Page 27 of With Wine Comes War

I leaned against her desk as I reached for the messages. “It’s a good message, I’m guessing?” I asked with a smirk on my face.

She stopped smiling and glared at me. “It’s none of your business is what it is.”

I pushed away from the desk and put my hands up in surrender.

“Ok, sorry.” Jesus, maybe it was Alex again. I needed a break from these crazy women. I wished I could go back to the days where I would just go out, have a few drinks, pick up a willing participant and get laid with no strings.

“I emailed you your schedule. I fit Ms. Kennedy in at 2:00 pm.” She said as she ignored my apology. I took a deep breath and headed into my office and shut the door without slamming it somehow.Wonder what’s crawled up her ass?

As I was going through my schedule and getting ready to call Matt to confirm our meeting today, the door flies open. Harrison barges in, shuts the door hard and sits down in the chair in front of my desk with a thud. He didn’t say a word, just sat there staring at me questioningly.

Annoyed, I ask, “Can I help you?” He waited a good minute just looking me over.

“I was just checking on your mood today. I have a date tonight, so I don’t want to be here any longer than I have to because you lost your shit.”

Oh, I see what this is, dick.

“You’ve got jokes today. Good one. Now get out.”

“Glad you’re feeling better.” He looked back and flipped me the bird before he closed the door.

“Hey Matt, we still on for 1:00 pm today?” I said as Matt answered the phone.

“Yeah, I’ve got some good news about Burrow Township, too. Also, I know Grant is doing a great job, but we really need to see if we can get Alex back on this. She’s got the time to focus on it and the residents trust her.”

He sounded very optimistic and I’m not the only one missing our girl, I see.

“I have a meeting with her today about something business related so I’ll see what I can do. Maybe reach out to Grant and see if he can’t talk her into it. She went to see them the other day, so she’s getting there, I guess.”

“I like that she’s reaching out to you.” Although I felt like I forced her to.

“Well, she’s being strictly business about it. Just asking me to do her a favor. I really have no idea what it’s about.”

“Baby steps, then. We’ve been trying to get her over to the house to hang out with the kids. She never had that sleepover. The kids don’t know why she canceled or why she hasn’t come to see them. They’re just too young to explain, but again, baby steps. She’s makingprogress with the girls. With Abby pregnant, hopefully that’ll bring her by more.” Matt sounded positive and to me that was good news.

“We can only hope, but it’s going to have to be on her terms, in her time. This court case isn’t going to help. I’m supposed to be getting a call from the DA this week about possibly testifying if it goes to court.” Maybe he’d be willing to let me in on something– anything.

“Yeah, I heard. I’m trying to stay out of it since I’m part of her counsel. It’s hard not to want to include you but we don’t need anything getting in the way since these two are politically connected.” Guess I won’t be getting any information after all. I stared at my pen as I tapped it on the desk.

“I understand and I’m not going to ask any questions. Except one, is there a start date to this case yet?” I’m looking forward to getting it done and over with. I moved the pen toward my calendar to hopefully mark a date for it.

“I’m hearing that it’s tentatively set for two weeks from now if he doesn’t plead out.” I doodled circles next to a possible date then laid the pen down.

“Well let’s hope for the best. She doesn’t need any more shit than she’s already dealt with.”

“Amen to that. I’ll see you after lunch.”

I called Amelia into my office.

“Yes?” She looked almost irritated with me. I wonder what the hell I did, but I didn’t have time to worry about that.

“What’s after my two o’clock?”

She looked at her phone and said, “It’s an update meeting on some local projects. Nothing to do with the zoning stuff. Oh, and your four o’clock rescheduled to tomorrow morning at 10:00am.”

Great, so nothing this afternoon. Maybe I can talk Alex into going to dinner with me after her training session.

“Amelia, can you reschedule my afternoon meeting and see if they can just email me that info? Also, what are you doing for lunch today? Are we still on?” I sat back and glared at her, daring her to say anything other than yes.

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