The text went on for four more paragraphs in the same vein and I groaned.
Z pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, and I glared down at him. He flinched and his guilt dug a frown into his face.
“Damn it, Z. If you go in now, you’ll always be going in. Forever. There will be no end.” I dropped a kiss on his temple.
“But—” He held the phone back up to me as another text made it vibrate in his hand.
“No, Zayden. They can handle it.” I gave him a squeeze. “They just don’t want to do it.”
Z stared down at his phone, that pretty bottom lip I was ready to write poems and cheesy jerk-off stories about stuck between his teeth.
I pulled my phone from my pocket.
“What are you doing?” he asked, alarm clear in his tone. He widened his eyes at me.
“Texting Olivia to tell her to leave you alone.” I brought up her contact info and did just that, hitting Send with a flourish.
“I just feel so bad,” Z howled. “She came in to help us before. What if we need her in the future and she won’t help because we didn’t help now?” He pulled out his not-so-secret weapons, which were his big brown eyes, and the begging image was completed by full-on lip jutting.
“Two hours,” I said with a sigh. “We’ll both go. And you have to wear the shorts.” I picked up the clothes I’d gotten for him and dropped them on his lap. He made an interested little sound as he inspected them, almost like he was scandalized by my choices—but he’d bought them. “We weren’t even supposed to be there. I want something nice to look at while I work.”
His breath caught and he squirmed on my lap. “Yes, Daddy.”
Less than a half hour later we’d managed to make it into the office, complete with a pit stop for caffeine and sugar to share, and Olivia practically wept when she saw us. There were bags under her eyes like she hadn’t slept well the night before. She and Gustav were working in the Marigold conference room, and she raced around the long white table to fling one arm around Z and one around me. There were sweat stains under the white T-shirt she had on. Apparently she and Gustav had decided to say to hell with the office dress code for the weekend, too.
“Did you even go home last night?” I asked her.
She let out a horrible little sound. “There’s so much to get through. It’s so fucking tedious. I can’t stand it,” she griped. “I keep drifting off.” The smell of coffee battered at my nose and I realized they’d dragged the coffeepot from the break room in here and it was sitting on the far end of the table, brewing a new pot with a happy rumble.
Zayden laughed and gave her a real hug. “We’ll get it done. What do you have to do?”
She pointed dismally at seven boxes stacked in a corner of the room, and I let out a whistle as my heart almost stopped. “We need more help. Why paper? Why has every fucking case had paper documents in the last month?”
“Lots more help,” Z agreed faintly.
“I’ll start calling around,” I grumbled.
By the time I was done making the phone rounds, none of the paralegal team had answered. I’d given up and simply called Mansfield, and that was how we now had Rowell and Harford, the junior partners of the firm, sitting at the long table with us. They were hunched over papers with highlighters in their hands, the same as us lowly paralegals. They were also both dressed in golf shorts and polos, so I thought maybe they’d been pulled here from a game. By the furious expressions they wore, they weren’t happy about it.
Welcome to the pity party, boys.
Olivia, Gustav, Z, and I kept sharing looks and biting off laughter.
We weren’t there for two hours, oh no, it was more like eight. Me and Z stumbled back into the house after ten o’clock that night, mentally exhausted, to the scent of something amazing wafting in the air from the kitchen.
“Oh, kids, there’s food in the oven. I thought you’d be home earlier, but it should be fine,” Mom said cheerfully from her spot on the couch. She was in the middle with a blanket spread over her knees and chips on one cushion and an open box of chocolates on the other. She had the TV playing some show I’d never seen where everyone was involved in a cake-baking competition.
“Thank you, Mrs. Darrow,” Z said.
She glanced our way and gave him a smile with wattage so high I knew she must have been on the phone to every person she’d ever met today, distributing the good family news. There would be no getting her to understand that he wasn’t already her son-in-law, at least not yet. I hadn’t had time to process that she’d thought we were dating all this time, and as annoyed as I was with her for not asking me if it was true, the misunderstanding had me smiling.
“And, Zayden, sweetie. I want you to know, you shouldn’t be embarrassed. I don’t know what sort of fun little thing you and Fern are into—”
I slapped my hands to my face.Good feelings gone.“Please, for the love of—”
“—but we’re all human here. My husband and I—”
“Thank you!” Zayden said at top volume, and she laughed. Z dragged me by the elbow into the kitchen.
