Page 15 of The Lawyer's Quandary
“Not really. I just need to finish cutting a few things, and once the grill is hot, I can cook the pork.” He returned to the kitchen to clean the strawberries. Then he took the bowl out to the table before getting the pork and putting it on the grill. They wouldn’t take long to cook, so he had to watch them like a hawk. Pork was something that you didn’t want underdone, but if he let them cook too long, they would get leathery.
“Damn, that smells good,” Mark said as he came up behind him. “What did you do?”
“I prepared them with herbs and some mustard with a little good vinegar.” Greg turned the chops and checked them for doneness. They needed a few more minutes, so he turned off the grill and closed the cover, letting the residual heat finish them. Then he got the platter and took out the dishes and the salad, setting everything on the table. Mark got it set while Ashley helped get the meat onto the platter, and then they all sat down.
“Everything is so good,” Ashley said. “You need to keep him. I swear, if I met a man who could cook like this, I’d settle down and be happy forever.”
Greg glanced at Mark. “I take it that would be quite an accomplishment. My mom taught me to cook, and she alwayssaid that a man who can cook is always in demand. So she made sure I learned some of her secrets, and this is one of them. She used to make these all the time.”
Mark bumped his shoulder. “They are amazing. How do you keep them so juicy?”
“Cook the outside and then turn off the grill and let the heat finish them. That keeps them from being overcooked.” Greg was so pleased that they enjoyed the lunch, especially Mark. He wanted to impress him without getting too fancy.
“What sort of cases do you take?” Ashley asked.
“Well, I’ve done quite a bit of defense work, because everyone deserves the best representation before the court. But I don’t do public defense work. It’s not what I want to do, because I want to be able to have a say in the clients I take. There are plenty of lawyers who do that, but I don’t. I do take about a case a month pro bono, but I choose them because they have a cause or because they can’t afford proper representation. For example, there was a family whose insurance company was jerking them around after they lost their house in a fire. I took their case and got the insurance company to properly reimburse them. There wasn’t a huge amount of money involved, and if I had taken a fee, then they wouldn’t have been able to rebuild their house for the family of five.” He shrugged. “Good work comes back to you, because a year later, he referred a case to me that made me a great deal of money and got me before the appeals court, and I won that case.”
“That’s pretty cool.”
“Greg also takes interns and new law school graduates and helps train them for their future careers. Sort of a pay-it-forward kind of thing.”
“It’s important to give back. When I graduated law school, there was a firm that gave me my first job and a partner who took me under his wing and really showed me the ropes. He tookme with him when he argued in front of the Supreme Court. I worked on that case and got to see the entire process. I learned as great deal from him, and the one thing he always told me was to pay him back, but by helping others.” Greg passed the fruit and the pasta salad around the table.
“Me too. I had a great coach when I was swimming. He saw something in me that I didn’t, and he coached me all the way to the Olympics. I didn’t medal, but just being there was amazing. Winning would have been great, but having the experience was mind-blowing. And I’m hoping to be going back to the Olympics as a coach for the next games. We’ve got players would could make the team.”
“That would be something pretty amazing, to be at one of those events. I always wanted to go to the Olympics. My parents got tickets for the Paris games, and they said it was an amazing time.” Greg munched on a few strawberries, but he was pretty full.
The three of them finished lunch and sat talking. Ashley was funny, and once he let go of the smart aleck routine, he seemed like a really decent guy. Greg quickly took care of the dishes and refilled drinks before sitting back down. It had been quite a while since he’d had an afternoon like this. Mark took his hand, and they talked and relaxed, making each other laugh as they shared stories.
“We should get going,” Ashley said a few hours later.
As much as he hated to see the afternoon end, Greg stood and walked them to the door. Ashley said goodbye and left the house while Mark stayed behind.
“I’ll call you. Next weekend, I’ll be away for a swim camp, but hopefully we can get together after that.” He kissed him. “I really wish I didn’t have to wait so long to see you again.”
“Me too,” Greg agreed, kissing Mark hard. “I’ll be talking to you.” He stepped back and watched as Mark got into Ashley’scar. Then they drove off, and he closed the door, the taste of Mark still on his lips.
Work, work,and more work. That’s what he did for the next few days. There was a lot to do, so Greg kept himself busy. Each evening, Mark would call and they’d talk for a while, but it wasn’t the same as having him there. At least the conversation was easy, and they could talk for hours.
“I need to meet with some clients, so I’m heading out,” he told Angie a little after four on Thursday. “Close everything up, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Of course.” She smiled and answered the phone as he hurried out of the building and to his car for the drive down to Adams College. Unfortunately, the weather was wet and the clouds close, so he stayed with the main road, arriving at the rec center a little early. He messaged Mark that he was there, and he met him at the entrance, taking him down to his office. Mark said very little until they were behind a closed door. Then he kissed his breath away.
“I’ve wanted to do that for days,” Mark whispered, and Greg threw his arms around Mark’s neck and kissed him right back. The energy in the room grew quickly, and Greg was tempted to push Mark back on his desk because, damn, he really wanted him. The last few days had been fraught with fantasies, and he wanted to make one of them come true. “We should probably cool it or else I’m going to bend you over this desk and take that sweet ass of yours right here.”
Greg shivered before backing away. “Okay. Good point. What’s the plan?”
“Steven and the guys are going to meet us at the restaurant in half an hour. We’ll have dinner, and you all can talk.”
“That sounds good,” Greg offered.
“And I can report that I have been very busy here lately. I might have managed to get my hands on one of those hypothetical tiny internet cameras, and I put it in his office, pointed right at the table he uses to tape up knees and ankles. I found a really good place to hide it. He isn’t going to be back for ten days, so it’s off right now, but I can turn it on and control it through my phone. I have it attached directly to the internet. I figured it would be harder for him to discover it that way. If it’s on the campus intranet, then it can be discovered.”
“Okay. But is he going to find it? Hypothetically, of course.”
“Nope. Not unless he rips down his ceiling. The offices in the athletic department have these false ceilings with holes in them to facilitate air flow and remove all the odor and stuff that builds up. So I put the camera in the ceiling and used one of the ventilation holes. It was a piece of cake.” He grinned and checked the time. “Come on. Let’s go to dinner and see just how far one of my coworkers will go to hurt someone else.”
“Mark. You don’t need to be there. I can handle this on my own.”
