Chapter Four
“How’d it go?”
“Not as bad as I thought it would be.”
“Told you.” Logan tapped the barstool next to him. “You gonna sit? Dan’s coming, too.”
“I’m not sure.” Andrew wavered, leaning forward on the bar. Was that a twinge of nausea he felt? Just the thought of vomiting in the middle of his favorite bar, in front of his friends and the bartenders he knew, was enough to make him want to turn around and walk out.
“You okay?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know. I think so. I feel okay, but I’m not sure how long that will last. I almost didn’t come, but I had to get away from my mom and sisters.”
His friend regarded him for a moment. He tapped the bar and called out to the bartender. “Can I get a water for Andrew? He’s driving tonight.” None of the employees knew about his diagnosis, and Andrew was grateful to Logan for keeping it that way.
“Let’s sit over there.” Logan nodded to a cluster of couches and chairs near the back of the room, and near the restrooms. “You can head out whenever you want.”
Andrew nodded. “Okay. Thanks.”
Dan, a friend Andrew had met during his first year of law school, soon joined them. Andrew’s brief anxiety over getting sick passed as they fell into their usual conversation about work and sports. They were in a fantasy football league with several other guys, and Dan’s team had smoked them all the past weekend.
“Didn’t your star wide receiver go out with an injury on Monday night?” Dan asked Logan.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Logan grumbled.
“My team isn’t doing any better,” Andrew said. “I’m just glad this league was only fifty bucks. I joined a high-stakes game with my brother-in-law and his buddies last year, and the winner got five grand. I was pissed off the entire season, knowing how much money I was missing out on with my shitty team.”
“Didn’t your sister play in that one, too?” Dan asked.
“Yeah, both Valerie and Jeni. It’s impressive how much they know about football.”
Logan perked up. “There’s a lot that’s impressive about Jeni.”
“Don’t you need another beer?” Andrew asked.
Logan stood, a shit-eating grin on his face. “As a matter of fact, I do.”
As Logan walked toward the bar across the room, Dan shook his head. “That guy’s just asking for an ass kicking, isn’t he?”
Andrew frowned. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him. I introduced the two of them a few months ago when Jeni moved to town, and they didn’t seem to like each other at first. They’ve sort of become friends, and lately he’s made several comments like that. I try not to let it get to me because I know he’s all talk and that he’s a good guy. It’s never really bothered me when he said things like that about other women, but when it’s my sister…”
“I don’t have a sister, but if I did, I wouldn’t want Logan to even look in her direction.”
Andrew didn’t respond and took a long drink of water.
“How’s it going at the DA’s office?” Dan asked, taking the hint and changing the subject.
“It’s great. They’ve assigned me to a new domestic violence case, and right now I’m helping with the preliminary legal research and paperwork. I’m hoping it moves through the court proceedings before we graduate, so I can experience the entire process and see how it all plays out.”
“I can’t believe you landed that internship. It’s competitive.”
“I can’t either,” Andrew said. Though he had worked his ass off on his application and, luckily, had really hit it off with the attorney he’d interviewed with. He hoped to secure a position at the District Attorney’s office after he graduated, but even if they didn’t have an open spot, the networking opportunities the internship created would no doubt get him a nice offer elsewhere.
It was a bittersweet feeling, to be succeeding in his chosen career path. On one hand, there was nothing he’d rather be doing, and it felt good to know he’d spend his last year of law school training under some of the best prosecutors in the state. But with every good thing that happened, his mind conjured up an image of his father and the look of disappointment on his face when Andrew had told him he wouldn’t follow in his footsteps to manage the family farm.
His dad had put up a good fight, to be sure. Andrew had actually thought that his dad would have made a good attorney, but he didn’t dare say that. His dad had offered strong arguments about family values and carrying on the farming legacy that was three generations strong, but Andrew wasn’t swayed.
Things had never been the same.