Page 28 of Legally Mated
“One case at a time. The thing is, someone has to blaze the trail, so that other people know where to put their feet.Yougame?”
I grinned and tore off the page of doodles. “So game.” To come home to Laine with the right to practice, to be a full partner—fuck yeah, I wasready.
Eva smiled at me, and picked up her pen. “Good. Let’s start working on our arguments for strikingthatlaw.”
Chapter22
The morning lightwas still tinged pink and yellow with the dawn when Laine's phone buzzed in his desk drawer. Garrick.Thirty minutes. Suddenly, the day seemed a bit brighter.Only half an hour until he's here.Laine flipped the file he'd been going through closed and set it aside. He had work for Garrick to do, had made sure there was work. It wasn't anywhere near Garrick's specialization, but the other man just seemed happy to be earning money for the pack. With Dan was out of town, Laine had moved Garrick back into his office, because at some point in the past twenty-four hours, Laine had moved past wanting to make Danhappy.
It made him grit his teeth to know that the firm would no longer cut cheques for Garrick. Like he’d been fired because his work wasn’t as good as anyone else’s. Like he didn’t make money for the firm, or wasn’t worth what theother’swere.
Worse, though, was the idea that, if Garrick were allowed to open his own practice, he'd be making much more money. Because he was good. Better, even, than Laine thought Garrick realized. Some of that was the sheer amount of time he put into everything, but a lot of it was simply his ability to see through the text to the subtext of anything that was placed in front of him. If he'd gone into criminal law, he'd have been sought after all over the country for advice andrepresentation.
In a world where he was actually allowed to takethebar.
Ravi was still looking into it, and looking for some sort of leverage against Balding, who seemed to be the sinkhole in the middle of this problem. It was slow going, though, cramming in bits of research in between work for his paying job. Laine had put out some feelers as well, casual comments designed to bring to him people who’d known Garrick atthetime.
That had been going prettyslowtoo.
He set up the file on the desk in the corner that Garrick often worked at automatically, a frown creasing his brow. Maybe it was time to up stakes and move on. If he could find a partner—would it be best to specialize in criminal law, or set up something moregeneralized?
He’d have to thinkaboutit.
But first, he had a new client coming in forty-five minutes and he needed to go over the disclosure documents again before the man showed up. It didn't look promising, and Laine wasn't even sure he was going to get paid anything more than the retainer the man had deposited last week. But he'd been encouraged to take it—the case was going to get a lot of press. He could use the press—his media presence had been kind of slow lately. Time to shove himself back out into the limelight, so that if he did decide to break loose from his current firm, he might be able to take a few clientswithhim.
He hadn't admitted it to anyone but himself, but the thought of starting his own firm had taken hold in his brain and wouldn’t be shaken loose. Yes, he had a good job, plenty of resources, and a lot of freedom to do what he wanted. It had been a good fit at first, or at least a good platform for him to take on the cases he was reallyinterestedin.
But more and more lately, he'd found himself being pushed into a mold that didn't fit. He knew part of his business was to make money for the firm--it was why he took on the wealthy sons and daughters of the city's elite when they smashed their car or hit someone in a drunken or drug-fueled bout of bad judgment. He had the skill to make a lot of those things go away, but it was starting to rub him a little rawer each time he did it. And the money no longer was enough of a compensation for the erosion ofhissoul.
He wondered what his ex would say aboutitall.
Shaking it off, he went back to the file on his desk, though half his attention was focused on the door, waiting for the shuffle of feet on the carpet. When the sound of Garrick's footsteps finally broke the early morning silence, he jumped out of his chair and just barely kept himself from running tothedoor.
Garrick slipped through the door with the silence of a hunting wolf. "I think I prefer coming in early," he said as he dropped his bag onto the floor and leaned back against the door until they both heard the solid click of the latchclosing.
Laine strolled up to him, braced a hand on either side of his head. "Yeah? Lesstraffic?"
Garrick laughed, his eyes dancing with mischief. "Yeah." His hands found Laine's waist and he pulled Laine close. "And other things," he murmured before pressing his mouth to Laine's with a relieved sigh. "I missed that," he said, when the kiss broke, and the corners of his eyes crinkled with hissmile.
"Me too," Laine said. He could have moved, let Garrick sit down, but he kind of liked this, his body pressed to Garrick's, Garrick's back against the door, and the knowledge that some of the early risers would be in to work soon, with only the wood of the door between them and whatever Laine and Garrick decided to get up to. It seemed to him that Garrick found the thought amusing too, because he made no attempt to escape the trap of Laine's body. His hands flexed on Laine's waist and they kissed again, more fiercely this time, until the sound of the elevator doors opening in the lobby broke the early morningstillness.
"Damn," Garrick said, andgrinned.
"Not like we had time to do anything regardless," Laine said, and nuzzled Garrick's ear. "I have a new client coming this morning, and then I'm out to the sentencing for PaulBricken."
Garrick made a face and this time he did duck out of Laine's embrace. "I'm sorry, but I'm gladyoulost."
Laine shrugged. "He was never not going to do jail time. I'll make sure he gets a reasonable, appropriate sentence and request that he be enrolled in a treatment program for anger andaddictions."
"Just make sure you don't pull your patented Montague Silver Tongue on the judge and get him off with probation." Garrick snatched up his bag and laid it on the table to pull papers outofit.
Laine leaned against the front of his desk and crossed his arms while he watched Garrick lay everything out with his usual precision. "I may be a lawyer, but I'm not so morally decrepit," he said mildly, the barb tucked in well down behind the words, but stillthere.
Garrick turned and huffed an exasperated sigh at him. "You know what I mean. Sometimes you get so caught up in winning, you forget about the good ofsociety."
Laine straightened, stung by his own barb. Most particularly because it was a fault he was aware of, and was still working on. "I don't have any intention ofdoingthat."
Garrick laughed and patted Laine's cheek, then turned back to his paperwork. "Iknow."
