“You’re not helping.” I squeeze his shoulder. “I don’t like the way she says it, but we both know where my skill set lies and it isn’t with on-the-fly exposition needed for a good closing argument. And you hate doing rebuttals, so we needed a closer. We all agreed she was the best of everyone who tried out.”
He makes a face. “You could do it if you wanted to.”
“Then I guess my answer is I don’t want to.” I’d rather suffer a hundred insults than have to stand up and speak for ten minutes straight while everyone sitting in the audience picks apart every single word I’ve said wrong. Been there, done that, failed epically.
“You need to keep that bitch in check,” Randall says. He pulls on his winter coat in sharp, exaggerated movements. He doesn’t want me to miss that he’s pissed off. As if it wasn’t obvious. But, I suppose his dramatics are partly why he’s so engaging.
“It’ll be fine,” I soothe. “Once she gets the hang of things, you’ll be thrilled.”
“She better,” he says ominously.
“Or what?” I ask, losing my patience. “You’ll quit?”
“Maybe.” He sticks his nose in the air, looking every inch like Heather as he waltzes out the door. I should videotape him next time so he sees exactly how similar the two are. I want to throw a pencil at his head.
Between the stress of mock trial and the conundrum of Matt Iverson, I’m going to worry myself into an early grave. Could one thing go my way? Just one?
* * *
I’m still worrying about both topics when I show up to my shift at the Brew House the next day. At least with mock trial, we have weeks of practice to work out the kinks. With Matt, I fear the only way to exorcise him is to move across the country and enter a nunnery. He’s popping up in my dirty fantasies far too often. This morning I got up early because I feared if I stayed one more minute in bed, I’d call him and beg him to come over to help me work off some of my tension.
Which is why I’m thirty minutes early for work. I quickly discover this is a good thing, because a familiar figure is waiting for me when I walk in.
JR “Ace” Anderson rises from his table and greets me with his trademark ladies’ man grin.
“Hey, Lucy.”
I bustle over and give him a big hug. “When did you get back?”
“Just this morning.”
Ace doesn’t get the holidays off, so after the Championship game, he flew to his dad’s place in Massachusetts for a week. His parents have been divorced since he was ten. I still remember when he found out. He showed up at my front door after school and wouldn’t leave until my dad let him in. I’d been at band practice. When I got home, Ace was lying on my bed and his face was wet from crying.
I didn’t say a word, just picked up my bike helmet. He followed me out and we biked for two hours around the city. I’ve never seen him cry again.
Ace and I, we’re tied together by our family history. It’s not pretty and, for a time there, the only people we had to lean on were each other. Besides my dad, Ace is the one steady thing in my life, so even though I find him exasperating and a little too arrogant nowadays, I still care for the big lug.
“How’s your dad?”
“Same old.” The two have a rocky relationship but at least they talk, unlike my mom and me. Ace claims the only reason his dad wants to connect now is because he thinks Ace is going to be a rich NFL player. I don’t think Ace is entirely wrong. “Had some interviews with the local Boston stations. Kind of a ‘hometown boy done good’ sort of thing.”
“You didn’t grow up in Boston,” I point out.
“Who cares? It was fun.”
He is really loving the post-win attention. “I got to give my NFL Super Bowl picks. We talked about the draft.”
“Was your dad there?”
“Yup. He was like a kid at Christmas.”
I bet. “Everything else going well? No one gave you any shit for missing a week of classes?”
“Lucy,” Ace chides. “I just won the National Championship. No one is giving me shit over anything.”
“Good. Because I need to take advantage of your good mood.”
“Sure. What do you need?”
“I’m getting kicked out of my apartment on Tuesday. Mind if I stay at your place? I can sleep on the sofa.”
“No problem.” His eyes warm up as he pulls out a small, wrapped gift. “Happy belated Christmas.”
“You already gave me a present,” I object. We exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve at my dad’s house. Dad and I went in together to get Ace a nice pair of sunglasses. He’d been complaining all fall that the ones he had were low rent and janky. The school supplies him with endless athletic gear, all the shoes he wants, and he got some sweet gifts for going to the bowl game the previous year, but not one pair of sunglasses.
Ace gave me a pair of gold hoop earrings. I think his mom picked them out, but they were nice. I wish I had worn them today.
“I didn’t pay for it, so it doesn’t really count.” Ace’s job is football, so he doesn’t have a lot of extra cash around, which makes me really curious about the gift. I slide a fingernail under the tape and pop it open, careful not to tear the paper.