Aricia
Three Weeks Later
Rana bursts into my office holding the new Starbucks creation I begged her to grab for me today – a grande iced horchata shaken espresso with vanilla cold foam. I have to write the order down to remember it myself, but Rana easily holds all these details in her head at once. Her presence draws my attention to the messiness of my office desk, which Rana always uses as an indicator of my mental health.
Which is fine. I’m just a little distracted because of the crazy situation that went down between me and that Italian guy. I don’t know how I’m supposed to get work done and make sense of my crazy ass behavior at the same time. I’m not the type of person who acts on my urges like that, so I really don’t know what happened.
“Doing okay today?” Rana asks in a tone that isn’t overly sympathetic. She knows I hate that.
“I’m fine, thank you. I’m looking forward to that coffee.”
“Just the way you like it,” Rana says leaning over my desk searching for a spot amongst the papers crowding my workspace.
I move my coaster into view so Rana doesn’t set the coffee down on my oak desk, and she complies willingly before sitting inher chairacross from me with a sinfully sweet coffee beverage of her own.
I haven’t had time to even pop over to the bathroom since I got back to work today. My three weeks off for bereavement flew by, and while I wanted to come back way earlier, I knew I needed the time to heal from everything – including the fucked up one night stand I had when I should have been processing.
Thank goodness that guy was hot and I’ll never have to see him again. I sip the shaken espresso and feel the hit go straight to my brain. Yes, give mama some focus juice.
Rana sips on something that smells like a chai latte with a shot of espresso, “Okay, so don’t be mad, but have you heard from Meg in criminal defense yet?”
Inessa worked directly underneath Meg in the criminal defense department of our law firm, and I’ve been awkward about interacting with her ever since Kennard’s funeral. She’s been a part of the firm for five years so she showed up, but I couldn’t help feeling like she knew or found out every sordid detail of what Inessa and my husband were getting up to on the job.
It’s still… embarrassing.
“No, I have not,” I respond calmly despite my inner turmoil at the mere mention of the criminal defense branch of the firm. “I am still working on the first 1,000 emails to see what’s actually necessary for me to reply to. Thanks for the coffee.”
“You’re welcome… If you need a break today, text thathotItalian guy. I would be happy to use AI to sort through those emails for you.”
“Rana? I’m good. I don’t need to be worried about hot Italian men. It’s bad enough I hopped into bed with one before my husband’s funeral.”
I know it’s doing too much for me to still wear black at the office, but if overdramatizing my grief keeps people in the office from gossiping about the purple dildo rumors, I’ll play it up. I know everyone will forget about the salacious drama soon enough, but for the time being, I’m still anxious that everything my ex-husband did and how his life ended will be the hottest gossip in the office.
“Nobody is thinking about Kennard anymore,” Rana says casually. “May he rest in peace. Respectfully.”
“Thanks, Rana.”
“I mean it. The new criminal defense client is sexy as fuck and every paralegal in the building wants to work on the case. Have you looked at the file yet?”
“Do I need to look at the file?”
My work load slammed the fuck into me the second I sat at my desk. What do I care if we have a hot client? Hotness doesn’t guarantee a cashed check, which is my main concern with the big life changes I have going on. I’m closing on a new house in a week, which is timely because my back is starting to respond to the mattress in my guest bedroom with negativity.
I haven’t slept in my bed since Rana and I found Kennard in that compromising situation.
“Uh… I don’t know. The clients are paying double to maintain top of the line confidentiality. They flew through our intake process with an additional $500,000 check.”
“Can we get them off?”
Rana shrugs. “I don’t know. Read the file. Apparently, he’s coming in today for a meeting at 3:30 p.m. about the case.”
“Who? The defendant, or the client?”
“You don’t think they’re the same?”
“Just doing my due diligence.”
Rana sips and shrugs. “I don’t know. But… a hot client might just take your mind off the crazy guy from the bar.” I worry that I went too far with how much I let Rana into my personal life. The one night stand I had with the Italian man was most likely provoked by some type of drug-induced desperation.
