Arthur Lattimore had been a college buddy of mine and had made it to partner of his law firm in record time. “Up to your old tricks, I bet,” he said.
I chuckled. “I’d say that wife of yours has you on a short leash.” I was only teasing. He was lucky to have met her in college. I envied him.
“Willingly,” he admitted. “She’s pregnant with number two.”
“Another girl, I’ll wager.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get. And trust me, it’s worth it. You should give it a try.”
“Fatherhood?”
“Husband, father, the whole shebang.”
“I’ll leave that to you for now. Though there is a woman I’m very interested in.”
“Though you can’t see me, I’m blinking rapidly because I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Look, I need a favor. Her father’s in trouble and I want to help them out.”
“Okay, fill me in.”
I gave him the basics about how her father had been found guilty of embezzlement, but both claimed he was innocent.
“You know criminal law is not my area.”
“I know. But I assume you may know the name of someone who is a really good criminal lawyer.”
“Let me do some digging. What’s his name again?”
I gave him her father’s name. I didn’t give him hers, though that would be easily found out if he looked.
“Give me a couple of days.”
“Thanks. And give your wife a big sloppy kiss for me.”
“I will, because I’m the only man who will ever kiss her in this lifetime and the next.”
I laughed and hung up.
Later that day, I went to Chloe’s. If I wanted a chance in hell of making it work with Molly, I needed to straighten things out with her best friend.
I knocked on the door and waited. The last time I’d spoken to her, she’d quit and had given me hell for making her life at work miserable. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to do something.
When the door opened, Chloe looked puzzled and I couldn’t blame her. “Mr. Hampton, what are you doing here?”
“Uh, Chloe, are you okay? You look a little, uh, tense,” I blurted without thinking it through.
“That’s an understatement.”
I wasn’t exactly good at apologies and said, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She blinked. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, I see that you’re upset about something and I was wondering if you needed help.” I was blowing this big time.
“Why on earth would you wonder that?”
“Because you appear to need it,” I said, extending an olive branch because she looked like she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Mr. Hampton, I worked for you for months while you treated me like a dog, heaping work on me like I was a farm animal. And here you stand asking if I need help. I needed help when you gave me impossible deadlines to meet and threatened to fire me if I didn’t.”
“I did that?” It was still hard to believe. She’d been my most reliable employee. She’d made all her deadlines. I’d never given a thought that my expectations were impossible.
“You need to leave.”
The door shut in my face. I took a second to gather my thoughts. I didn’t think I’d done a good job of explaining myself, so I knocked again, louder so she wouldn’t just ignore me.
“For the love of wine and beer, who is it now? Are you planning on sleeping out here? Should I toss you a blanket or something?”
It was time to eat crow for Molly and Chloe too. “No, I was going over what you said to me and I guess I was pretty hard on you. I wanted to tell you I was sorry.”
“Look, I think you’d better leave. This is too much,” she said.
“But…”
She pointed to the street. “Just go.” A car door slammed, and someone yelled. We looked over and she said, “Well, I should’ve guessed this would get worse.”
“What’s he doing here?” I asked, feeling like I might know.
“You can ask him yourself.”
“Get away from her,” Ryan snarled.
“Hold up there,” Chloe said, but that didn’t stop Ryan. I was so distracted, I missed Ryan’s fist. He caught me square in the jaw. My head snapped back, and I had to shake it off.
I rubbed at the ache and decided not to stoop to his level. Instead, I yelled, “What the fuck are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
“Leave her alone. Don’t you even think about touching her, Hugh.”
“I wasn’t touching her. We were talking. I’m not like you, you asshole.” It was likely Ryan hadn’t told Chloe why he was fucking her.
“Ryan, I think you’d better leave,” Chloe said.
“I’m not going anywhere until we’ve had a chance to talk,” he said, before turning furious eyes on me. “Get the fuck out of here or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
“You know something? You’re crazy,” I said, jabbing a finger at him.