All Work, Let's Play, page 2
After I shape myself up, I look better than I did, but I still look…dead. I look lifeless. My caramel-colored eyes are dull and my skin looks ashen. My usual brown skin has a gray tint, like I haven’t seen the sun in weeks. That could be from the alcohol, or it could be from how much I haven’t been paying attention to myself all month. During that time, I showered and brushed my teeth, but that’s the extent of it. No moisturizing, no upkeep, nothing. I don’t know what I have to do to get back to myself, but I can’t think about it right now. All I can think about is getting through one day to the next. My full lips look dry and chapped, because I’ve been biting and worrying them for the past month, anxiety cranked up high. To put it lightly, I’m not the handsome man on the cusp of my future that I was a month ago. Now, I look borderline homeless. If I didn’t have a haircut, I’d look like a vagrant for sure.
I shake my head, and that jostles my brain, making me hiss. My head is killing me. I toss back a few Tylenol and get in the shower.
My shower is hot and quick, as I’m almost running late. It took longer to shape up my beard than I thought. Or maybe I’m moving slowly because of my headache that’s, thankfully, going away. I begrudgingly grab a suit from my closet. After a month of sweats or pajamas, my pressed slacks and starched shirt feel itchy against my skin.
I stop by the coffee shop around the corner from the apartment I shared with Joyce for a year. All of her things were gone when I got back from the church with Candice, which let me know that while my heart was being crushed, she was packing to start her new life. I swallow roughly, angry at myself for dredging up shitty memories, and walk to the counter to place my order.
My favorite barista, Ty, takes my order. “Gage!” he exclaims in his excitable way. “I’ve missed you! It’s been a while. I like the beard! Oh, it’s giving John David Washington, and everyone knows how much I love me some John David! You look phenomenal! Sheesh, now I have some serious eye candy.” He goes on and on and if it were anyone else, I wouldn’t be in the mood for any of this conversation. But Ty has always been like this. He’s a college kid that works here part-time and we’ve struck up a bit of a friendship since I started coming in here a few years ago. If anyone can brighten my day, it’s him. Animated, talking with his hands most of the time, always chipper. It’s hard not to like him.
“Thanks, Ty,” I laugh at him, my first genuine laugh in a month. “I figured I’d try something new. Glad I have your approval.”
“That you do, Gage. The usual?” I nod and pay, then step back from the counter to wait for my large black coffee with three sugars. I think about getting a muffin, but my stomach isn’t doing too hot, so coffee will be my breakfast and lunch. Hell, I’ll be lucky to keep the coffee down at all.
Ty calls my name and slides me my drink. He looks somber for a second, and I know what he’s going to say. It seems like word got around that I was a jilted man. I almost want to tell him to save it, but I like Ty and I know he’s not going to feel sorry for me. “Hey, Gage? Break-ups suck, but it’ll get better. I know it will.”
He doesn’t say more, and I appreciate it. I salute him with my coffee and leave the shop, not wanting things to get awkward.
The drive to Lawson, Newman, and Reese, the law office I work for, is short. Way too short. I don’t have time to get myself mentally prepared to face Caleb. After losing my shit on him at the church, I don’t know what to say. I know I should apologize. I shouldn’t have taken my hurt out on him. Even though he and I don’t see eye to eye, he was trying to be sympathetic of my situation.
I enter the building and take the elevator to the law office, feeling like I don’t belong. I’ve changed so much since the last time I was here. Not only my appearance, but inside. I feel like I’m more jaded, dark. Not as hopeful as I tried to be after my shitty childhood. Now, I feel the darkness I wouldn’t let envelope me after those terrible years covering me like a shroud. I almost want to quit, to wash my hands of having a job in general, but I still need to live. And my savings is wiped out, thanks to the wedding that never happened.
After stepping off on the 14th floor, I run smack into another legal researcher, Bridgett, a tall, willowy black woman with full lips, a lush body and kind eyes, who’s balancing a stack of files in her arms. She drops them as she smacks into my chest and curses her frustration. I bend down to help her gather everything in her arms and she does a double take when she recognizes me.
“Gage! Hey! I forgot you were going to be back today. You look…different.” She’s either talking about the beard or how haggard I look.
“Thanks?” I respond in a question form.
“Oh, no. Not bad. The beard. I never pictured you with one. I almost didn’t recognize you.”
I give her a small smile and stack the files I have in my hands on top of the ones she has after we stand. “Why do you have so many so early?” I ask, pointing to her stack.
“Mr. Newman is on a war path. Some big case they have that he can’t get a handle on. No one is doing enough according to him.” She rolls her eyes and straightens her stack, so they don’t slide out of her arms. “He’s about made everyone quit with how he’s acting. I should have called to warn you, but…you know…”
I do know. I heard from a few people that I actually like, including Bridgett, but I told them I didn’t want to talk and not to call me. I definitely owe her an apology. I don’t get close to people. Don’t let them in, because they always leave me. I thought to change that at one point, letting Joyce and her family in, but I see why I’ve always kept it to just me and Candice. Everyone leaves. Everyone.
“I’m sorry, Bridgett. I appreciate you checking on me. I was—”
“Don’t apologize, Gage. I know it couldn’t have been easy. I understand, and I get it. I’m glad to see you doing well,” she says as she walks away to our small legal library. She’s wrong though. I’m not doing well. She doesn’t know me well enough to know that my eyes don’t look this haunted or my face this gaunt. Maybe the beard is hiding how much weight I’ve lost.
Shaking my head, I go to the office I share with the other researchers. It’s four others, besides myself and Bridgett. She and I are assigned to work for Mr. Newman, though we all pick up the slack and help each other out if someone’s case is larger and they need more eyes on it. I look at my desk and see it’s free of any files and depositions, which is surprising. Usually, it’s stacked to the brim, even when I feel like I’m all caught up.
Dustin, the only other man who works in this office spots me first. He always looks like he’s fresh off a beach, a real surfer vibe. Long, blonde hair that’s usually tied back in a messy ponytail. Light blue eyes that somehow look intense but calming at the same time, and lips that always look pouty. “Look who’s back. I’m glad to see you, man. We’ve been swamped with this crazy case with Mr. Newman. You can handle him. Please handle him. He’s driving us insane.”
I would kiss Dustin if I was into men. He doesn’t look at me with any pity and he doesn’t ask how I am. I guess men know we don’t want to rehash our feelings at every turn.
I nod and smirk, because he’s right. I do know how to handle Mr. Newman. He scares everyone else, but not me. I’ve been in some shitty places with some terrible people. The likes of Mr. Newman don’t bother me.
“I’ll go to his office now. How is everything else?”
“Good,” Dustin says. “Mr. Reese was working with Mr. Newman, but they hired a new guy to take his place. Mr. Reese said his workload was too big to split between his cases and this new one.”
That’s new. We’ve only had the three lawyers here for the past five years I’ve been here. I heard Mr. Reese ask a few times if they were going to hire a new attorney, but Mr. Newman and Mr. Lawson always declined.
Lawson, Newman, and Reese was founded ten years ago by the three aforementioned men almost fresh out of law school. They were frat brothers who had always talked about starting their own firm and went for it. I admire them for that. And Mr. Reese and Mr. Lawson are great. They treat us like people and not like the help, even if we technically are.
But Mr. Newman gets off on talking down to us. Initially, I would take it, letting him get his jabs in, since he signs my paycheck. After a while though, I would tell him about himself. How I didn’t appreciate him talking to me like I was a child and if he wants me to work for him, he would give me the respect I deserved. He still says his little snide comments, but he knows I say them back. He doesn’t give me as much shit as he does the others.
“What’s the case?” I take my jacket off and hang it on the back of my chair. I don’t sit down and get to work. I don’t have any yet. I have to let Mr. Newman know I’m here, so he can give me whatever tasks he has for me.
“First-degree murder. One of their frat brothers. It’s been all over the news.”
I haven’t been watching the news. Haven’t been keeping up with current events. If I wasn’t drinking, I was sleeping or moping around my apartment in the dark. So, of course, I didn’t hear about it.
This is huge. There have been a few murder cases we worked on, but they’re few and far between with this firm. We mostly work white-collar crimes. Easier to research and defend. Add to that, the familiar relationship between the three attorneys and the client? This will be an intense few weeks.
Dustin continues. “From the news coverage, he murdered a man and his son. Has something to do with his own son, but they’re not releasing that information. All we’re told to look up is first-degree murder cases that involve premeditation in Virginia for the past five years. Emphasis on underaged victims, though the son that was murdered was over 18.” He shrugs, not able to figure it out.
Nodding, I grab a pencil and notepad from my desk drawer and go to Mr. Newman’s office. His door is open, but I knock anyway, causing him to bring head up, his eyes landing on me. He narrows his eyes and gestures to a chair in front of his desk. I take a deep breath and have a seat.
He taps away on his computer for another few minutes and I know he’s doing that shit on purpose. He knows I hate to be kept waiting when I could be working.
“You almost done or are you going to type away until I die of old age?” I know I shouldn’t push his buttons, especially since he’s under stress with his frat brother on trial, but I don’t have the patience to wait for him to get good and ready to open his mouth.
Mr. Newman purses his lips and continues to type. He’s fucking frustrating. After five minutes, he finishes whatever bullshit he has on his computer and looks at me. A shiver runs down my spine from his eyes landing on me. I shake it off and give him a look.
“I believe you owe me an apology,” he says, by way of greeting.
“Do I? I don’t recall doing anything to warrant an apology.” My voice is cool, even though I know he’s right. And I would have given him one if he didn’t keep me sitting here in his office, like I’m his fucking pet.
He sits forward on the desk and pinches the bridge of his nose. It’s been a few weeks since I saw him last, and I notice the changes now that he has his eyes closed. He has dark rings under his eyes that look like bruises and his usual perfectly curled hair looks slightly disheveled. Like he’s been rubbing his hands over it, not worried about the pattern. Against his light brown skin, the dark circles look especially prominent. His wayward curls are totally out of place from his usual clean style. His skin looks pale and his cheeks look especially sharp. His beard is a bit longer and thicker than he usually has it, telling me he probably hasn’t done any maintenance to it in a week or so. His shirt also looks wrinkled, like he hasn’t changed it or like he slept in it.
I look around his office and see more signs that he might have slept here. There’s a pillow on his office couch that I’ve never seen before. There are files and folders open on the table in his office, severely wrinkled, like he flipped through them or folded them to keep their place, something he never does. A few takeout containers rest on the table as well, making me wrinkle my nose.
He waves his hand. “Doesn’t matter. Are you ready to work?”
I look at my notepad, then at him. “Been waiting on you to let me know what I have to work on.”
Again, he purses his lips. Like he’s dying to say something but is tiptoeing around me. I hate it. I wish he would say what he wants, like he does any other time. It has to be because of what he saw when I was in that church office. I want to tell him to cut the shit, but I don’t have the energy.
“Good. Go home and pack for a month. We’re going to Virginia.”
“Wait, what? Travel?”
“Yes. You know, going from one place to another, over a great length sometimes,” he deadpans.
I almost smile because he’s finally giving me shit. About time.
“Fine. Who else is helping me?”
He smiles then, but not a friendly smile. It almost looks sinister, like he has a secret. One that doesn’t bode well. “Just you, me, and the new lawyer. Is that going to be a problem?”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Why just me?”
“Because you’ve had a month off. I figured you’d be more rested than any of the other researchers.”
This son of a bitch. He knows what happened is a sore spot, especially with me losing my cool on him like I did and he’s bringing it up. I close my eyes and take several deep breaths. “Fine,” I say through clenched teeth. “You could have called and told me before I got here. Feel like I wasted a trip.” I stand up to leave.
He hums in his throat. “Flight leaves at seven this evening. Be at the airport by five. I hate being late.”
I don’t answer. Just make my way back to our office to gather my jacket and messenger bag. Dustin looks up and his face falls. “What happened? Did you get fired?”
I laugh, a short burst that feels foreign to my ears. “No, I’m traveling with the Big Bad Wolf.” Dustin flinches and I laugh again. If we ever have a case out of state, Bridgett and I usually rock, paper, scissors for it and she always loses. From what I heard of their trips, he was a tyrant and she almost quit more times than she cared to say. They were short cases though. No more than a week. I’ll be with him for a month or more, depending on how long this case takes. I’m going to suffer way more than she ever did.
“Good luck, man. I don’t wish that on anyone,” he says to me gravely. I shoot him a smirk and head home.
Chapter Three
Packing suits for a month is difficult. I have a lot, having worked in an office setting for five years now. But I can’t pack them all. Or one for every day. So I do what Mr. Archer, my adoptive father, always told me. Always have five suits, blue, black, brown, gray and pinstripe. Always have white, light blue, and patterned shirts. And a pair of black and brown dress shoes. Socks were up to the wearer. Mr. Archer was a sharply dressed man, working in a bank all his life. From teller to VP. He knew his stuff.
I have several of every color and many more besides, so it’s not hard to pick one of each, packing them away in my garment bag. I put some shirts in there as well. In my suitcase, I pack my pajamas, socks, regular clothes, and shoes. I plan to make a few stops at whatever bar that’s nearby. I should probably stop drinking since I’m back to work, but I need to get to sleep every night.
The feeling of abandonment I’ve been trying to tamp back since the Archers died only gets better after a few drinks. Or until I’m drunk enough not to remember. After this case is over, I’ll finally go to therapy like Candice has been telling me to for years. She’s pretty well-adjusted for a foster kid that went through some of the same shit I went through. She might be on to something.
I have a few hours to kill before I have to leave for the airport, so I decide to give my sister a call. I know she’ll be wondering how my first day of work was. Or non-day, as is the case. Pulling out my phone, I access her contact information and press call.
“Hey, Gage. How are you feeling?” she asks immediately.
Candice and I built our relationship after we realized the Archers wanted to keep us. As older kids placed in a new home, we were used to being shuffled around constantly and didn’t want to get too comfortable. The longest I’d stayed in one single home was three months. The longest for Candice was six. After the six months were up for both of us and the Archers seemed to like having us around, we decided to get to know each other and them. We had a great family for three years. After their deaths, we found out they put us on their life insurance and set us up nicely. Better than a lot of foster kids.
We were able to afford an apartment together and four years of college. She’s my true family. The person I know will never leave me. I don’t blame the Archers, as the accident wasn’t their fault, but I still feel that abandonment. Still feel like I’ll never have the parents I crave.
“Tired and hungover,” I answer her with a laugh. “Good news is I kinda have the day off. We’re traveling to Virginia for a case. So I didn’t have to listen to Caleb’s shit.”
“Please tell me you didn’t call that man Caleb to his face,” Candice groans.
I bark a laugh. “Not this time. I might though. You know he’s always saying slick shit to me.”
Candice huffs through the phone. “If you have a problem with it, Gage, you can always quit. I know you still have money from the Archers. You can afford to take some time off for a bit.”
I sit down on my bed, halting my packing. “I did have money from the Archers. Until the wedding.”
