Nine-tenths of the Law

Chapter Thirteen

The next day was one of those days. The kind that made me wonder what had ever possessed me to own a business in the first place. Everything that could go wrong did, and everyone that could get on my last nerve did. I was surprised the cursed projector didn’t set itself on fire or something.

Days like that usually had me collapsing onto the nearest piece of furniture when I got home and praying for just enough energy to drag myself into the bedroom.

Not tonight, though. Exhaustion would just have to wait, because I was meeting Nathan for dinner.

I took the stairs up to my apartment two at a time and almost dropped my keys while trying to unlock the door. Inside, I threw my jacket on the couch and kicked my shoes off, narrowly missing one of the cats.

It was just after six, and I was supposed to meet him at seven thirty. My heart raced; just like the last time we saw each other, it was entirely too long to wait, entirely too soon to be that close to him again.

At least I had more than enough time for a shower. In the bedroom, I was so restless my hands shook when I unbuttoned my shirt. Even when I got out of the shower, my hands were still unsteady.

Why the hell am I so nervous? It’s not like I haven’t slept with him twice already. I questioned the wisdom of shaving, but when I thought of having Nathan’s hands on my face again, I reached for my razor. His touch alone was well worth the risk of cutting myself a few dozen times.

By the grace of God, I finished shaving with my face intact. Then I got dressed, fed the cats, took one last look in the mirror to make sure I hadn’t missed a spot while shaving, and left.

When I walked into the restaurant, I didn’t have to look to know he was already there. I had to look around to figure out exactly where he was, but I knew from the second I walked in that he was in the room.

Our eyes met and his lit up as I dodged kids and waiters on the way to the table he’d snagged by one of the windows.

“Long time no see,” he said, smiling as I took a seat across from him.

“Hasn’t been that long,” I said with a wink. Way too fucking long.

We fell into a comfortable exchange of small talk and pleasantries, relaxed with each other like a pair of old friends even though we were somewhere between lovers and strangers. It was a peculiar dichotomy. I felt like I’d known him my whole life, but knew next to nothing about him.

Well, now’s as good a time as any to get to know you, Nathan. “So,” I said. “I know you’re an attorney-”

“What?” He pretended to be stunned. “Who told you?”

“You did, when you gave me your business card,” I said with a smirk. That business card that may as well have said “please fuck me tonight”.

“Oh. Right.” He laughed and gestured for me to continue. “Anyway, go on.”

I picked up my glass, pausing before taking a drink. “So what kind of attorney are you?”

Without missing a beat, he said, “The sarcastic gay kind.” I choked on my drink and he chuckled. “Sorry,” he said, sounding anything but.

“Bastard,” I said, trying to clear my throat.

“You okay?” He pretended to be concerned, but he couldn’t quite mask his amusement.

I coughed and gave him a good-natured glare. “Yes, thank you for sounding so concerned.”

“Okay, okay, seriously,” he said. “To answer your question, the firm deals with mostly corporate law. I’m usually involved in corporate bankruptcies. Things like that.”

“Sounds exciting.”

“Terribly,” he said, raising his glass in a parody of a toast. “So thrilling, it’ll put you into a coma if you’re not careful.”

“I can imagine,” I said.

“Wasn’t exactly what I planned to do when I went to law school,” he said, shrugging. “But it pays the bills.” He seemed to lose focus for a second as his glass paused just shy of his lips. Then he added, “And sometimes you meet interesting people.”

“Oh?”

He set his glass down and watched his finger draw a line in the condensation on the side. Then he looked at me. “That’s how I met Jake.”

Fortunately, I wasn’t in the middle of eating or drinking anything, because I would have choked at the mention of our ex’s name. It shouldn’t have startled me, really, but it did. Or rather, it startled me that I hadn’t thought of him at all until then. All night long, sitting across from me, he should have been a constant reminder of Jake, but he wasn’t. Our ex hadn’t crossed my mind once tonight until Nathan mentioned his name just then.

Maybe that meant the three of us weren’t so inextricably bound to each other. Nathan’s existence wasn’t dependent upon Jake’s memory. Jake may have been the reason Nathan and I met, but he’d done his part as catalyst and exited stage left, never to be seen again.

Maybe Jake’s irrelevance meant that Nathan and I could make this work.

“Zach?”

I shook my head to bring myself back into the present. “Sorry, sorry.” I cleared my throat. “Go on.”

“I was just saying that’s how I met Jake,” he said. “He actually started out as a client of mine.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, the company he was with before.” He paused, furrowing his brow as if trying to remember some detail. Then he shook his head. “Anyway, it was some startup or another. I don’t remember exactly what kind of company, but they went bankrupt. My firm handled all the legal crap.”

“Interesting way to meet someone,” I said.

He grinned. “I’ve been known to meet men in strange ways.”

“Touché.”

“Anyway, when it was all settled, he kept calling and coming by the office.” Nathan rolled his eyes. “Making excuses to talk to me, meet with me, that sort of thing until I reminded him he was racking up a hell of a bill. He finally admitted he was coming by to see me, and…” He shrugged, his slightly nostalgic smile belying the bitterness in his tone. “I guess the rest is history.”

“So I’m not the only one who occasionally dates customers.”

He laughed and shook his head. “No, I guess not.”

I eyed him over my drink. “Isn’t there some ethical thing about lawyers getting involved with their clients?”

With a mischievous grin, he said, “Case was closed. He wasn’t my client anymore.”

“You would find the loopholes, wouldn’t you?”

He winked. “Knowing how to find loopholes makes getting a law degree worthwhile.”

It was shortly after ten when we left the restaurant. Since Nathan was parked close by, and my car was a few blocks away, we walked to his car so he could give me a lift.

With the engine idling, he left the car in park and turned to me. “Listen, I know it’s late, but…” A grin teased the corners of his mouth, managing to look both shy and devilish at the same time. His hand slid over my thigh, turning my spine to liquid. “I don’t want to call it a night just yet.”

“Then let’s not call it a night just yet.” I leaned across the console and reached for him, trying not to shiver as his hand moved higher. My fingers grazed his lightly stubbled jaw, and I didn’t even bother suppressing that shiver. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been dying to touch him until the subtle coarseness of his jaw met my skin.

“Be careful,” he whispered, his hand leaving my leg and coming up to my face as he leaned closer to me. “Or we might be here all night.”

“I don’t think we will. I don’t-” Oh, fuck, how am I supposed to think when you’re running your fingers through my hair?

“You don’t what?” he teased. My nerve endings registered the very slightest hint of his warm breath across my skin, and speech became impossible. His grin widened, and he looked like he was about to say something else, but then he dropped his gaze as the tip of my tongue ran across my lower lip.

When our eyes met again, the playful teasing was forgotten. We came together in a deep, breathless kiss. The console between us bit into my hip, but I was too wrapped up in his arms and his kiss to care.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, panting over the sound of the idling engine.

“Where do you want to go?”

“My place, your place, I don’t fucking care,” he said, his voice dropping to a throaty growl. “But if we don’t go there now, I’m going to fuck you right here in this car.”

I kissed him. “My place, then. It’s closer.”

He wet his lips, his tongue just barely grazing my lip. “What about your car?”

“It’ll be there tomorrow.”

“Are you-”

I cut him off with a kiss. “Do you really want to put this off?”

He exhaled hard. “Absolutely not.”

“Then the car can wait.” I released him and sat back in the passenger seat. “I can’t.”