Overruled (The Legal Briefs, #1)(25)

I spend a good while scratching his ears and rubbing his belly.

Then I connect my phone to the speaker system and turn the volume up loud. Because I need something upbeat. Something snappy. “Still Standing,” by the great Elton John—on repeat. Unlike my mother’s fear of dogs, her taste in music was passed on to me. She heard “Tiny Dancer” for the first time as a teenager on her first day in the United States, and she’s loved Elton John’s music ever since. It played background while I grew up, the soundtrack of my childhood. I go to see him in concert any chance I get.

By the time the first chorus is complete, I’m already feeling better, bouncing to the beat as I change into a sturdy pink sports bra and snug black running pants. I’m stretching in the living room when Brent walks in the unlocked door, suited up for a run himself—a blue Under Armour T-shirt that highlights the sharp swells of muscle that make up his upper body, black shorts, and the metal arc of the prosthetic leg he uses for jogging.

Though I know about Brent’s accident and what it took from him, there’s always a moment of shock when I see the harsh metal below his left knee. It’s difficult to imagine the struggles he must’ve faced, all the challenges he had to overcome, and yet he still came out of it with such an awesome, dynamic personality.

He appraises me for a beat, then tilts his head, lifting his ear. “ ‘Still Standing,’ huh? Someone needed a pick-me-up this morning.”

Brent knows me well.

“Get in late . . . or . . . not get in at all?” he says.

I grab my keys and we head out the door to Memorial Park, the best spot to run in the city. After last night’s rain, the air is warm but dry—a gorgeous summer day.

“I stayed at Stanton’s,” I tell him casually.

His round eyes widen. “Really?”

“It was late,” I explain.

“Uh-huh.”

“I was tired,” I offer.

“Mmm . . .”

Then, with exasperation, “It was raining!”

He nods, his boyish blue eyes seemingly all-knowing. “So it was.”

As an attorney, it’s important to know how to turn the tables on a witness. How to steer them away from certain topics. So that’s what I do.

“And how did your ‘date’ go?”

Brent smirks deviously. “A gentleman never kisses and tells.”

On slow days at the office, he has a tendency to fill the empty sound space with his more outrageous stories. The actress who blew him while a thousand paparazzi swarmed outside her car; the heiress who had a thing for danger and how he screwed her while suspended from the chandelier of a sixteenth-century castle. Not all the stories involve sex—just his favorite ones.

“I don’t see any gentlemen here.”

He barks out a chuckle. “Good point. Let’s just say she left my house walking crooked this morning, and leave it at that.”

We start at the Washington Monument, a warm-up pace, side by side but careful to avoid the many other joggers, bicyclists, and in-line skaters on the path. DC is a young city, active and, at least in the area I live, attractive. You can practically see the rivalry in the air, like smog in LA. Everyone wants to be at the top of their game—ready to move up or push someone else out.

If greed is good, in DC, power is king, and everybody’s jockeying for position to get a piece of that pie.

Our steps are steady, our breathing deep but even. “What do you think of facial hair?” Brent asks out of the blue.

I look at his smooth, youthfully handsome face that has gotten him into trouble more than once and shrug. “Depends on the face. Why?”

He rubs his jaw. “I’m thinking about growing a beard. Might save me from getting hit on by high school girls.”

I laugh at his predicament. “I think you’d wear a beard well.”

Several more minutes pass before the Jefferson Memorial comes into view. I believe that when the monuments were being planned, someone didn’t like Thomas Jefferson—because his is pretty far out there. Isolated. In terms of visitors, Jefferson got royally screwed.

“So . . . about you and Stanton . . .” Brent hedges.

I catch his expression from the corner of my eye and it makes me stop short.

Concern.

Uncomfortable friendly concern—like he’s working up the nerve to tell me something he really doesn’t want to have to tell me.

“Did he say something to you? About me?”

Another lesson learned from the promiscuous big brothers? Boys talk.

“No—no, he hasn’t said anything. I just . . . you do realize that Stanton is . . . emotionally unavailable?”

“That’s one of the things I like best about him. Who has time for available?”

We’re walking now, side by side, getting our breath back.

“But you get that he’s . . . spoken for?”

“Of course I get it, Brent—he talks about Jenny and Presley all the time. He’s got a picture of them on his desk and a bunch at his apartment.”

There are pictures of Stanton leaning close to Jenny, in a hospital bed, holding a newborn baby in a pink blanket. Stanton and a little blonde in pigtails, standing next to a shiny pink bicycle after her first ride. Stanton, Jenny, and Presley sitting together on a Ferris wheel, smiling brightly. The three of them are fair-haired and perfect—like the southern version of The Dresden Dolls.