Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 54091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 54091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 270(@200wpm)___ 216(@250wpm)___ 180(@300wpm)
“How’s it going?” Gayle asks me once we’re alone.
I smile. “Good. Jayden and I make a great team. Missy is amazing, too.”
The assistant Jayden and I share, Missy, has worked in this office for twenty-seven years, and she’s the glue that holds us together. She knows all the things Jayden and I are still learning.
“I noticed you and Jayden are putting in a lot of hours.”
She sounds less than thrilled about it, which is...unexpected. Our workload is intense, and the only way we can keep up is by staying late most nights and coming in on Saturday mornings.
“We have a good system.” I deflect her question because I’m not apologizing for the extra hours.
Her dark eyes soften. “It takes time to dispo cases as quickly as people who have been here for a long time. You and Jayden are both young attorneys, and I don’t want you burning yourselves out. I wish I could shift more resources your way—”
“We’re good,” I assure her, lowering my brows. “I guess I should only speak for myself, so ... I’m good.”
She nods, smiling softly. “I’m going to talk to Jayden, too. I want to tell you face to face that I’ll be culling your filings for now. It’s something I’m going to start doing for every division, not just yours. I don’t want people in my office consistently working sixty-plus hours a week. It’s one thing if there’s a big trial, but you and Jayden have been doing it for months.”
My stomach turns as I think about our office declining to charge on slam-dunk DUI cases. I start to protest, then clamp my mouth shut.
“Go ahead,” Gayle says, looking amused. “I don’t expect you to agree with me all the time.”
“Can we decline more light traffic cases? I don’t want to decline felonies to make room for misdemeanors.”
“Of course. My only mandate is that you lighten the load so you can manage it in fifty hours a week or less. I want the two of you to decide what to drop, and you know I’ll stand behind your decisions.”
I breathe a little easier. “Okay.”
“You’ll also be working some domestics with Bruce.”
My brows fly up in surprise. “Me?”
“You’re ready. And Bruce is a great teacher.”
Domestic violence cases can get messy. It’s a department I hoped to work in one day, but it seems too soon. Domestics are a lot different from traffic. But with the hiring freeze the office has been under for more than two years now, flexibility is now a job requirement.
“I’ll do my best,” I promise.
“Of course you will. And you can always speak your mind to me, Mara. I know you’re used to keeping your head down and getting along, but I want your opinions. Even if I can’t unfuck this place most of the time, I still want to hear about the issues, okay?”
I nod, holding in a laugh. Gayle doesn’t even know. I keep my head down and get along here because I want—need, actually—to keep my job. But in my personal life, I’m slightly...feistier.
“Fuck that guy, and fuck his long dong silver, too,” I say. “I’d bet my savings account it’s more like average dong silver.”
That evening, I’m at trivia with my friends Suki, Lainey, Dex and Harry. Our team, the Smartinis, is slaying the Men Behaving Badly category. In law school, one of my professors did an entire unit on Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. That’s how his comments about his dick were unfortunately seared into my brain.
“You’re willing to wager forty-one dollars on his peen?” Dex cracks.
I laugh. “And thirty-seven cents, baby. Fight me.”
Suki orders us a round of waters as the trivia host starts reading the next question.
“This ironically named New York congressman got busted for lying about a photo of his—”
“Weiner,” Dex whispers, cupping his hands around his mouth. “Anthony Weiner.”
“Damn,” I say. “You beat me to it.”
“Was it on the tip of your tongue?” Lainey quips.
Suki grins. “The jokes are just falling out of the air on this one.”
When the trivia round is complete and the host is doing rounds to check answers, we order some food. I get potato skins because there are literally no bad combinations of potatoes, cheese and bacon.
“How’s the Bash-elor party going?” Harry asks Lainey. “Has anyone been arrested yet?”
“Oh, it’s at the other end of the spectrum. They found a dog and her litter of puppies under a tree in the woods and they’re taking care of them.”
“No shit?” Dex asks.
“Apparently Carter’s bringing one home,” Suki says.
“A puppy?” I do a little clap of excitement. “Puppy bellies are one of my favorite things in the world. They’re so warm and soft.”
“Just like the head of a penis,” Dex says, a dreamy note in his voice.
We all turn his way. My brows are lowered in question, and I’m sure everyone else’s are, too.