Chapter Nine – Day Six

Lance

I left this morning at 6:30, right about the time the sun started peeking up over the ocean, leaving her completely naked, mostly covered in my bed sheets, fast asleep.

I am not proud of myself.

But if it makes the universe a little bit more even, karma bit me in the ass at 7:15 when I got in and my father called me into his office – where he is still giving me the biggest ass-chewing of my entire life.

“Two days,” he yells at me, pacing around his desk. “Two whole days ago those contracts were supposed to be finished and on my desk ready for our clients to sign, James.”

I wince. When he uses my given birth name, rather than calling me Lance like he has for the majority of my thirty-four – almost thirty-five, if I make it out alive – years, I know I'm in trouble.

“I know.”

“Two days!”

He looks at me expectantly.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” he asks. “What was so important that the contracts couldn't be finished on time?”

My mind can't help thinking it – but luckily, my brain-to-mouth filter knows that screwing my lifelong crush is not the appropriate thing to say to him.

“I got distracted,” I say.

And then he gives me the look – the look which tips me off that that was also not the appropriate thing to say to him, and his head may explode.

“I'm really sorry,” I say. “I mean – dad, I am really sorry.”

“Well, frankly son, I am really sorry as well.”

I cringe. I'd have rather heard I'm not mad, just disappointed.

“Dad, I will absolutely have them done today,” I say. “I came in early today to get them done, because the other day...I guess I just forgot. I had Sarah's dad storm into my office, I had the calamity that followed after that...”

He still stares at me, looking slightly softened, but I know he's not. And rightfully, he shouldn't be.

“I should have stayed that night and finished them,” I say. “I know that's what I should have done. And I apologize for not doing what you trusted me to do, and that I let you down.”

He's silent for a long time. He sits back down in his chair, leans over his desk, and picks up his pen and a stack of papers. When it looks like he's started to get back to his own work, I'm unsure of what to do. It looks like we're done here and I should walk away with my tail tucked between my legs, but if by chance he's not even remotely done with me, I'm afraid to move a muscle and make him even madder.

“Dad?”

“You know, son,” he finally says, looking up from his work, “what upsets me is not that you got distracted, or you got busy, or whatever other excuse you came up with to avoid doing the work. What upsets me is the fact that you're sitting in here, in my office, even coming up with excuses at all. When I made you a partner, I thought I could trust you. I thought when I brought you on, I would not have to deal with this sort of thing with you.”

“I'm sorry, sir.”

He softens. I haven't called him 'sir' in a really long time.

“They'll be done today,” he says. “That's not a question – that is a demand, Lance. I thought I could trust you with this, but I know now that I was wrong. And I'm sorry that I was wrong. Now in order to make sure that they're done, I have to do something that I never thought I'd have to do with you.”

I don't say anything, because the gavel is about to come crashing down.

“I'm bringing in a junior partner,” he says. “You'll work alongside Timberlake for the rest of this case.”

Outwardly I'm silent and accept my punishment, but inwardly I groan. I wish he'd have fired me instead.

“He'll meet you in the conference room in ten,” he says. Then he stares me down. “Go.”

Without saying a word, I get up out of the chair and head out the door toward my office. It's almost the worst torture he could bestow on me.

Justin Timberlake is one of those 'young whippersnappers', as all the seniors who have been trying to make partner for the last fifteen years like to call him. They used to call me the same thing five years ago when I was just out of law school, newly bar-approved, and my dad brought me into the family business. He was hired on barely riding on my coattails, and immediately started kissing as much ass as he could in hopes of climbing the ladders. Two of the asses he was exceptionally good at kissing was mine and my dad's. I was over it within a week and quickly became immune to his brown-nosing.

My dad, unfortunately, never did. And that's how he managed to land junior partner.

I don't necessarily hate the guy, but I don't particularly like him either, and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual on his side.

“Well, well.”

The minute I hear his voice in the doorway of the conference room, exactly ten minutes – on the dot – later, I feel my lip curl into a slight scowl.

“Looks like we'll be working together again,” he says.

“Trust me, I take no pleasure in it,” I say.

“Oh, Bass,” he says.

He pauses, and he saunters – actually saunters – into the conference room, toward the large table.

“Won't it be fun?” he asks as he sits down across from me.

“The only thing I can think of that might be more fun is being water-boarded,” I say. “And I genuinely mean that.”

He smiles. “I'm sure you do.”

He throws open the file folder he's sat in front of him, eases back in his chair, and tosses his feet up on the table, casually crossing them.

“Hope you don't have anything important to do tonight,” he says with a smile. “I think this is gonna take a while.”

Nothing except going home to a girl that I've spent half my life pining for, before she regrets that she ever slept with me.

“Nothing at all,” I say with a sigh.

She's going to hate me anyway – what do I have to go home to?

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Sarah

“I hate him. I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!”

“You don't hate him.”

Maggie sits at the table in the break room, watching me pace back and forth, slamming cabinet doors shut and coffee mugs down on the counter.

“Sure, you probably don't particularly like him right now,” she says. “But you don't hate him.”

“Actually, I'm pretty sure what I feel right now is genuine, unabashed hate,” I tell her. “For starters, I was fifteen minutes late for work this morning – apparently he forgot to set an alarm. But that's an odd thing since he apparently managed to wake up and get to work – and not only on time, but like an entire hour early at that. And then there's the fact that I ended up in his bed last night and he just leaves the morning after.”

“There is that,” she says, going along with my tirade.

“That kind of thing happens with one-night-stands, you know? I get that. But one would think that, if you're living in the same house with a guy, you could avoid that brand of shame.”

Maggie, one of the other partners' secretaries, is basically the only person I can talk to right now. In instances like this, I'd usually rely on Katherine – but asking for sympathy or advice from Katherine on this subject would be like asking an Iraqi soldier for where not to step on landmines.

“A hundred days, she said,” I mumble. “Fifty-thousand dollars. Back yourself into a corner. It's a good corner to back into. Don't worry Sarah, step on the landmine – I'm sure it won't explode!”

“Okay, you're rambling nonsense again,” Maggie says. “Rewind and start back at the beginning. A hundred days?”

I pour a couple of packets of sugar into my mug and stir it in as I sit down in the chair next to her. I'm not a person who likes to bring my personal life into work and vice versa, so I haven't told anyone at work about my game-show-style living arrangements yet. But I've worked alongside Maggie for two years and as far as work friends go, she's my best, so I'm wondering if it's not time to break that bubble.

“You can't tell anyone here,” I tell her. “I mean it, Mags. This break room is currently Vegas – what happens here, stays here.”

She holds up two fingers. “Scout's honor, Sar.”

I'm hesitant at first, but I launch into the story of how I found myself living with a best friend from childhood past, in order to gain an exorbitant amount of money, to pay off a debt that I shouldn't even owe. I leave out the exact details of how I've come to owe my dad so much money, because that's something I'm not ready for anyone other than Lance (and of course, Katherine) to know yet.

She listens and her face reacts to the story at certain points – widened eyes at the mention of my fifty-thousand dollar debt, shock and confusion at the idea of Katherine's hundred-day contract, a few giggles at my first interactions with Lance inside the house, and more shock at my dad's rude outburst into Lance's office.

And then I get to the kiss from that night, and she stops me.

“Freeze,” she says. “I need a mirror. I'll be right back.”

She stands up and runs out of the break room, and leaves me the one confused. She comes back a few moments later with her purse in hand, and sits down and roots around in it. Finally she pulls out a compact makeup mirror, and holds it in her hand.

“Okay, say that last part again,” she says.

I give her a confused look, but I do as she says.

“We went out to dinner, and when he took me home, he kissed me on the porch steps.”

“Freeze.”

I pause again, and she opens the compact with a click and puts it in front of my face, open.

“Look at yourself,” she says.

I look in the mirror at my reflection, but I see nothing.

“What am I looking at?” I ask her.

“Sarah, you're smiling.”

I look back at the mirror. I hadn't noticed it before, but the corners of my lips are turned up slightly, like I was smiling at some point and I didn't know it. And I remember what he said to me that night – that we'd only lived four days together, and he hadn't once seen me smile. Not like that.

“There are some unresolved feelings there,” Maggie says. “It's pretty obvious, Sar. The whole arrangement might be a little ridiculous, but I think you have to admit to yourself that it's working.”

“Unfortunately, I think I do,” I say.

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Lance

“Women...sssssuck.”

I can't deny that sitting next to Justin while he's completely hammered is a decent way to round out this horrible day.

The Carlisle contracts were finally finished at 7:45 on the dot this evening, and I personally hand-delivered them to my father who was still in his office, waiting for me. He said thank you and quickly dismissed me, and I'm pretty sure that I'm off the case. Which is actually fine with me.

I think I prefer it that way anyway.

The contracts were finished in time for me to go home and possibly salvage whatever I have with Sarah – half an hour of groveling, an hour of apologizing repeatedly, another hour trying to convince her that I wasn't trying to pull a one-nighter on her, and I could have happily ended my night laying next to her in my bed.

But I decided to come here, to the bar, with a man that I barely like instead. Because deep down, I'm too scared to go home.

“You pulled a dine and dash on her,” Justin slurs, looking at me.

“Dine and dash?”

“You feasted on an all-night buffet of a beautiful woman...and you forgot to pay the check.”

He is so drunk that he pops his 'k' when he speaks, and pokes me in the chest. But he's too aggressive and the motion throws him back a little bit, nearly making him fall off his barstool.

Finn, the bar's owner, looks at me as I grab Justin's arm to pull him up.

“Shall I be calling a cab, then?” he says in his thick Irish accent.

“Please,” I respond.

“Right.”

I shake my head as he walks away to call Justin a cab, and go back to my scotch glass. Justin may be a drunken idiot, but unfortunately he's right.

I could be at home with her right now. Instead, I'm here. It's 10:30 and I know she'll be going to bed soon. I think that's why I'm here.

Finn and I pour Justin into a cab fifteen minutes later and manage to give the cab driver his address.

“Do I need to be calling one for you?” Finn asks me as the cab drives off.

“I'm good, Finn, promise.”

He gives me the eye, so I extend my hand out to my side then bring it inward to touch the tip of my nose, showing him I'm sober.

“Right,” he says, and dangles my keys in front of me. “Get on home, then.”

The fifty-minute drive back to Long Beach gives me plenty of time to think uninterrupted. I roll down the windows as I drive down Broadway Street, letting the warm air roll over my face and through my hair.

With Don Henley playing over the radio, it almost makes me feel like I did sixteen years ago. Stupid. Carefree. Oblivious to what's going on around me while I pay more attention to what's going on in the little world I've created for myself. The fact that less than a week in, I've managed to get myself fired from one of the biggest cases my dad has ever given me because I'm so wrapped up in Sarah only attests to that. The fact that I don't care that I was fired proves it.

But the fact that I went out to a bar instead of going home to her proves that I am, in fact, as stupid as my eighteen-year-old self was back then. I know I can do better – for myself and for her.

But I have to get home first.

I pull into the driveway just before midnight. As I walk up the gravel pathway, I notice that as I hadn't expected, the lights are still dully lit in the living room. The last thing I want is a confrontation, but my heart jumps a little at the thought that maybe she's still up and I can explain myself to her, try to fix things.

But when I unlock the door and throw my keys and suit jacket on the table next to the door, I only hear silence.

“Sarah?”

I hear a mumble coming from the couch. When I walk over, I see her laying across it, a blanket over her.

She's fallen asleep waiting for me to get home.

I sigh and kneel down next to her.

“Sarah?” I whisper in her ear.

Her eyelashes flutter as she turns her head and opens her eyes, looking at me.

“Hmm? Lance?” she asks tiredly.

“It's almost midnight. What are you doing down here? Why aren't you in bed?”

“I thought you'd be home earlier.”

“I thought I would too,” I tell her. “I had to go in early to finish some paperwork, everything had piled up and I had to stay late--”

“I called your office,” she says sternly, coming back from consciousness. She pulls away from me and sits up, throwing the blanket off her body. “I talked to Heather. She told me that you left by eight with one of the junior partners.”

Guilt washes over me as she looks me in the eyes, unable to hide her disappointment.

“Sar--”

“No.” She puts her hand up, stopping me. “Don't. You don't have to, and I don't want you to. I just want to go to bed.”

She pushes past me as I sit there by the couch. I want to grab for her arm or do anything I can to get her to talk to me, but I don't. She's upset, it's my fault, and I've failed her again.

“You know...” She stops on the second stair of the staircase and turns to look at me. “I wanted to forgive you for this morning. Then you lied to me and came home smelling like scotch.”

She pauses, and her eyes bore through me like daggers.

“You're a jackass,” she says as she turns on her heels and walks the rest of the way up the staircase.