Page 52 of Partners In Evil

After confirming the details, I hang the phone back up. Another client won back. And all it had taken was nearly four hours reading through every werewolf related case in Illinois.

My eyes drift towards Finn’s office. He’s probably on the phone with someone, but I still want to visit him. After that, there’s one more case I want to see to. But first, Finn.

I open the door. Like I thought, he’s talking on the phone. As quietly as possible, I close the door behind me and sit in the chair opposite him. He gives me a quick smile to show he’s happy to have me.

“Yes, so we’re confirmed that the incident happened in public waters, not private ones?” Finn says into the phone. “Yes, that makes a huge difference. With that in mind, I think we have a very strong case for you. I’ll draw up a brief as soon as I can. Yes, you too. Thank you.”

He hangs up the phone and slumps back in his chair. “That was the Lake Michigan sea serpent. I tell you, that guy just will not shut up.”

“There can’t be a lot of case law around sea serpents, can there?” I ask.

He lifts up one of the books on his desk. “More than you’d think. I swear, if I never have to read about a sunken fishing boat again, it’ll be too soon.”

“Well, I got Mr. Lupescu back,” I tell him. “I think we’re doing it.”

He smiles. “I don’t want to jinx it, but you know what? I think we are.”

There’s a brief, awkward pause between us. Suddenly I remember that I’ve been half-heartedly avoiding Finn for a while. With all my focus on getting clients back, I had totally forgotten about that. But I can tell Finn hasn’t.

“You know, it’s been really great to see you work on this,” I say. “Frankly… I’ve been impressed.”

“Impressed with what?” he asks.

“With just… Well, you remember when you were talking about that marriage idea. How angry I got. And maybe I was overreacting a little, but ever since then you’ve really turned things around. You’re actually doing all the things I was mad at you for not doing.”

“Well, I’m doing my best at them,” he says. He runs his finger through a stack of folders. “Still a few to go before I get to say I’ve done it.”

“No,” I insist. “You’re doing it. I can tell.”

He seems genuinely affected by that remark. He looks down at the floor and takes a moment to gather himself. “I don’t think you were overreacting,” he says, finally.

“I was,” I admit. I shouldn’t have shut you out afterwards the way I did. I should have been open to talking more. Especially when I saw that you were listening to me.”

“No, you were right. I was being an idiot, and I needed you to get mad at me to make me listen.”

I don’t want to tell him the other part of it. I wasn’t just mad at him because I thought it was a bad idea. I was mad because he was marrying her. And I thought I meant more to him than that. Iwantto mean more to him than that.

“It wasn’t just about that…” I say.

“I know,” he answers. “And that was the worst part of it. I took you for granted. And I really should have known better than to do that.”

I smile. “I don’t feel taken for granted.”

He smiles back. “Good. That’s how you deserve to feel.”

We sit there, silently, across the desk from each other. He’s handsome, in his own, literally devilish way. I’m thinking about leaning across the desk and kissing him. I haven’t thought about doing that in a while.

“I wish I could spend more time just talking with you,” he says, finally. “But there’s a few more things I need to get done before dinner. I hope that’s okay…”

“It’s more than okay,” I tell him. “I love it.”

I walk back out into the office and sit down at my desk again. I can work on the invisible man case. It’ll be good to have that finished, even though we aren’t seeing him this week.

The two of us are fitting back together. Maybe even better than we did before. I’m glad. The first few days, I stayed away from him because I was genuinely mad. But after that, it was because I was afraid. I was afraid that he would be mad at me, and that I would have damaged something I took really seriously.

Now, it looks like there’s hope for the law firm and hope for us. And I’m even starting to think up an idea that might really turn the tables on Raven. If what I’m planning works, then we might even come out of this better than we went in. Plus, she might get some real comeuppance, and that’s worth everything.

I’m just finishing the casework for tonight when I see Luc come out of his office. He walks over to Finn’s, opens the door, then immediately freezes and carefully closes it. He creeps over to me.