“Okay, enough. Wyatt, put a lid on the testosterone and Lena, put your balls back in your pants,” Adam butt in, but there was a hard edge to his voice. He looked between us. “This isn’t going to be an issue, is it? I thought we could all be mature adults.”
I sat back in my seat and held my hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry. I’ll be good. Promise.”
“I’m sorry, Adam.” Lena lowered her head, looking slightly embarrassed.
“Good, because we need to be working together, not against each other,” Adam went on, lecturing us as if we were school kids.
There was a brief silence where no one said anything before Meg started talking about her new art installation that was going to be displayed in downtown Philadelphia next month. Lena and I glanced at each other and then as if by mutual decision, we didn’t look at each other again the rest of the evening.
I turned to Sheila who had been particularly quiet. I noticed she hadn’t eaten much of her dinner. “You didn’t eat much. Was the salad as awful as it looked?” I teased, trying to make her smile. I was being a shitty date. That wasn’t like me. I usually made every woman I was with feel good.
Sheila didn’t respond to my question. “I think I’m going to get a cab home. I’m pretty tired and I have an early start tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay. But I can take you home. I thought maybe we could go back to my place and…”
Sheila put her hand on my arm, stopping me. “It’s okay. No need for that.” She cast a quick look at Lena and the others. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Before I could say anything else, Sheila got to her feet and said goodbye to Adam, Meg, Rob, and Lena. She leaned down and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you around, Jeremy.”
When she was gone, I noticed that Lena was watching me, an odd expression on her face.
“You really do have a way with women, don’t you Wyatt?” Her question was cutting.
She didn’t wait for me to respond before turning back to the others as if I weren’t there.
Chapter 4
Lena
“Palmer. Palmer. Where the hell is the Palmer file?” I went through each of the filing cabinets in the storage room, trying to find what I was looking for. I had quit my job as the paralegal/Adam’s assistant at Jenkins, Ducate, and Wyatt months ago so I could devote my time to studying for the bar exam and to finish law school. It seemed in that short amount of time my meticulous organizational methods had gone to pot. I had spent forever going through the old case files and organizing them carefully. Someone, or someones, had undone all my hard work and it made me want to pull my hair out.
“Carly, can you come here?” I called out to the young woman sat at the receptionist's desk. I crouched down on my haunches thumbing through manila folders, not realizing someone was standing behind me until he cleared his throat.
“Carly’s gone to lunch. Do you need anything?”
I tried not to groan because that would be unprofessional. And since I began my job as a junior associate, I was trying really hard to be a goddamn professional.
Too bad Jeremy Wyatt hadn’t gotten the memo.
I stood up, brushing lint from my black pants and looked at my wristwatch. “It’s only eleven. She didn’t get in until nine-thirty. Why is she on lunch break already?”
Carly was the latest in a string of crappy receptionists the three partners had hired since she had vacated her previous position. It seemed they were having trouble finding someone who wasn’t—to put it nicely—a complete airhead.
Jeremy took a bite of the apple he was holding, chewing slowly and watching me as I shoved the file box back onto the shelf and pull another one-off. “She said something about taking her cat to the vet. I didn’t ask too much about it.” He took another bite, the crunch grating on my nerves.
“You didn’t ask too much about it? Isn’t that your job as her boss?” Still not finding the file I needed, I gave the box an immature kick.
Jeremy cocked a perfect eyebrow. “Well, I let her know this morning we were letting her go at the end of the week. She seemed rather upset, so I let her take a few hours to tend to her cat, who apparently has feline leukemia. I didn’t want to upset her more by asking invasive questions about the health of her pet.”
“Oh. Okay. That’s understandable, then,” I muttered, feeling like a bit of a jerk. “So, you let her go?” I put my hands on my hips, then realizing how defensive I looked, I forced my hands to my side, where they hung awkwardly before I crossed them over my chest.