Charlie clinked his bottle against mine. “Okay, spill. What’s happening on Andie’s case? How’d it go in LA?”
I told him about editing Andie’s chapters. “I get to log pro bono hours for half of the time, which is cool. And I mean, how crazy is it to get to see a book get written from the beginning?”
Charlie poured soy sauce for each of us. “I swear you have some kind of ‘it girl’ halo around you. But like a nerdy one, just for lawyers. How many first-year associates can say they ghostwrote a client’s memoir?”
“I’m ghostediting. Very different.”
“Call it whatever you want, but it’s fucking awesome. And what about working with the LA partner? Did you blow him away yet with the FOIA stuff?”
I shook my head. “I’m kind of hoping I’ll see him in the next few weeks so I can pitch it in person. I want the full dramatic effect.”
“Channel the halo.” He grinned. “Do anything fun in LA?”
I told him about dinner with Leo and the gallery opening. “I’m not exaggerating. Every person in that room was hanging on every word he said. To be fair, he’s unbelievably charming. He’s not even forty-five and one of the most successful lawyers in the country.”
“‘Unbelievably charming’?”
I blushed for being overly effusive. I was supposed to be talking myself out of this crush.
“Sorry, I spent the last week drafting that complaint and got way too comfortable with hyperbole.”
“Watch that, DeFiore.”
“What about you? How’s your week been?”
“I won’t even pretend to compete with you. While you were sipping champagne, I second-chaired a deposition somewhere in Delaware. What else ... I got super high a couple nights ago with some of my law school buddies and almost adopted a cat. I guess the highlight was I went on a forty-eight-hour date. Pretty surreal,” he said, looking both pleased and exhausted by the idea of a date lasting that long.
“Awesome, tell me more about the deposition.”
“We weren’t even close to the one Delaware town you’ve heard of. I had to rent a car at the train station and drive another hour.”
“Yikes. And the date?”
He took a long sip of his beer. “She works with a friend from college. It was a blind date that started Monday night and ended yesterday. We haven’t talked since then, and I can’t decide if that’s normal or a sign that the connection maxed out at two days.”
He looked honestly unsure, and I laughed without meaning to.
“Sorry, but it can’t bethathard. If you liked her enough to spend forty-eight hours with her, then text her. If you didn’t like her, maybe also send her a text that says you were only in it for the story.”
“I know what my communication options are. I’m just not sure which of the two I’m feeling,” he said, feigning offense at my advice.
I threw my hands in the air. “Trust me, I’m not trying to be preachy. I havenothingto preach to you.”
I briefly considered the idea of Charlie liking someone enough to spend two nights with them. I suddenly wanted to know everything about her. Did he have a “type”?
Charlie motioned to the waiter for another Sapporo. “What about you? Ever think about ‘gettin’ back out there’?”
I must have given him a look, and he immediately looked embarrassed. “Sorry. Was that a weird question?”
“Siri, what’s a synonym for ‘weird’?”
He splashed my soy sauce with a chopstick. “Don’t be a word snob.”
I leaned back and sighed. “I can’t even think about dating. Besides, there should really be a dating grace period after losing your humanity to the bar exam. At least a year.”
“Fair. And truthfully, it might be why my dating life has sucked so much.”
“I don’t know if you can put that on the bar exam.”
