Page 100 of Try Me
I leaned back in the chair, turning the card over in my hands, speechless. My throat tightened. My chest, too.
Lena muttered a curse, then opened up a desk drawer, pulling out a pack of tissues. “Gonna get me going, too.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose until the stinging behind my eyes went away, though not before a few hot tears managed to squeeze past. “Thank you,” I whispered, then cleared my throat to get my voice back. “You have no idea how much this means to me. You won’t regret it.”
“Oh, I know.” She flashed me a wink. “But just in case, you should probably send me your forwarding address in the unlikely event that I need to come to DC and kick your ass. Or in the case that I might like to be treated to dinner.”
“I can definitely manage that. Do you like McDonald’s? They have the best quarter pounder.”
She laughed. “I’ll expect nothing less than Shake Shack. Now scoot. I’ve still got a few hours with you as my errand boy and I’ll be sending Barrett down with a whole heap of files I need you to go through.”
I walked back to my desk in a daze. Houston and Liza had already gone to lunch, but Mark was still there, standing by the tall windows that looked out on City Park. His hands were in his pockets, pulling his trousers tight across his firm ass. It was a very, very good look for him.
“Don’t move,” I said, and he turned his head at a quarter angle, so I could see his mouth curving up.
“Why not?”
“This is your best side.”
“That so?”
“Yep. Can’t see your tie.”
For the record, there was nothing wrong with his tie today. It featured thin stripes in pastel blues, and it looked killer with the pale pink shirt and deep navy pants. He’d put the outfit together himself, and I wasn’t sure if his taste was actually getting better or if it was more like the old monkey with a typewriter theory and he’d just stumbled into stylistic achievement by pure happenstance. Time would tell. I preferred him naked, anyway.
“I was at least hoping for a compliment on my ass.”
I pressed up against him and ran a hand down his flank. “There’s your compliment. Feel it?”
“Maybe? Feels like a…is that a pen poking me? Oh, I’ve got it.” He snapped his fingers. “It’s one of those golf pencils, isn’t it?”
“You motherfucker.” But I couldn’t hold a straight face when I said it, and the laughter burst out of me. “Size insults? Does that mean we’ve reached new heights in our relationship?”
“No, because we both know who wins in that department. I’ll just hurl them out occasionally to throw you off.”
“You’re working with more than a handful, and I wouldn’t mind as much of it as I can fit in my mouth right now. Are we going to lunch or what?”
“Yeah, what’d Lena want?”
I’d figured I’d share the news when we were sitting down somewhere, but like the laughter a second ago, it burst out of me. I had no chill today. None. “Her stepdad is a federal judge in DC. She says as long as my grades are good, he wants me as an intern next summer.”
Mark turned fully toward me, lips splitting in a huge grin. “Holy shit, that’samazing.Holy fucking shit. A federal judge. That’s way better than here.” And before I could say anything else, he looked both ways, then cupped my cheeks before laying a kiss on me that practically vibrated through my body with his exuberance.
I reeled back with a smile. “Some celebrating’s in order, I think. For us both.”
“Lead the way.”
* * *
“There’sa Starbucks another mile down and also a little strip mall with a donut shop,” I said to Mark as I pulled into the prison parking lot.
“I told you I don’t mind waiting. Quit worrying about it,” he huffed out, and then added, softer, “I’m glad you asked me to come.”
I’d debated it for a long time, because visiting my dad always left me in this weird funk the way I sometimes got if I woke up suddenly from an intense dream—like there was this residue of the past that clashed with my day-to-day reality.
But Mark, of all people, had seen me at my best, my worst, and every stage in between, so when we’d woken up this morning and he asked what I had going on today, the request came out in a fumble of words that he immediately understood and said yes to.
Since it was cooler outside, visiting hours were held in a courtyard. The guard brought my father out and let him get settled and then walked a few paces away.