Unexpected Arrivals(25)
I’d missed the chance at Christmas, and in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, Cora was dealing with exams at the end of her first year of grad school. All she talked about was engineering and class. Every bit of free time we had was spent driving to places around the city or the state to enhance her knowledge. Her excitement fueled my own, even though her desire wasn’t in marriage or starting a family—she was chasing a career. And I respected that.
“Oh my God, where’s James?”
I was in our bedroom when I heard Cora burst into the house like her ass was on fire. Her voice had been filled with excitement and not panic, so I wasn’t surprised when she came racing down the hall and launched herself onto the bed next to me. When she finished bouncing from her weight hitting the mattress, she crawled across me, straddled my hips, and placed her palms against my chest to sit up.
“You’re not going to believe what happened, today!”
Her enthusiasm was as contagious as her grin. My hands naturally gravitated toward her hips. She leaned over to grab the remote and turned off the television before giving me any insight to what had her flushed with anticipation.
“Dr. Parker got me an internship for the summer at Halifax.”
“The engineering firm in Manhattan?” The company was enormous and recognized worldwide for their modern design. They focused on commercial property, and their buildings were like works of art in a city skyline.
“Yes! And even better, it’s for Drake Halifax—one of the managing partners. I’m dying. I still can’t believe it’s real.”
I leaned forward and took her face in my hands. Smiling against her lips, I murmured, “I’m proud of you, sweetheart.”
“There were over two thousand grad students considered from all over the country. I have no idea how I managed to land it over all those other people, but who cares, right?”
“You don’t have to interview for it or anything?” Not that I thought anyone would have beaten her out for the spot if they’d met her in person.
“I kind of already did. Part of our final was the presentation I’ve been working on. They were streamed on the school’s website, and I guess he saw it. I don’t know. Even if it’s a divine twist of fate, I don’t care. It’s freaking Halifax!”
She hopped off me as quickly as she’d found me. “What am I going to wear for my first day? Do you think I should go shopping? I don’t really have the clothes for a professional work environment. This guy could be the key to my future after graduation, James.”
Everything seemed to be falling into place. Cora had been apprehensive about coming to New York to begin with, but if she could firmly believe this was where she was meant to be, there wouldn’t be any remaining questions about our moving forward. Not that there were now, but she’d followed me from Geneva Key to Chapel Hill and then New York. I needed her to find something in those decisions that made them right.
“Why don’t we go shopping this weekend? When do you start?”
“Monday.” She rifled through the closet, the hangers sliding on the bar as she sifted through her wardrobe. “Really?” She peeked her head out. “You’d do that?”
“Absolutely.”
***
It was funny how everyone else’s life was falling into place, and mine suddenly seemed to spiral out of control. I’d all but forgotten about the incident earlier this fall. I’d hired an attorney in hopes of getting out of the DWI charges, and he’d assured me he’d take care of it. For what I paid him, I allowed him to carry the weight of that stress and hadn’t thought about it since.
“James Carpenter,” I announced when I answered the phone in my office.
“James. Scott Brawley.”
“Hey.” I wasn’t interested in the pleasantries of conversation when I paid this guy by the quarter of an hour. He needed to get to the point in the next fourteen minutes.
“Got a couple options for you.” He acted like I was buying a car, not my background check. Being in the financial industry, my record needed to stay squeaky clean—any mark could cause a backlash for the company.
“Lay it on me.”
“No one wants to bother taking this to court, which plays in our favor.”
“I’m listening.” I wondered if lawyers took courses on how to run down the clock without ever saying anything of substance in order to pass the bar.
“One hundred and sixty hours of community service and pretrial intervention. After that, you can pay to have the charge expunged from your record. Or, a ten-thousand-dollar fine and PTI.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You consider those options? I’ve paid you close to that and could have gotten the exact same results six months ago.”
“I’m sure you’re frustrated, but the state could take your license, and if they chose to be hardasses, jail time could be tacked on. So while the options might not look like much, they provide you with an opportunity to keep the incident off the record.”
There was no way I had time to work off weeks’ worth of community service. “I guess the fine.”
“I’ll send you the paperwork. You’ll need to get the payment to the court by the end of the month.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
After we hung up, I glanced at the clock and groaned in frustration, wondering how that handful of words had taken seventeen minutes of Scott’s time. I was hemorrhaging money as it was—his bill only added to the shitstorm. I’d had to dump a sizeable sum into the business, I’d finally broken down and bought a diamond—even though I didn’t have a setting to put it in—Cora and I were covering more than our half of the expenses at the apartment, and now the state demanded a mint.