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I’m not surprised though. He has a good rapport with all the partners. Brooks automatically plants himself on the sunny side of everyone he meets. He’s like a weed. He thrives everywhere, always.
I shrink back to my seat, trying to listen in on their conversation, but I’m too far away. All I can make out is a few more laughs from Brooks and even some from Lisa.
A full ten-minutes later, he saunters past my office, hands in the pockets of his dress slacks. He casts a glance over at me and raises his eyebrows in a dick-ish way, as if to say, I know something you don’t know.
I grit my teeth.
I’d rather perform my own appendectomy than ask him directly, so I wait to make sure that he’s gone back into his office before getting up and quietly making my way to Lisa’s.
By the time I get there, her office door is closed, and she’s on the phone.
“Can I help you, Tenley?” Shelly, Lisa’s assistant, taps me on the shoulder, causing me to jump. I get the feeling she doesn’t like me very much.
Checking to make sure Brooks hasn’t popped his head out of his office, I smile and say in a low voice, “Oh, I just wanted to ask Lisa—”
“She’s in meetings all day today.” Shelly squints, as if to silently scold me for not checking Lisa’s calendar before moseying this way.
“Well, if she has a moment, can you ask her to stop by and—”
“—Sure.” She gives me a look that says it’s highly unlikely.
For the remainder of the day, I’m on pins and needles. No word from Lisa. Not so much as an email between meetings. By the time five o’clock rolls around, my stomach is in knots and I’m so behind on my work I’ll for sure be taking it home with me this weekend.
With my heart in my teeth, I knock on her door.
She looks up over her wire-rimmed reading glasses. “Oh, Tenley. Five already?”
I keep my shoulders back and head held high, steadying my nervousness the way I was trained to in law school. “Yes.”
“Come in. Have a seat.”
Lisa is smart. She’s in her mid-forties, beautiful, always impeccably dressed, and has it all—husband, kids, great legal career. Somehow she juggles it all and makes it look like a walk in the park.
I’ve never had the chance to tell her this, but I admire her and her career has become a beacon for my own.
“Sorry, I got Shelly’s message but didn’t have time. You had something to discuss with me?” She’s not looking up from the papers on her desk.
“Oh, no, it’s nothing. I figured it out myself.” A good future partner should be resourceful.
“Good,” she says, “I like to hear that.”
I glance around her office. It’s twice the size of my own, with its own bathroom and a panoramic view of the Portland Harbor. Her desk, her chair, everything is bigger, and I can only imagine how it feels to sit on the other side of it. I’m halfway through a daydream when there’s a friendly knock on the door, a bup-bup-bah-bup-bup. I glance over and see Brooks sauntering in.
“Hey, Lis.” He’s grinning like an idiot. A hot idiot, but still.
And what’s with the nickname?
He takes the seat next to me and though I’m not looking at him, I can tell his gaze has shifted my direction.
“Bayliss,” he says as if uttering a particularly nasty legal term.
Arrearage. Temporary Restraining Order. Termination. Cease and desist.
My lips twist, fighting a snarl. I stiffen and cross my legs before matching his tone. “Gentry.”
He crosses his legs too and piles his hands on his knee. We both stare expectantly at Lisa. The silence is painful. He’s quite a bit more relaxed than I am—the bastard—because I get the feeling he knows exactly what this is about. Maybe he doesn’t know everything, but he knows the gist. He’s had time to prepare his reaction.
The certainty I had this morning is all but gone.
There’s no way Brooks Gentry would be invited to my promotion meeting.
Lisa looks up, laces her fingers together in front of her, and says, “Thanks, you two, for making time in your schedules to meet with me. I know how valuable our time is, so I’ll cut to the chase. As you may or may not suspect, you’re both in the running to be the next partner. We’d like to have our decision made sooner than later, but it’s been a little challenging for us… we’ve been splitting hairs and it’s a whole… well, I won’t get into the nitty gritty.”
Just like that I know where this is going.
The illustrious head of Foster and Foster is going to make us compete head-to-head for this partnership. Like The Hunger Games.
As if we haven’t been doing that every day already.
Except now it’s going to be even more vicious. The gloves are off. Blood will be spilled.
