Chapter 17 – Jensen
When I walk into court for my pre-trial conference, Dylan isn’t there. I’m not expecting him to be, since I fired him. But I’m still taken a bit off guard, feeling out of sorts. If Dylan’s no longer my lawyer, then who is?
“You’re in luck,” says Tim, as he strolls into the courtroom, looking peppier than I’ve ever seen him. “I told you there was no attorney in our organization that rivals Dylan, but now he’s got some competition. A very talented lawyer has just joined us… temporarily, at least.”
And just like that, Riley Morrell enters the courtroom, looking as wide-eyed and out of place as a baby doe. She’s all dressed up as if she’s about to argue my case to the United States Supreme Court. So prim and proper and stuffy.
But there’s a small amount of cleavage protruding from her silk blouse under her black blazer. Just enough to make me think she has a wild side, or maybe she will after I find it and bring it out…
Back to reality, I chide myself. This is my lawyer we’re talking about here, not some girl at a party. And I don’t want her to be my lawyer.
“Her? You’ve gotta be kidding me. You’ve assigned me some temporary lawyer?”
She can’t even take this gig seriously enough to commit to it?
“Jensen, calm down,” Tim says, patting my arm as he says a phrase I’ve heard way too much in my lifetime. But it’s easier said than done, to calm down about my case and my defense.
“I heard you say she doesn’t even have criminal law experience.” I glare at him accusingly.
“But she is one of the best young civil lawyers there is, and that’s what matters,” Tim says. “She’ll learn her way around the criminal court, don’t worry.”
“Yeah, I’m the lucky first client who gets to be her guinea pig…” I mutter, as Riley approaches.
Her uniquely colored eyes flash shock— or is something more?— upon seeing me and for a moment I just sit here like an idiot. The logical part of me is screaming, “I don’t want this flaky, newbie lawyer! Bring Dylan back, or let me hire my own lawyer outside of this incompetent organization,” but the primitive part of me is screaming, “Holy shit is this woman hot.”
“Everything will turn out as it should, Jensen,” says Tim, as he stands up to leave. He hands Riley a file that has my name typed up on a label. “We here at Veterans Legal Alliance are very happy to have Riley on board. And I repeat my assertion that you are very lucky to have her on your case. I’ll let you two discuss that in further detail now, since you don’t have much time before the judge calls your case.”
“Hello again,” says Riley, as she sits down in the spot that Tim just vacated. “Jensen, right?”
“Right.” I nod at the file in her hand.
“Oh yes, of course,” she says, and blushing, begins opening the file. I realize that she had remembered my name without being reminded by the file.
Hmmm. Maybe this attorney/client relationship will work out better than I thought.
“Now let me see here… I just got your file right now. I mean, obviously. Now let me see…”
She begins grabbing at various papers in the file, obviously flustered. It appears I have quite an effect on this otherwise put together lawyer.
“…your other lawyer, Dylan, was in the process of securing an expert to testify as to your PTSD,” she notes.
“Forget about that,” I snap at her, fuming mad now and not even caring whether or not she’s as attracted to me as I am to her. I just want to get my point across. Leave it to Dylan to paper my file with the defense I didn’t want him to pursue.
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s why he’s not my lawyer anymore. I don’t want to pursue the PTSD defense. I don’t have PTSD.”
“Okay.”
I look at her, trying to figure out what she’s thinking. Was that an “okay” as in, “I’ll give you lip service but do what I want,” like Dylan always meant when he said “okay”? Or was that an “okay” as in, “Okay, I’m on your side and I agree?” Or maybe it was just an “Okay, I have no idea what I’m doing here so I’ll just say okay to whatever you say?”
I look at her furrowed brow as she continues to rifle through the pages of my file and I decide it’s most definitely the last option. Although I do like the idea of “lip service…”
“State versus Jensen Bradford, Case Number 11-203-cr-29788,” announces the bailiff, startling me out of the dirty thoughts I was about to escape into. Riley looks startled as well.
“I’m up,” I announce, despite my better interests rather intrigued to see how this will play out.
“Yes,” Riley says, as she walks ahead of me to the podium in front of the judge. She’s looking around and then back down at the file in her hands, rather frantically.
It’s obvious that she has no idea what she’s doing in my case. But I just can’t stop staring at her perfect ass.