“Wesley James Crawford the Third.”

I don’t get the smile I usually receive when I drawl out Wes’ full name. Instead he just looks up from his desk with weary eyes and then looks back down.

“What are you doing here?”

Not exactly the greeting I crave for. I come further into his office and drop to the chair across from his desk. “I came to take you to lunch.”

“It’s not even noon yet.”

I pull my chair closer to the desk, not missing his sigh at my action. What is with him? “It’s ten to. And I have an appointment at one thirty so I had to go early for lunch. You don’t have any meetings today, do you?”

“No. But I’m busy.”

My eyes narrow. Wes is being a bit of a jerk right now. He’s not even looking at me when he talks and I find it a little hard to believe that the papers in front of him are that much more interesting than me. “Are you alright?”

He picks up a pen and writes something down. “Yes. But I’m busy.”

“You’re always busy,” I respond. I get up and go around to stand behind him. “We’ll go to lunch and you can relax. You need it.”

He only lets me rub his shoulders for a few seconds before shrugging my hands away. “Laina, I have a million things to do and if you had called instead of just coming over here I would have told you that I do not have time to take lunch.”

My arms drop to my sides and I frown. Wes’ office is kind of out of the way for me and I took all this time to come here and surprise him at work and he’s acting like I’m the world’s biggest inconvenience.

“You have to eat,” I say, moving some papers aside so I can sit on the edge of his desk. His eyes follow my movement.

“Christy will grab me a sandwich.”

Christy, his secretary. I’ve only encountered her three times but each time she’s been a bitch to me.

“You seriously can’t take an hour out of your day to spend time with me?” I ask, tapping my fingers against the mahogany wood I’m sitting on. “You’ve been constantly working for the past two weeks.”

“I’m a lawyer, Laina. And I’m the middle of a case with an extremely important client. If I win this, I might make partner.”

I roll my eyes before I can help it. Wes’ only goal in life is to make partner. He’s not even thirty yet and it’s made him into a complete workaholic. “One hour isn’t going to change if you make partner or not.”

This time he rolls his eyes and gives me a look like I’m completely stupid. “It does make a difference. I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“You’re being a real jerk right now, you know that?” I ask, jumping down from the desk.

He sighs and leans forward to put his head in his hands. “Look, I’m really stressed and then you just show up out of nowhere and start trying to drag me away from my work because you need company for lunch.”

“I don’t need company for work,” I say hotly. “I just thought it would be nice to surprise you at work and take you out. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it would be this massive problem.”

His eyes move to his open door. “Can you please just keep your voice down?”

“You know, how about I just leave and then you won’t have to worry about my little temper tantrum embarrassing you,” I say, grabbing my bag from the ground. “Hope your sandwich is just amazing,” I call back to him before stalking from his office. I ignore the smug look Christy gives me. That stupid bitch is probably just trying to get in Wes’ pants.

Once I’m finally out of the office building I feel like I can breathe again. That place is so stuffy.

In my car, I pull out my cell phone and go through my phonebook, trying to decide on who I could call who would join me for lunch now that I’m suddenly free. I settle on the most obvious choice.

“Hey, Cupcake.”

“Trace, what are you doing right now?”

“I was thinking of showering.”

“Skip the shower and come meet me for lunch instead.”

“Okay. But don’t complain if I’m smelling bad.”

“I’ve gotten used to it at this point,” I say, smiling when I hear Trace snort.

“Bitch. Where do you want to eat?”

“It’s nice out. Meet me at that park near the detention center. I’ll pick up subs and we can eat there.”

“Didn’t you say yesterday you were going to meet Wes for lunch today? I’m not going to get shit on for stealing you away, am I?”

I frown at that. “That’s a long story that I’ll tell you when you get here. The short version is that he didn’t want me for lunch.”

“Now that I find hard to believe. What kind of a fool wouldn’t want to spend lunch with you?”

I can’t help but smile at his words. Trace always knows exactly what to say to boost my mood. “That’s what I think.”

Trace laughs and I can hear the sound of a car engine starting in the background. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Awesome. See you then.”

I hang up the phone and then start my own car. Things are definitely looking up.

* * *

Horace and Bella’s playdate is taking place at a dogpark that’s in between Justin house and my apartment. I’m the first to arrive which isn’t too much of a shock because if Justin doesn’t have Trace or Rachel making sure he’s on time for things, he’s perpetually late. I figured that out within the first month of knowing him though, so I’ve come prepared with a book to read while I wait for him.

I’ve got a chapter read when the sound of Bella’s bark interrupts me. Looking up from my book, I see Bella running towards Horace, who’s sniffing at a tree. Justin’s following behind his dog, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans. Bending down the corner of the page I’m on, I get up and walk towards him.

“You’re late,” I say when I reach him.

He shrugs and gives me a smile. “Were you expecting something other than that?”

“No.” I watch as Bella takes off across the field and Horace races after her. “I’m counting on this to wear Horace out. He’s been antsy ever since I got home from work.”

Justin begins to slowly walk towards our dogs and I go with him. “Horace and antsy don’t go in the same sentence. Your dog is the most chill animal I’ve ever met.”

“He knew it was date night with Bella and he’s been excited about seeing her.”

“So then it’s your fault for getting your dog all riled up to see mine,” Justin says with a laugh.

I roll my eyes but can’t keep the smile from my face because he’s right. I may have gotten Horace more excited than necessary for tonight. But I figure the dog has a boring life and he needs all the excitement he can get.

“So how was your day?”

I contemplate his question for a minute before answering. “Good then shitty then good again.”

He laughs at my response. “So let’s start with the good parts.”

“Tyler had his court date this morning and he’s getting off on probation.”

“That’s awesome.”

“Yeah. He has a lot of community service and he has to still come in a do counseling with me but at least he can go back to school and have a bit of a normal life.”

“Great. So what’s good thing number two?”

I lean down and pick up a stick from the ground and toss it ahead of us for the dogs. “I had lunch with Trace and he finally gave me the money he owed me.”

“He owed you money?”

“I lent him twenty bucks last month when we went out for dinner and it was taking him FOREVER to pay me back.”

“I feel like it’s not right to borrow money from you. That’s like taking food away from a starving man.”

I hit Justin in the chest. Hard. “Shut up, ass. I’m not destitute.”

He laughs and rubs where I hit. “I’m kidding.”

“Just because I’m not swimming in money like you are, that doesn’t mean I’m welfare.”

He smirks and I can tell that he’s dying to comment on that, probably wanting to say something along the lines of how I should be on welfare but he manages to refrain. “So what was the shitty part of your day?”

My face falls a bit as I recall the incident with Wes. “I had an attack of a jerky boyfriend.”

Justin seems more interested in that than the two good parts of my day. “What did he do?”

I stop walking before we end up in the middle of a pack of dogs. “I went over to his office to take him out for lunch and I got completely rejected.”

“Why?”

I cross my arms over my chest and stare out across the field. “He was busy. Which used to be understandable. Now it’s just annoying.”

“Isn’t he a lawyer?”

“Yeah.”

“So when you decided to date him didn’t you figure that he would be busy a lot?”

“Well yeah but this is ridiculous. Yesterday he actually scheduled me into his daytimer for dinner.”

Justin begins to laugh and quickly tries to cover it. “Sorry. That’s kind of funny though.”

“It’s retarded. I can’t take him being busy all of the time to the point where I can’t even see him spur of the moment.”

Justin’s quiet for a minute before saying, “I was pretty busy most of the time we were dating cause I was doing that movie.”

I shake my head. “That was different. You were busy but you took time to relax. It was never a situation where you went for weeks with the only break being when you’re sleeping.”

He’s silent. “Well…I don’t know what to tell you. Is he still at work?”

“Most likely.”

“Call him?”

I snort. “He can call me.”

Justin smiles at that. “That’s why you’re awesome, Lainey. You don’t put up with anybody’s shit.”

Usually people don’t like that quality of mine. “Well thank you.”

“Janice puts up with every single thing I do.”

I quickly glance over at him and then back at the dogs. Justin rarely talks about Janice with me. He’s never brought her up voluntarily like this before.

“Oh yeah?” I ask cautiously. I don’t know how to talk to him about her.

“I could treat her like total shit and she wouldn’t say anything.” His eyes shoot towards me. “Not that I do,” he quickly says.

I laugh. “I know. Because your mom would have your ass if you did.”

He breathes out a laugh. “Yeah she would.” He rests his hands on the back of his head and laces his fingers together. “But really. What is it that makes someone put up with someone else regardless of how bad or inconsiderate they are?”

“A lack of self respect,” I say and then quickly clamp a hand over my mouth. I hadn’t meant for that to come out. At least not before sugar coating it. “Sorry.”

He gives a shrug as if that’s exactly what he had expected me to say. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want your honest opinion.” His arms drop back down to his sides. “Maybe I’m gonna have to talk to her about it.”

I nod politely even though I don’t think it’s possible to logically talk to Janice. “Wouldn’t hurt,” I respond, reaching into my pocket as my phone starts vibrating against my hip. I pull it out and sigh when I see the caller ID.

“Wes?” Justin guesses.

“Yeah. Give me a minute.”

He nods and I open my phone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Wes returns and when I don’t say anything to that, he sighs. “I’m home now.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to come over?”

I love how he thinks I just sit at home waiting for him to be free. “I’m out.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m at the dogpark with Justin.”

Wes lets out a short laugh and the hard edge to it makes me shut my eyes briefly. Please don’t go there. Please-

“So is this your way at getting back at me?”

And he went there. “Getting back at you?”

“For not going out for lunch with you today.”

“I’m over it.”

“Then why are you with-”

“Seriously Wes?” I interrupt. “Are you seriously going to ask me that?”

That shuts him up and it’s silent on the other end of the line for a long moment. Finally, “When will you be home? I’ll come over.”

“Probably not before nine and I’m tired. I want to go to bed early.”

He let’s out an exasperated sigh. “Tomorrow?”

“You can fit me into your busy schedule?”

He misses my sarcasm. “Tomorrow night. I’ll be out of the office by six.”

“You can call me tomorrow afternoon and I’ll let you know.”

He sighs again. “Fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“Yep. Bye.”

Justin looks over at me when I hang up. “How’d that go?”

I roll my eyes and lean down to pet Bella, who is pressing against my leg. “Typically.”

“Did he say sorry?”

“He doesn’t say sorry.”

“Because he’s always right?”

I smile a bit. “Exactly. It’s the lawyer in him.”

“But you don’t put up with it.”

I give Justin a look. “Come on. Do you know me at all?”

He laughs and gives my shoulder a push. He’s quiet for a minute before smirking at me. “So I’ve got a girlfriend who puts up with anything and you’ve got a boyfriend who never apologizes for a thing he does.”

I know where he’s going with this. “Think we should hook them up?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

He laughs at my question. “Absolutely.”

Janice would kill him if she heard him joking around like this and that thought alone is enough to make me join him in laughter.

Man, I’m a bitch sometimes.