Page 66 of Go Back to December

“It wasn’t ergonomic. I required more support.”

“In my fucking bed?”

Dooley checks my return from the bathroom and glances at the boot monstrosity. “Does that keep him wrangled?”

“All night,” I drawl.

With a wicked grin, Dooley clears the pile next to him and pats the space on the bed.

I flop onto the bed on my stomach. “What’s the verdict?”

With a bright smile, Dooley replies, “You’re pretty much fucked.”

“You are a hundred percent fucked if you don’t get the fuck out of my fucking bed!”

Dooley and I ignore Baz’s outburst and make no effort to move.

“It’s the café space,” Dooley continues. “Blackhart & Steele owns the building, and there’s no separate lease agreement for the operation of the café. Plus, you’re all direct employees of Blackhart & Steele. If they get serious about headcount reduction—”

Baz stops throwing us the stink eye and mumbles, “You’re discretionary.”

“The budget, or the employees?”

“All of it.”

Which means we will be the first to go.

Baz attacks the thick carpet with the bottom of his crutch. “There’s got to be some kind of money structure maneuver.”

“If there were, I would have found it,” Dooley says. “Another reason you are blessed with my friendship.”

I frown at Baz. “Why wouldn’t you find the money maneuver?”

Dooley cackles.

“Aren’t you all money maneuverers?”

“I’m the money guy,” Dooley says. “Young Sebastian is what we in the legal profession refer to as a bleeding heart.”

Now I’m giggling along with him.

Baz isn’t. He’s more furious than coming home and finding Dooley in his bed. “You don’t know what kind of law I practice?”

“Um, corporate?”

That put Baz in this beautiful apartment and luxury sheets on his bed and three hundred eighty-two horses beneath the hood of the car he doesn’t trust anyone to drive.

“Technically, they are the ones who pay.” Dooley sobers. “But it’s a toxic relationship; they hate what he does, but love how he does it.”

I am beyond confused.

Baz blusters as he withdraws his wallet, retrieves a card, and flings it on the bed.

Sebastian Johnson, Esq.

Partner

Human Rights Practice