Red Hot Lies. Laura Caldwell

pay-or-play,” I said. “It’s nonnegotiable. I told you that last time, and I’m telling you again. That comes from Forester himself.” It always helped to throw Forester’s name in the mix, to remind people that I was here, making their lives tough, because he wanted me to.

      “Then let’s talk about the non compete.”

      “Let’s do that.” I thumbed through the contract, grateful to have seemingly won a point. Q darted into the room with Jane’s previous contract, cleared a space on my desk and put it down.

      I nodded thanks.

      Q then placed a sheet of white paper on top of it, giving me a sympathetic smile. In red ink, he’d written, Izzy, your meeting with the wedding Nazi is in forty-five minutes.

      “Crap,” I said.

      “That’s right,” Severny said, his voice rising. “That’s what I told you before. It is crap. And we’re not signing it!” And with that, he hung up.

      “Mother hen in a basket!” I yelled, slamming down the phone.

      I was trying not to swear anymore. I thought it sounded crass when people swore. The problem was it sounded great to me when I did it. And it felt so damn good. But swearing wasn’t appropriate at a law firm, as Q had reminded me on more than one occasion, and so I was replacing things like goddammit with God bless you and Jesus Christ with Jiminy Christmas and motherfucker with mother hen in a basket.

      Q sank into a chair across from my desk. “I know you’re crazed, and I know you have to leave soon, but first I need some of your fiery, redheaded decisiveness.”

      I sat down, crossed my hands on my desk and gave Q my army-general stare. “I could use a quick break. Hit me.”

      Q was wearing his usual crisp khakis and a blazer. He tugged at the blazer to try to hide the slightly protruding belly he hated—his personal nemesis to the perfect gay physique. Not that this deterred him from sizing up the rest of the male species. Q had emerged from the closet six years prior, and though he had a live-in boyfriend, Max, he still enjoyed the “new gay” privilege of ogling every man he came across.

      He paused dramatically now. “Max’s mother is coming to town tomorrow.”

      “I see your problem.” Max’s mother was a former Las Vegas showgirl, an eccentric woman with whom you’d love to grab a martini, but who wears you out after two hours. The last time she’d come to Chicago, Q nearly broke up with Max just for an excuse to get out of the house.

      “How long is she in for?” I asked.

      “Two weeks.”

      “That’s not going to work.”

      “I know it’s not going to work.”

      “You can make her help with your Halloween party this weekend.”

      He nodded, reluctantly conceding the point. “What am I going to do the rest of the time?”

      “Watch a lot of football?” Q had retained many of his straight-man tendencies. A love of football was one of them.

      Q had gray eyes that I’d always found calming, but they flashed with irritation now. “That’s another not decisive, Izzy. There’s a question mark at the end of that sentence. And you know she’ll hover and talk, hover and talk. I won’t see a single play.”

      “Okay, okay. Tell Max she has to stay in a hotel, and you guys will pay for part of it.”

      Q ran his hands over his head again. “I guess maybe that would work.” He sighed. “God, I hate being in a relationship.”

      “No, you don’t.”

      “Yes, I do.”

      Just then Tanner Hornsby, a high-ranking partner in his mid-forties, walked by my office. He was tall, with deep-black hair (dyed, I suspected) that arched into a widow’s peak. He was rumored to run five miles a day, every day, before work, and so he was lean and wiry, but he had the tired, slightly puffy eyes of a career drinker.

      He stopped now and frowned at us.

      Q turned in his seat. “Oh, hello, Mr. Hornsby,” he said in a breathy, effeminate voice, which he doled out only to annoy certain people like Tanner and his father.

      “Hi, Tan,” I said.

      His frown deepened. No one called him Tan. He was Mr. Hornsby to most, and Tanner to the elite few, myself definitely not included, but I needed him to consider me his legal equal. I ignored his disdain and called him Tan because I wanted him to know he didn’t scare me, even if he did. Behind closed doors, Q and I had other names for him—Toad Horny, Tanned Hide, the Horned One …

      “I couldn’t help but hear your phone conversation from down the hall,” Tanner said. “Was that Steve Severny you were speaking with? Problems?”

      Tanner Hornsby had negotiated hundreds of contracts with Steve Severny. Severny would never tell Tanner he didn’t know what he was doing.

      “No problems.” I gave Tanner my dutiful-nice-girl look that served me well at the law firm of Baltimore & Brown. Though truthfully, I didn’t need the look anymore. The ludicrous amount of dough I pulled in through the Pickett Enterprises work allowed me to get away with just about anything. I was my own little island amid a sea of associates who hadn’t been as lucky as me and, as a result, were forced to be ass kissers and line-toers.

      “How are your hours this month, Isabel?”

      “Just fine, Tan, thanks for asking.”

      Ever since Forester Pickett had made me the lead attorney for Pickett Enterprises, taking the cases away from Tanner, Tanner had hated me. Tanner was lifelong friends with Forester’s son, Shane. He’d originally gotten the Pickett Enterprises work because of that connection and thought he’d never lose it. Every so often, Tanner tried to throw his lean, wiry weight around and remind me that he was still my superior by asking questions about billable hours or continuing legal education. I felt bad for him. I felt guilty. I hadn’t tried to take Forester’s work from him. Forester had simply taken a shine to me, and I rode that windfall as far as I could. I knew many attorneys at the firm thought I’d gotten the work because I was a woman—a young woman with long curls of red hair who wasn’t afraid to wear high, high heels and drink with Forester until the wee hours.

      Even if that was true, I didn’t care. I adored Forester. He was a smart, sweet man—not one of those older guys who oh so accidentally kept touching your hand … and your elbow … and your lower back. No, Forester was a prince, and like a prince he’d swooped in and saved me from the torment and agony of being just another associate slave. The job was hard, but I knew I was now doing good things for Pickett Enterprises. Still, that knowledge couldn’t hedge my occasional yet powerful bouts of self-doubt or the feeling that I was an impostor, one who could be exposed at any time.

      Tanner grunted. “Keep the hours up. We’ve got the end of the year soon.”

      I put a concerned look on my face, as if I didn’t have the top billable hours of any associate at the firm, and nodded. “Sure. Will do.”

      He left. Thank God.

      My cell phone dinged from where it sat atop a monstrous deposition transcript on my desk. I picked it up. A text message from Sam. Hey, Red Hot. Leaving for Cassandra’s. See you there.

      “Dammit.” Cassandra was the wedding planner.

      Q raised his eyebrows.

      “Darn it,” I corrected.

      I swiveled around and started scrambling through the chaos on my credenza until I found my bag. I couldn’t be late again. Plus, I needed to talk to Sam about this wedding stuff, which was starting to weigh me down as heavily as my job.

      “Are you taking home the Casey research?” Q asked. “We have to file the motion by tomorrow.”