Page 15 of Danny Hall Gets a Lawyer (Goose Run #1)

MILLER

I slept through my alarm on Friday morning, and it meant I missed my morning run and skated into my office with minutes to spare.

Normally that might have put a crimp in my day, but not today because Danny had agreed to catch up again on the weekend. I was hoping that this time he’d stay for breakfast.

I didn’t usually care if the guys I hooked up with were gone by morning, but with Danny it was different—maybe because he wasn’t just some stranger from a club, or maybe because he was a likeable guy.

I’d seen the way he took care of his roommates and how concerned he was for his grandma.

Everything about him screamed that he was a decent human being, which made me want to get to know him better.

Besides, the sex was out of this world. I liked to take control in the bedroom and some people weren’t into that, but Danny? He took what I gave him and begged for more.

My musings were interrupted by the intern sticking his head around the door. “Hey. I’m going for donuts. You want some?”

“It’s barely nine, Marty. It’s too early for donuts.”

Marty shrugged. “If that was true, bro, why would the donut place open at six? Besides, you have a full day booked, so I figured you could use a kickstarter. Two bear claws and a black coffee?”

Okay, maybe Marty was kind of useful after all. “That sounds perfect.”

I pulled out my wallet and handed him my card to cover the order. “Get whatever you want on me.”

Marty beamed at me, and I remembered too late that I’d once seen him demolish an entire box of glazed donuts in one sitting.

Still, he was bringing me sugar and caffeine, so I wasn’t going to quibble over the cost. Once he’d gone I pulled up my calendar for the day and started making notes of what I’d need, and by the time Marty came back, I had a list of files I needed him to pull.

I could have done it myself, but what was the point of having an intern if it wasn’t to do crap like this?

Speaking of mindless jobs for interns. I handed him the list and said, “Did you remember to check the property lines in the Hall case?”

“The Hall case?” His brow creased, and I swore I could almost hear the wheels turning before his expression cleared and he said, “Oh, you mean cute Goose Creek guy? Bro, you should totally tap that.”

“Goose Run, not creek,” I said, ignoring the rest of his comment. “Did you check the county records or not?”

He gave a half-shrug. “I’m on it. It’s pretty cut and dried, though. The tree’s on their property and the neighbor is a giant dickwad who cut it down without permission.”

I bit back a sigh. “Pretty sure ‘giant dickwad’ isn’t an accepted legal term, Marty.”

He grinned. “No, but that guy still sounds like one.”

“Just check the records, okay?”

“Sure thing. And I’ll send the tree for DNA testing.”

“You don’t need to?—”

He’d wandered out of the office before I could finish my sentence, so I let it go. Hopefully, he’d forget all about it.

I’d finished my bear claws and coffee by the time he dumped the files on my desk. “Did you get lost on the way to the filing room?”

“Nah, the bros sent me new pictures of Squirrel. Wanna see?” He pulled out his phone and shoved the screen under my nose, showing me a photo of a whippet lying on a couch on its back, fast asleep with four legs in the air.

Marty loved his dog a ridiculous amount and was forever showing me pictures.

Squirrel had been a birthday present from Marty’s boyfriend, Dalton.

I wasn’t sure how he’d wrangled permission to have a dog live with him at his fraternity house, but he had.

In fairness to Marty, Squirrel was pretty cute.

From the photos I’d seen, so was Dalton.

It made me wonder sometimes what I was missing when it came to Marty because, to look at him, you’d think the guy was a walking disaster area, but somehow he had a frat that let him bend the rules, an internship, and a hot future doctor boyfriend.

Marty was living his best life, and honestly? I was a little jealous.

“He’s cute,” I said, and Marty grinned as he tucked his phone away, satisfied.

I spent the morning buried in paperwork and clients.

A guy in his thirties wanted to make a will, which was pretty simple.

The case after that, though, was anything but.

Marcia Alsop wanted to update her existing will with the express intention of making sure her sister would never see a cent.

She gave a long-winded retelling of the unforgivable offense that had occurred at the latest family gathering.

The crime that had her cutting all contact with her sister?

An argument over a family recipe. So, y’know.

High stakes right there. I nodded and tried to look sympathetic, but it was a struggle.

As soon as she left, I escaped the office and headed for the tiny sandwich shop around the corner.

I took a seat under the lazily creaking ceiling fans and ordered an iced tea and a sub.

As I sat there, I couldn’t help but compare Marcia’s attitude toward her family to that of Jane.

Danny’s grandma had thought nothing of moving out of her house so that Danny and his friends could have space to learn how to be adults, and she’d happily taken in what she called her bonus grandkids.

I’d seen a hint of that same protective streak in Danny when he was talking about Chase and Cash.

Even though technically none of the guys who lived there were related to him, it didn’t seem to matter to Danny.

As far as he was concerned, they were family.

Just thinking about Danny improved my mood some, and I wondered if I could persuade him to stay overnight. I pulled my phone out and my thumb hovered over the call button, but at the last minute I texted instead.

Still good for tomorrow?

The dots danced across the screen, and then:

Hell yeah

It was nice to know I wasn’t the only one looking forward to it. Before I could overthink it, I texted:

Wanna stay for breakfast this time?

There. Now I could overthink it. Danny had shit going on. He probably had to work, or go visit his grandma, or fix his truck, or clean up his yard. There were a dozen things that were more important than his date with me.

His hookup with me, was what I meant. Not date.

There was no dating here. None.

Before I could freak myself out any further, my phone buzzed.

Breakfast sounds good. You cooking?

The tension that had been gathering low in my gut eased.

I am if you count toast as cooking.

Danny sent back a laugh emoji. I waited to see if there was a follow-up text, but there wasn’t anything else, so I tucked my phone away and ate my lunch, and by the time I got back to the office, I was ready for whatever the afternoon might throw at me.

That turned out to be an initial divorce consult and some real estate paperwork—basic stuff that I could pretty much do with my eyes closed, but it still took most of the afternoon to plow through it.

There was a tap on my door and I looked up to find Callahan standing in the doorway with his dog sitting at his feet and his jacket over one shoulder. “You planning on staying here all weekend?”

I glanced at the clock and found it was later than I’d thought. I closed the folder and stretched, my spine cracking as I straightened all the kinks out of it. Then I stood and grabbed my jacket and keys, and we headed out.

I stopped at the store on the way home to get beer and condoms and lube as well as eggs, bacon, orange juice, and bread in preparation for Danny’s visit.

When I got home, I put the groceries away and had dinner.

Then I settled on the couch and scrolled through the Netflix menu, but nothing held my interest. Normally I enjoyed the peace of an empty apartment on a Friday night, but tonight the quiet had me feeling off-kilter.

A restless energy crackled under my skin, anticipation and impatience battling for first place.

Tomorrow night seemed forever away. Why hadn’t I invited him for tonight?

More importantly, what was stopping me from calling him now?

I grabbed my phone and hit Danny’s number before I could talk myself out of it.

It rang twice before he picked it up and I heard, “Hello?” Danny sounded breathless and almost giggly, and I heard a man laughing in the background.

Shit. Did he have someone else with him?

Jealousy flared hot under my skin for a second, but then over the sound of more laughter and a thud that might have been someone getting shoved off a couch, Danny said, “Sorry, Miller. Wilder’s being a dick.”

Of course it was his roommate he was hanging out with. And even if it wasn’t, it wasn’t my business. Because we weren’t a thing.

In the background Wilder called, “Hey, Miller! Did you know Danny’s scared of spiders?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Danny snapped. “I am not.”

Oh, he definitely was. I found myself grinning at their bickering. “You know,” I said, “my apartment is guaranteed spider-free, if you wanted to come over tonight instead of tomorrow.”

I half-expected him to tell me he was too tired, but he said, “I’m on my way.”

“Really?” I hadn’t meant to sound as surprised as I did.

“Really,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Any excuse to get away from these losers.”

“You really know how to make a man feel special.”

Danny laughed and said, “Lemme find my keys and I’ll be there soon.”

The next forty minutes both dragged and flew by.

I got caught between knowing that I had time to shower because there was no way Danny could be here yet and checking out the window every five minutes just in case he’d discovered how to teleport and forgot to mention it.

In the end I wasted so much time making sure the bed was made and the place was tidy that I was still in the shower when there was a knock on the door, and the sudden noise had me flailing and almost falling on my ass.

Fuck.