I ignore this, sometimes she pushes it too far. Likening me to some kid who’s making bad choices is hardly fair.
‘You know how you’re always saying to me that I shouldn’t get so involved with my clients’ cases?’ I say, biting into my tuna baguette.
Jas looks up from her coffee. ‘Yeah?’
‘Well, perhaps I am too involved. But it’s because I have nothing else to fill my mind. And going out with a really nice guy like Alex will give me some perspective. So instead of worrying about clients, I’ll have someone else to think about, won’t I?’
‘I suppose,’ she says, throwing her sandwich wrapper in the bin, a full stop to our conversation. ‘Sorry, babe, I have to get on with work now. I’m going to have to throw you out.’
‘Of course.’ I stand up and move out of her office, clutching the remains of my baguette and cup of frothy coffee. I know Jas too well: she can’t hide her feelings and she’s angry with me for being what she would see as ‘weak’. She doesn’t want us to argue, though, so she’s going to work through her feelings – I know this because she told me that her therapist has said she must isolate herself when people make her angry or hurt her. I haven’t intentionally hurt her, but from her perspective I have, by not taking her advice. She’s complicated. Childhood abuse does that to a person. And Jas’s sudden anger is just one of the emotional responses in an adult who’s been sexually abused as a child.
We deal with damaged children all the time in our work, and that’s what we are, Jas and I – we’re damaged children who’ve grown up. But that doesn’t define us. Most of all we’re friends, and we understand each other. We both want the other one to be safe and happy, and she’s just looking out for me, as I do her – I just wish she’d trust me to make the right decisions sometimes. And when it comes to Alex, I really believe this is the right decision.
Waiting outside the bar for Alex is hell. I rushed home from work after a difficult day, including a call-out from Chloe Thomson, a sixteen-year-old with slight learning difficulties. Chloe also has a challenging home life: her parents split up when she was younger and her mother, a drug addict, has just moved another of her boyfriends into the tiny flat they share. When I visited them today, her mum had a black eye, apparently caused by ‘walking into something’, which, of course, I don’t believe. I tried not to think about poor Chloe as I showered, dressed and applied lipstick. I undid my hair, letting it fall loose around my shoulders, and pulled on a black polo-neck jumper, which I thought looked good with my blonde hair. I then ran all the way from my flat to the wine bar in the rain, and when I arrived, my umbrella had turned inside out and given up the ghost, so I threw it in the bin and stood outside under an awning. And now my hair is damp, frizzy and nothing looks good with it!
I’ve been waiting here for Alex for twenty-three minutes. After ten minutes, I checked inside to see if he’d already arrived, but I couldn’t see him. I contemplated sitting at the bar, and ordering a drink, but there was a man standing by the bar staring at me, and when he pulled out a stool and patted it, I walked out. It’s so cold and rainy, I consider going back inside, but what if Mr Weirdo is still waiting with my bar stool? Oh, I wish Alex would hurry up. Now I’m wondering if he’s even going to turn up, and just as I’m about to call him to check I have the right place, he appears in front of me. He’s twenty-seven minutes late, but full of apologies: ‘I have this really big case on at the moment, and one of the lawyers I’m working with wanted me to meet her at 6 p.m. to discuss the case. Can you imagine?’
I bristle slightly at the thought of him not wanting to let down a female colleague, but seemingly happy to leave me in the rain.
‘I wanted to say, “I’m meeting this really hot woman for a second date, so do you mind if we meet another day?” But, of course, I couldn’t.’ He rolls his eyes.
I force a smile. Work? Is that his only excuse? ‘I was just about to leave,’ I say. ‘It’s not how I expected to spend this evening, waiting in the freezing rain!’
His face drops. ‘Oh, Hannah, I’m so sorry. I didn’t have your number, so I couldn’t let you know, but I should have called the bar, shouldn’t I? Have I screwed this up already?’
I smile, softening at him clearly realising his error. ‘Not yet, you’re on probation though.’
‘Promise I won’t break the terms of my probation. Just give me a chance?’ He’s half-joking, but I can see this matters to him, that he cares that he was late. He isn’t playing me, but I think Jas’s warning has rattled me more than I realised, and it’s made me actively look for negatives where there aren’t any.
We decide to go into the wine bar for a drink, and while there, we chat about our respective work days, then he suggests a pizza. I’m starving, so we drink up and head for the door, but just glancing outside tells me the rain is now pretty torrential.
‘We’ll get wet through,’ I say as we huddle together in the doorway.
‘Where’s your umbrella?’
‘I don’t have one.’
‘Yeah you do. I mean… I thought…’ he stutters, ‘I just… I just know you’d be the sort of person to have one.’
‘Actually, I did have one, it’s in the bin.’ I nod over to the bin on the pavement, the umbrella jammed in, looking like a dead crow, the spikes sticking up like feet. ‘It died.’
‘Oh dear.’ He laughs and, taking off his jacket, gallantly holds it over my head. ‘The pizza place is only about five minutes from here, isn’t it?’ he says into my ear. The brush of his lips on my earlobe is electric. ‘Shall we make a run for it?’ he asks, with a smile.
After a mad, splashy dash to the pizza restaurant, we are taken to a table, where we order Merlot. He refers to it as ‘our usual’, and I like how that sounds, like the two of us already have a history, we belong. Despite a little glitch at the start, when he arrived late and I was irritated, he’s allayed all my doubts and this feels right.
I don’t taste the pizza, I can barely remember what I ordered, something with mushrooms? I just can’t stop looking at him, and his eyes are constantly on mine. Whatever Jas might say, if she was here right now, she’d know this is the real deal.
‘So, you do criminal work?’ I ask between mouthfuls, wanting to know everything about him.
‘Yeah.’ He smiles. ‘Not the prettiest or most glamorous of practices, and I do end up spending a lot of time at the police station out of hours, drinking nasty tea and being sworn at.’
‘Ahh, sounds fun,’ I say, exaggerating the look of doubt on my face and thinking how even that sounds more pleasant than dealing with Chloe Thomson’s mother. This afternoon, when I apparently asked one too many questions, she told me to ‘F the F off’ and slammed the door in my face.
‘Yeah, it’s okay actually. Today in court I managed to prevent a young guy going to prison. He’d been forced by his older brothers to help them steal cars, the charge sheet was endless and I used every trick in the book to try to get him a suspended sentence. In the end, all he got was a fine and community service – and you know what he said after the case?’