I lifted the water bottle in my hand, and her eyebrows shot up.
“That’s it? You’re in a bodega, surrounded by every junk food imaginable, and you’re leaving with water?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re wasting the trip, suit.”
“Maybe.”
Her eyes drifted over me, catching on the tie I hadn’t bothered to fix and the jacket that felt tighter by the second. “Big meeting?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“What do you do?”
It didn’t feel right to lie to her. “I’m a lawyer.”
She let out a soft huff, almost like a laugh, but it was too bitter to land. “Figures.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She tilted her head, the corner of her mouth twitching as if she wanted to smile but didn’t bother. “Nothing. You just seem like the type. Buttoned-up. Always knowing the rules, probably never breaking them.”
I didn’t respond. Let her think what she wanted.
“Corporate?” she pressed, her curiosity apparently outweighing her need to leave.
“No,” I said, shifting my weight. “Defense.”
“Defense,” she repeated. “So you spend your days saving the world?”
“Not the world,” I said. “Just the people in it.”
“Hmm.” She adjusted the basket on her arm, her fingers tightening around the plastic handle. “What’s that like?”
“What?”
“Defending people,” she said, glancing at me sideways. “Do they always deserve it?”
It wasn’t a simple question. I didn’t have a simple answer. Her expression was somewhere else now, like she wasn’t really asking about the people I defended but about something more personal.
“Does it matter if they do?” I asked.
Her brow furrowed, her lips parting slightly before she pressed them back together. “I guess not,” she said, turning back to the cooler. “Not when you’re getting paid anyway.”
There was no malice in her tone, but it still landed like a jab. She pulled the basket higher up on her arm, glancing at me. I reached for it and carried it to the register for her. I added my water to the pile, and the clerk looked at me.
“Together?” he asked.
“What?” I asked, then I looked down at the items: Cheetos, blackberry wine, and a bottle of water. He was asking if it was all on one bill. “Oh. Sure.”
The woman sidled up beside me. “Wait—what’re you doing?”
“Paying,” I said simply.
I wasn’t sure why I was paying. Maybe because it was only fourteen dollars.
“Generous of you.”
