who was still standing in front of my desk on her phone. “Hey, Becky just texted me and said you and Rachel broke up. Sucks, man.”

“Yeah, thanks.” I put the files I was taking home into my briefcase.

He leaned in my doorway with his arms crossed. “Hey, want to grab lunch this week? You got time?”

“He’s got time,” Becky said without glancing up from her phone.

I gave her a look before replying to Lenny. “Just tell me when.”

He tapped a knuckle on the door frame, gave me finger guns, and left.

Becky still stood in front of my desk, texting into her phone. She’d put the gum back in her mouth.

I sat there, waiting for her to notice that I was staring at her. “Becky…” I said, looking up at her, irritated.

She popped a bubble. “I think I found a dog for you.”

“Great. Wonderful. Please continue to find it at your own desk. And try to refrain from telling anyone else my personal business on your way there.”

She smirked, unfazed as usual, and turned for the exit.

Five minutes later, Marcus strolled in. “Hey, buddy.”

Marcus Beaker was the founder of my firm and my counterpart. He was fifty-two, bald, slightly overweight, and sharp as a tack. Married, and not happily, to a doctor wife who could barely stand him and liked to take long vacations without him.

We made a good team. I was a good front man for high-profile cases—rarely caught off guard and a favorite with the media. Marcus had a reputation for being a bulldog and was the only person I’d ever met who could match my work ethic.