“Not really. Just a thank you for sitting with me today.”
Sandy grins. “Don’t thank me yet, Jules, your first assignment for Marty—should you choose to accept it—is here.” She drops a piece of paper on my desk and waves a quick goodbye before slipping out of the room, presumably heading back to the office next door. I pick up the paper and read it.
Take a standard Trevainne contract and identify any clauses, language, or exceptions that might be a cause for concern, considered flawed, exploitable, or detrimental to Trevainne. For each one you find, offer an alternative/correction, and explain your thinking using examples wherever possible.
Oh, and consider it extra credit.
~ Marty
Only when Sandy pops her head into the reading room to tell me she’s locking up, do I realise I’ve gone all day without a break. My stomach gurgles emptily, and I register just how light-headed I’ve become. I wave her off and pack up, grabbing my laptop and the contracts I’ve printed out so far. Yellow highlighter and green notes are scrawled in the margins, decorating each page. Marty only asked for one contract, but I very much doubt any of Trevainne’s contracts have even a smidgeon of manoeuvrability between them, not when the lawyer in charge wrote the bloody training manual on it.
Literally.
Had I known Marty wastheMartin Gallagher-Pearson,I’d have asked him to sign my copy of ‘On the Dotted Line,’ the predominant educational manual on contract law. Or the VCC’s library copy at any rate.Come to think of it. I should probably return them.
I slip through Dax’s office to the boardroom, and then up to the apartment. I make it through the front door and up three steps before Cas pops his head out of the security office and calls my name.
“Yeah?”
“You’re back late,” he chides.
“Got sidetracked with paperwork,” I explain, holding my bundle out to prove it.
“There’s no chef tonight…so…are you okay prepping something or do you want me to order delivery?”
Does he mean for both of us? “Uh…are we eating together?”
“Oh! No, I mean, sure, if you want company, but I was thinking of you. Saves you the effort of cooking. Dax left a budget to make sure you have everything you need.”
“Oh, I won’t need that.”
“Sure, but if you order something tasty, I can grab a dish on the sneaky.” Cas grins and I laugh.
“Fine. What are you craving?”
“Your choice.”
“Actually…” God, this is embarrassing.“I don’t…I mean, I never really got to eat takeout much. If it’s not a cheap burger and fries, I wouldn’t know where, or what’s good to order. So, if you want to choose something, I’ll give it a try too. Just choose a dish you think will be tasty.”
Cas’s eyes widen in understanding and then his features neutralise into a polite smile to cover the obvious pity he’s trying not to aim my way. “Right. Gotcha. I’ll pick out my favourites and fix you with a taster selection. Will you ask Ben to call down and tell me what he wants?”
“Ben?”
Cas grins. “Yeah, he’s not fooling anyone…or at least not me.” Cas tips his face to the ceiling “He’s been up there waiting for you for about half-an-hour.”
“Oh, right, I’d better see what he wants.”
“Food will be about forty minutes.” Cas looks down at his phone and flicks the screen, scrolling through the options on an app.
“Thanks, and Cas?” He glances back up. “Is it okay to get deliveries sent here…like books and things?”
“Of course, but for safety, put my name on the order, or better yet, just text me a list of what you want. We don’t want anyone getting confirmation that you are here.”
“That makes sense, I guess.” Though if there really are rumours going around about Aiden and me, almost all of UACT knows exactly where I am, and therefore so will our mole. “I’ll need them as soon as possible. I’ll get the list to you tonight. I’ll also need to ask someone to return my VCC library books.” As I say it out loud, I realise I don’t particularly want to part with them.
Cas chuckles. “You worry about the weirdest things.”
It isn’t weird to me. No one understands how these books saved me. It sounds dramatic, but college was a struggle. With everything else always taking priority, studying was a battle. Battles fought after midnight, under duvets and covered lamps so I didn’t disturb whichever of the kids had crawled into my bed that night, but the copies I had were so beaten, so defaced that it felt pointless. Huge swaths of my education were smeared with black pen. Stick men, slurs, or just bloody redacted for the sake of it—like the previous owner was scoring out whatever they’d just read so no one else could share in the knowledge. It got so bad that I started sneaking into bookstores just to read the sections I was missing.
