That was my silent cue to get back to work.
“Gotta question for ya, miss.”
I flinched at the sound of the brusque voice behind me. I whipped around softly, not even realizing the fact that someone had come up behind me. I found a man standing at my desk with what looked like a bandana wrapped around his face. It concealed everything from his nose down.
He stared at me with bright green eyes.
“I, uh…” I nodded softly before I quickly returned to my desk.
I eased myself down into my chair so that I was closer to the knife my boss allowed me to keep at my desk, just in case I ever needed it.
But when the man turned and coughed, his hand coming up to his mouth just over the mask, I relaxed a bit.
Oh.
That made more sense.
I put that trained smile on my face. “My apologies for the wait, sir. How may I assist you?”
“Well, miss,” he said as he leaned against my desk, “I’ve been all over high hell in this building, basically level by level, trying to find someone that can help me.”
I tilted my head. “Well, sir, let me see if I can give it the good ol’ college try. What do you need help with? If all else fails, this would be the kind of thing I could interrupt my boss’s meeting for, so either way, you get advice before you leave here today.”
I could tell that he smiled beneath his mask. It crinkled his sparkling eyes. “I’m so glad to hear that.”
He turned and coughed again, and I reached down beneath my desk toward the mini-fridge I kept underneath there. I opened it up, slid out a small water bottle, and handed it up to him.
“Here, I hope that helps,” I said.
He nodded as he took it from me. “Thank you kindly.”
I watched him crack it open before he coughed and cleared his throat. He turned his back to me just so he could take a sip of the water, and I had to admit, I was curious as to what he looked like beneath it.
Was his jawline as striking as his eyes?
Get a grip, Jasmine. You’re at work.
My boss’s voice rang in my head, and I cleared my throat softly. I let the man take his time with the water while I typed a response back to the last email that had flooded my inbox at the drop of a hat.
Only to see two more pop up.
Like a friggin’ hydra, these things are.
“All right, sorry about that,” the masked man said.
I quickly returned my attention to him with a polite smile on my face. “No apologies necessary. I have fall allergies, too. My sinuses already sense the change in the seasons.”
He chuckled. “Don’t I know it.”
“So,” I said as I gave him my undivided attention while I sat there at my desk, “set your troubles at my desk and let’s see if I can help.”
It had been a while since I flexed my paralegal status, and I was itching to give some advice. Even if the advice sent him on his way to another law firm, at least I’d be able to pull that information from the recesses of my mind. Sometimes I wondered if going to law school was worth being taken seriously as a woman in this profession.
Then again, was any woman ever taken seriously in any profession where men ran the world?
“Well, here’s the thing,” he said as he leaned back against my desk, “I was discharged from the military for a reason I can’t necessarily say that I agree with. I was hoping to challenge itwith the military courts, at the very least. But since my discharge officially went through a few days ago, the military police on my former base will no longer work with me.”
I nodded. “I see.”
