“Please?” Mom begged.
I scratched the back of my neck as I tried to look past all the paperwork and shit that I still had to get through.
And before I even realized what I was doing, I said, “Mom? Can I ask you a question?”
Mom paused.
My mother was literally the best mother in the world.
After the death of my little brother during his baseball game when he was sixteen, she could’ve become overbearing or even withdrawn.
She did neither.
She acted like the same mother that she was before his death, only a little more easily saddened.
“What’s wrong, Croft?” she asked, sounding like she was moving into a quieter place.
My mother was now retired from her previous job, as was my father.
They were newly retired, and both still trying to find their daily routines now that they had no jobs to go to any longer.
Meaning Dad watched a lot of television, and Mom did a lot of sewing, and sometimes they did not coexist so well.
“Tell me,” she urged when I hesitated too long.
“Do you remember me telling you about my date with Carmichael a couple of months ago?” I asked.
“A couple being like six? Before you took the case from hell? Yes. Why?” she asked.
“I never actually went on it,” I admitted. “That night that I was supposed to, I got a call that was important and time sensitive. I didn’t even remember that I had that date until well into the night. I think it was like ten.”
My mother groaned. “Croft, you moron.”
I smiled at my mother’s colorful use of words.
“I know,” I admitted. “But seriously. I really want a second chance. And she hates me. She thinks that Karen is the reason that I bailed on that date, and I’m not sure she likes that I work with her.”
“Nobody likes Karen, honey.” My mother laughed. “Your sister says that she’s a titty baby. Always right at your ass waiting for you to drop her a crumb.”
I sighed. “She’s actually only here for another couple of weeks. Her good friend is moving and she’s going to join her. I think it’s Florida or something? I’m not really sure. She wanted to become a partner here which would have been even worse for me. Soon, she won’t be a problem.”
Mom made an agreeing sound.
“That’s good,” she admitted. “Because if Carmichael sees this chick as a threat, she’s probably not going to give you the time of day. I wouldn’t if I thought you worked with someone that you slept with.”
“Gross.” I rolled my eyes. “Anyway, back to dating her. Do you think that I should just ask her out again?”
“Honey,” Mom snickered. “You need to grovel. You fucked-up, no doubt about it. She’s not going to just forgive you the moment that you decide to once again pay attention to her.” She hesitated. “She probably needs to know what you’ve been doing over these last six months. She needs to know why you didn’t bother trying to make this better when you realized you’d made a mistake. She also needs to know that Karen was never anything more than a colleague.”
That was true.
“Fudge,” I grumbled, knowing better than to cuss with my mother in hearing distance. She might be able to get away with swearing, but I couldn’t.
“You know,” Mom said. “Jesus still knows that you mean the real F word. You might as well say it.”
I barely stopped myself from rolling my eyes.
“So, what do you think my grand gesture should be?” I wondered. “All I can think of is just going over there, telling her I’m sorry for being an ass, and hope that she lets me stay long enough to explain.”
“You could start there,” she suggested. “But I doubt she’ll believe you. That’s if she even listens.”
I looked at my pile of paperwork and felt my eye twitch.
“I’ll make her listen to me,” I said. “Any suggestions on the other stuff?”
“Just kidnap her!” my dad yelled from the background. “Put ‘er in your car and drive far away really fast. Take her to the middle of nowhere so if she does get out of the car when you stop, she’ll have nowhere to go. And while you’re at it, go ahead and pack a picnic lunch, find out her favorite food, and go to her favorite bakery and pick her up a cupcake. Bitches love cupcakes.”
“I cannot believe you just said that,” Mom said to my dad. “You can’t just kidnap a girl!”
I was laughing when I hung up.
The bad thing was, my dad’s suggestion really did have some merit.
My mother might not approve, but I sure the fuck did.
If she wouldn’t listen to me when I went by the gym after work, then there was definitely something else that I had on standby.
Let’s just hope that she didn’t make me go to the extreme measures.
• • •
By the time that the end of the day rolled around, the very last thing I wanted to do was work out.
That was why I went to work out.
I’d been a bitch this morning and had missed my usual workout because I’d been too fucking tired from only getting a couple of hours of sleep.
My tiredness fled as I walked out of the office and started to head down the steps toward my car that was farther down in the parking lot.
I’d just made it to the blacktop that was considered the parking lot when the shooting started.
At first, I wasn’t totally sure what I was hearing.
It took something slamming into my shoulder for me to really pay attention to what I was hearing.
It was when I fell to the ground in a puddle of my own blood that I realized that the sound that I was hearing wasn’t just some random loud noises. They were gunshots.
Which was really fucking stupid of me because I wasn’t unfamiliar with the sound.
I’d served five years in the military. I’d been on the skeet shooting team in junior high and high school. Hell, every fucking Saturday I went out with Flint and my dad and shot a couple of rounds of bullets through my concealed carry weapon just so I could keep my skills sharp.
I should’ve known.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
I’d been shot!
“Oh my God!” I heard Karen scream. “Croft!”
I had my phone in my hand and was dialing the cops before I even realized I was doing it.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator asked.
I swallowed hard. “I’ve been shot. I’m in the parking lot of my law firm.”
I then rattled off the address and where I was located.
More gunshots sounded and the ‘thunk-thunk’ of the bullet hitting the car beside my head was enough to have me moving even though I didn’t want to.
Getting to the point where I was wedged between the car and the curb, I closed my eyes and prayed that whomever was on their way would hurry.
Because as the numbness started to spread through my arm, and the blood from my shoulder started to seep into the collar of my shirt and around and down my back, I knew that I wouldn’t last here forever.
I was also quite pissed that I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Carmichael today.
God. Dammit.
CHAPTER 5
I’m yours. No refunds or exchanges.