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Chapter 7
PETE
“I’ll have it signed and back to you tomorrow.”
“We’ll be in touch with the court date for sentencing.”
Adrian Schaudler, the DA, shakes my hand as I rise out of my chair, the plea deal tucked safely into my briefcase. I’m happy with it, the Mariners will be happy with it, the DA is happy with it.
The only person who won’t be happy with it will be Kip Jackson because the man probably couldn’t think of anything worse than 200 hours of community service. Mainly because I don’t think he could comprehend not being allowed to continue to play baseball.
I’m off the clock, pulling into my building's underground parking garage. My condo comes with an extra parking space, which is currently filled with Andy’s work truck, mud-splattered as it is.
He’s not sitting in his truck when I slide out of my car, so I grab my briefcase and head upstairs. Sure enough, he’s lounging against my door, scrolling through emails on his phone.
“You lost?” I call to him as I approach. Looking up, Andy grins, shoving his phone into his pocket and straightening out of his slouch so I can get to the door and open it. He scratches his head - his hair is only half an inch longer than a buzzcut and shrugs.
“I got your text.”
Ah. My text. The one I sent this morning after I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep - wondering just what the fuck Sea Nest Constructions does to their female interns to have such a high turnover.
Andy follows me into the condo, beelining straight to the fridge for a beer, while I wander off to my bedroom and home office to deposit my coat, suit jacket, and briefcase.
When I emerge, rolling up my shirtsleeves, Andy is seated at my kitchen island - he always avoids my fabric couch when he’s come from a worksite - two beers in front of him.
Dropping onto the barstool beside him, I snatch up a beer, taking a swig.
“Why do you want to know about Sea Nest?” Andy asks, taking a pull of his beer, his eyes glued to the window above my dining table, Elliott Bay stretching out before us. “No offense, but what the fuck do they have to do with sports law?”
“Absolutely fucking nothing,” I admit with a sigh, drumming my thumb on the marble-laid countertop.
“So….” Andy draws the word out, turning his head to look at me with his eyebrows raised.
“So….” I drawl back at him. “What have you heard about them?”
Wrinkling his nose, Andy sighs, and shrugs. “There’s not a lot of accurate information out there. Rumor has it NDAs are in play.”
Yeah, NDAs are in fucking play. I got an eyeful of that at Tinker Bell’s apartment. Andy takes another pull of beer, his eyes focusing on my stovetop across from us.
“I’ve worked with one or two women who don’t talk about their time with Sea Nest, but they had some weird ground rules when they took jobs with me. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”
“Weird ground rules like what?”
“Like always insisting on having Barbara or Jessie in the room during meetings.” Okay, so they needed one of Andy’s two female employees around. That’s not a great sign. “Insisting meetings were audio-recorded, that kind of shit. Barbara said they would ask her about the culture at Holt Constructions, all secretive and shit.”
My lips thin. This conversation isn’t putting my mind at ease about Tinker Bell’s offered internship.
“And you think it’s because of those sexual harassment rumors you mentioned once?”
“Yeah. There are some fucking cunts out there.”
I nod in agreement, sipping at my beer. Tinker Bell better have fucking listened to me and turned down that damn offer.
“So, why the sudden fucking interest? You branching out?” Andy’s elbow jabs painfully into my side.
“Fucking, ouch.” I shoot him a glare, rubbing my side. He stares back at me, eyebrows raised. The asshole isn’t going to let this go. I can see it in his eyes. I shrug, but he’s not appeased.
“Seriously, what is this all about?”
“Who, not what,” I reply grudgingly. Somehow – I didn’t realize it was possible – Andy’s eyebrows shoot higher.
“Okay, so who is this about?”
Like a dog with a fucking bone. “Just someone I’m looking out for.”
A slow smirk lights up Andy’s face. “Luigi’s best friend?”
“Fuck off.”
His guess is spot on. Tinker Bell and Luigi played extremely well together. But what I do with her and her mouth is off-limits in this conversation.
Andy studies me for a moment, tapping his fingers against his beer bottle.
“Don’t let her work there.”
The words hang in the air, and bile settles in my gut at the absolute certainty in his tone. Yeah, he might know more than he’s told me and doesn’t want to divulge it in case he gets someone in trouble, someone who perhaps broke an NDA to tell him. Fuck me.
“I don’t know if I have much of a say,” I say slowly, the truth of the words tasting bitter in my mouth. Fucking hell. Right now, I’d like to go over there and lock her in her apartment until she agrees not to take the job. But I doubt that would fly.
“Shit, I’ll offer her a fucking job if she’s that desperate,” Andy snorts, eyeing me again. I drain my beer, standing to fetch another one. That could work…except for one small detail.
“I don’t know if she’d take a job I set up for her. She seems pretty determined to do everything on her own. I think she may have been burned being too reliant on someone in the past.”
Like this elusive best friend who dropped out of college and left Tinker Bell holding a lease for an apartment she couldn’t make rent on.
Andy accepts the beer I hold out to him, popping the lid and lounging back on his barstool while I flip through the menu of my favorite Thai takeout stuck to my fridge door.
“You need to sort that shit out.”
“Yeah.”
He’s not fucking kidding. I need to work out how to sort it out without Tinker Bell getting her back up and telling me to fuck off out of her life. She might not be my type, but she’s under my skin.
