If you overlooked the ice-cold temperature, rickety table, and stiff wooden chairs, that is. Still, it beat working from the toilet seat.
“Yeah, if you compare it to the Siberian wild.”
I released an annoyed sigh. “Are you here to work, or are you here to pester me?”
“I can do both. I’m a great multitasker,” Josh quipped before his eyes turned serious. “Heard we got a new case today.”
“Yep.” I slid the papers toward him, snapping into work mode. “The Bowers. The mother, Laura Bower, fell down the stairs and can’t work for the next two months. No insurance, so they have a crazy amount of medical bills, and she’s the family’s sole breadwinner. Her husband Terence got out of jail a few years ago but hasn’t been able to find work because of his criminal record. They have two kids, Daisy and Tommy, ages six and nine.”
“They’re facing eviction.” Josh scanned the files.
I nodded. “Laura needs a stable place to recover from her fall, to say nothing of the issues that accompany homelessness.”
Murky, unwanted memories crowded my brain at the last word.
Cold nights. Empty stomach. The incessant itch of anxiety crawling over my skin.
My situation had been different from the Bowers, but I remembered all too well what it was like to wake up every morning and wonder if that was the last day I’d have a roof over my head and food on the table.
My mother had been a cocktail waitress, but she’d been more interested in blowing her meager income on shopping than paying the bills. Sometimes, the lights would cut out in the middle of me doing homework because she forgot to pay the electric bill. Eventually, I figured out how to siphon electricity from our neighbor at the ripe old age of ten. Not the most ethical solution, but I did what I had to do.
A shiver rolled through me.
You’re fine. You’re not that little girl anymore.
“I know her.” Josh rapped his knuckle against the paper with Laura’s picture stapled to it, yanking me back into the present. “I treated her when she came in. Multiple broken bones, heavy bruising, twisted ankle. Still, she was in good spirits and making jokes, trying to keep her kids from panicking.” His face softened. “The ER can be a blur, but I remember her.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “She seems really nice.”
I’d never met Laura, but I could tell she was the type of mother I would’ve killed to have.
I cleared my throat in an attempt to ease the knot of emotion that had taken residence there. “Legally speaking, the obvious solution is to clear Terence’s criminal record so he can find a job,” I said. As the clinic’s practicing attorney, Lisa needed to sign off on everything I did, and she’d agreed clearing his record was the best solution. “He was charged for marijuana possession. One ounce, and he spent a year in jail for it.”
Heat crept over my neck the way it had when I first learned the case details. Few things pissed me off more than the inequity of draconian drug laws. “How stupid is that? Some rapists only get a few months in jail, but have a little marijuana on you and your record is stained forever. That’s such bullshit. You have weed farmers in Colorado raking in the cash from the sale of marijuana while people like Terence are vilified for it. Tell me where the justice is in that. I—what?” I stopped when I noticed Josh staring at me with a tiny, almost fascinated smile.
“I’ve never seen you so worked up over something that wasn’t me.”
“Once again, you’ve proved your self-absorption knows no bounds.” My flush of anger cooled, though my indignation at the injustice of it all remained. “That’s not me breaking the truce,” I added. “That’s a fact.”
“Sure it is,” Josh said dryly. “But you’re right. There is no justice in what happened to Terence.”
I cocked my head, sure I’d heard wrong. “Repeat that. The middle sentence.”
First the apology, then the admission I was right. Was that really Josh sitting across from me, or had aliens abducted him and switched him out with a more agreeable body swap?
“No.”
“Do it.” I nudged his foot with mine, earning myself a scowl. “I want to hear you say it again.”
“Which is exactly why I won’t.”
“Come on.” I gave him my best puppy dog face. “It’s Friday.”
“That has nothing to do with anything.” Josh heaved a long, put-upon sigh when I deepened my puppy eyes. “I said, you’re right.” He sounded so disgruntled I almost laughed. “Only about this one thing, though. Not anything else.”
“See. That wasn’t so hard.” I folded the cupcake wrapper neatly into a square and pushed it to the side for future disposal. “You have a decent smile when you’re not being an ass,” I added generously, since we were being nice.
“Thanks.”
I ignored Josh’s sarcasm and switched back to the case. I wanted to finish all my work before I left so I didn’t have to spend the weekend worrying about it. Our Vermont trip was tomorrow, and while I wasn’t looking forward to two days in a cabin with Josh, I was looking forward to my first vacation of the year.
I didn’t count my trip to Eldorra for Bridget’s coronation. I’d only been there for a weekend, and it’d been so crazy I barely had time to sleep, much less sightsee.
“Now, about the Bowers.” I tapped my pen against the paper. “Lisa mentioned we could provide free medical checkups for Laura while she’s healing.”
“Yes. Usually, we have them come into the free clinic.” Josh waved in the general direction of the exit, and it only occurred to me now that he must’ve been staffing the clinic all day. The pop-up tent was set up outside LHAC, so I wouldn’t have seen him arrive. “But given Laura’s situation, we can make home visits. We just have to fill out the appropriate paperwork…”
For the next hour, Josh and I worked on the Bower case together. He created a checkup schedule and handled the medical paperwork while I finished fact checking the details and gathered the information we needed to clear Terence’s record.
I snuck a glance at Josh while he scribbled something on a blank sheet of paper. His brow etched with a frown of concentration, and I realized it was the first time I’d seen him work.
“Like what you see?” he asked without looking up from his paper.
Heat crawled up my neck again, this time from embarrassment. “Only if the thesaurus changed like to be a synonym for loathe.”
The corner of his mouth curved up a fraction of an inch. “Truce, JR.”
I couldn’t tell whether the soft reminder was mocking or not, but it made my stomach flip. Maybe he had poisoned the cupcake.
I highlighted a passage in the case with more aggression than necessary. Josh and I made a surprisingly good team, but I didn’t fool myself into thinking our truce was a precursor to an actual friendship.
Only a few things in life were certain: death, taxes, and the fact that Josh Chen and I would never be friends.
JOSH
The brief camaraderieJules and I experienced at the clinic fizzled less than twenty-four hours later, when I arrived at the airport’s private jet terminal to find her looking bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and all too smug about beating me to the airport.
“You’re late.” Jules sipped her coffee. No doubt it was a caramel mocha with extra crunch and oat milk because she was lactose intolerant and hated the taste of almond milk.
So predictable.
“We haven’t boarded yet, which means I’m not late.” I dropped into the seat opposite hers and frowned at her outfit. Yoga pants and boots, topped with a fuzzy purple jacket and giant sunglasses she’d propped on top of her head. “Where the hell did you get your jacket? Barneys R Us?”
“I wouldn’t expect someone who showed up to the airport in sweatpants to understand fashion.” Jules’s eyes flicked toward the sweatpants in question, and my irritation melted into smug satisfaction when she lingered a second too long on a certain area.
“Take a picture. It lasts longer,” I drawled.