I sat back. Good point. “Pucci is such an ass.”
Clark grinned. “You can’t let that change how you defend him and you know it. Just do your job.”
Another good point. “I don’t suppose you want to second chair the trial?”
He shook his head. “No. Getting another attorney involved at this point would look bad to the jury. Like you couldn’t handle it, which you can. Besides, I have a job interview tomorrow.”
“Already?” I reached for another slice. “That’s great.”
“Hardly. I’ve been turned down so far, and this is my first interview and it’s with a really small firm and probably not great pay. That newspaper article really screwed us. Have you tried for a new job yet?”
I shook my head. Then I leaned back and studied him. “You know—”
“No. We don’t have any money and I need to eat,” Clark said. “And I need health insurance and to be able to pay rent.”
“Me too.” I chewed the thought some more. “We could get a loan to start a business.”
Clark tipped back the rest of his wine. “With what collateral? My good looks and your penchant for ending up in the newspaper?”
I laughed. “There has to be somebody who’ll lend us money.”
“Nobody we want to owe money to,” Clark countered. “A legitimate bank wouldn’t look twice at us, unless you own a bunch of property somewhere that you haven’t told me about.”
“No property anywhere,” I admitted. “Even so, think about it. We could rent a place downtown—”
“Which takes money,” Clark said.
I sighed. “You need to be a dreamer.” It’d be fun to own our own business and only take the cases we wanted. “Just think about it.”
“I need to be a realist,” he said, pouring us more wine. “No offense, but your life is never calm.”
Who wanted a calm life? “Just think about it—okay? Albertini & Bunne.”
He tilted his head. “Bunne & Albertini.”
“I like it alphabetical,” I protested.
He sat back. “If we do it my way, our initials would be B.A. Just think of the badass logo.”
Oh, he had a point. Better yet, I had him thinking about it. “I’m sure our law degrees mean something, and a bank would give us a loan.” I tilted my head. “Other than that, I don’t have any assets.” My Fiat was awesome but probably not great collateral.
Clark tossed his paper napkin on his paper plate. “We don’t have the resources to start our own business. Maybe if we both got jobs and saved up for a few years we could create our own firm, but I don’t see it happening before that.” He paused. “I’m also not sure I’d want to start my own firm.”
I’d never considered it before, either. My goal had been to seek justice, and maybe I’d have to do that case by case instead of by putting bad guys away.
Clark cleared his throat. “I need to take a run at Aiden. Without you there.”
“Fine by me,” I said. Both Aiden and Clark could handle themselves, and it’d be good to get me and my emotions out of the way. I trusted Aiden, but that didn’t mean he’d told me everything so far, and I knew it. In fact, I expressly knew that he hadn’t told me everything.
My phone buzzed and I glanced down to see the caller. “Hi, Kelsey,” I’d answered. Both she and her sister had given me their contact info since we seemed to be on the same side now.
“Anna? We have a problem.” Kelsey sounded like she was crying. “Can you come to my house?”
I looked at Clark. “What kind of problem?”
“You’ll see. It’s just Krissy and me here.” She hung up.
“I have to go,” I said.
