Yeah, Arthur was only a few years older than he was, and yes, they’d been in the same class in law school, so calling him Dad was this side of preposterous. But Arthur was used to it. Wasn’t Vance’s fault Arthur was the one to settle the bickering between him and Nikki. He was just the firm’s father figure and that’s how things were.
“You know I went up to the cabin Friday night.”
“Yeah. About time too, you’ve been burning the candle at both ends.”
True. He was stretched too thin but it was almost impossible for him to turn down cases. He should probably slow down before he had a heart attack but it was just so tempting to keep pushing, to have more and more. To get as far away from where he’d come from as possible.
“When I got there, there was a woman in my house.”
Arthur’s eyes narrowed. “Were you…expecting there to be?”
“I was not. What, do you think I hired a call girl to meet me there and forgot about it? No, come on. Give me some credit.”
Arthur shrugged and Vance laughed. “You’re an asshole.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Anyway, yes, there was a woman I wasn’t expecting in my cabin when I got there. She was asleep on the couch, and I’m ninety-five percent sure she’s a little.”
“What makes you so—”
“Sure? She had a paci and a stuffie and she was flouncing around in a onesie.”
“That’s fair,” Arthur agreed. “But why was she at the cabin? Did the office give her the wrong keys or something?”
It was true that some people rented out their cabins when they weren’t using them and the front desk was not always totally on top of shit but he shook his head. That hadn’t been the issue this time.
“No. She broke into my place, had all her stuff with her, and had been there for a few days. Hadn’t trashed the place or anything. If I hadn’t gone up before she’d left, I never would’ve known she’d been there at all.”
“Okay. So did she get violent when you asked her to leave, or…?”
Vance clamped his mouth shut, feeling one of his eyes narrow into a squint. “So, here’s the thing.”
“Oh no,” Arthur muttered under his breath.
Oh yes.
“I didn’t ask her to leave. She’s still there as far as I know.”
“Vance—”
“Hey, you agreed,” Vance said, jabbing his finger across the desk again. “No lecture.”
“But—”
“Ah!”
Arthur rolled his eyes, but he also made a zip-lip gesture and then tossed the make believe key over his shoulder.
“She lost her job at one of the shitty campgrounds up at Thistledon which meant she lost her housing too and she doesn’t have a car. We swapped info and we signed a back-of-the-napkin contract. Like I said, place was spotless. I told her she could stay there as long as she needed to.”
Arthur sucked on his teeth. “Who doesn’t want to be a good guy, right? And I know you’ve got a thing about people who are down on their luck, but—”
“Next time you should buy a better lock for your yaptrap.”
Arthur waved his grumbling off. “So are you worried she’s going to burn the place down or what?”
That was not the problem. If only that were the problem.