Page 3 of Sweet Surrender

“What is a judge to think when you say ‘I’m on my best behavior. I won’t do the same shit I’ve been doing again’?”

“Who said I was going to say that?”

His chuckle is condescending and so much like our father’s that I roll my shoulders and fight the urge to walk out. “Me. Your lawyer. I’m the one who said you were going to say and do that or else I won’t represent you.”

“Come on.” I sigh. “The dramatics are so not like you.”

“Dramatics?” he scoffs. “Really?”

Bitterness coats my tongue but I swallow it down like cheap vodka. “Really.”

“So that latest story isn’t true?”

“Which one would that be?” I narrow my eyes at him and shake my head in disgust.

“Exactly. Which one would that be? There are so many posted you don’t even know what the latest is.”

“There are opportunists everywhere willing to lie for a payday. Willing to say an innocent picture is something bad. I don’t have to tell you that.”

“And yet the one journalist in particular who keeps the stories about you alive by constantly stirring the pot is causing you the most trouble.”

“Lori is . . . Lori is just that—an opportunist,” I state about the journalist who has the biggest hard-on for me. “I didn’t do shit.”

“And there’s always an excuse for your behavior.”

I bite back my smart-ass remark, my cutdown to blame him when I’m well aware of my own actions. I own them. It’s so much easier to blame him.

Hasn’t it always been?

“I put in the request to your probation officer like I always do when you need to go overseas. He said he’d bring it to the judge.”

“Like he always does,” I finish for him, wanting to hurry up this fucking urgent conversation we needed.

“Correct. And he did. But the judge who normally approves your travel, your . . . exceptions, without pause, is no longer there.”

The first finger of dread slithers up my spine. “So a different judge will approve it. This is Los Angeles. I know I’m not the only musician on probation in this town who needs to travel for work.”

“The judge assigned to review your request is an unforgiving prick.”

“Seems like everyone in the legal profession is.” He takes the barb and my condescending chuckle without so much as a flinch.

“The good thing is I know him.”

“Of course you do.” I lace my fingers behind my neck like I’m not sitting here talking about my future. “Gotta throw your weight around somehow, huh?”

He groans in frustration, but I know that groan is the last step before he clenches a fist, cocks it back, and plows it in my face.

Good to see he still has some fight left and that the corporate world hasn’t completely sucked the life out of him.

“You know, I don’t have to represent you, right? I have plenty of business and run a lucrative practice with clients who actually care about their reputations and the outcome.”

I grunt. My mood is shit and the dress down I got from the guys last night weighs heavily on me. The assurance I gave them that everything is chill is ringing hollow right now.

“You’re not the only successful Gizmodo family member,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “And yet you sit here with your shitty, I don’t give a fuck attitude like I owe you. Let’s get something straight, I don’t owe you shit. You want to help yourself? Fine. You don’t want to help yourself? No skin off my fucking back, but I suggest you knock the damn attitude off or you’re going to find yourself up shit creek without a paddle, and I sure as shit won’t jump into that mess to save your ass at that point.”

I hold my hands up and grin. Looks like I’m not the only one having a bad day. I may hate the message but it’s not the messenger’s fault. It’s mine. I’ll own it but that doesn’t mean I have to care one bit about it. “Okay. Fine.”

“It’s not fine. Far from it, Jase,” he says, using my first name. One that few get away with calling me.