Trevor
Since I’d managed to reschedule my morning appointments, I’d been able to spend a little more time with Melina before heading in to the office. My first appointment of the day was at one, so I’d asked Sage to have our temp come in at noon. They’d still only work until five, but I could handle the evening appointments without an assistant. A surprising number of my clients had been thrilled when I’d suggested meeting after five. We naturally scheduled our vampire appointments after dark since they couldn’t leave their homes during daylight hours, but our other clients came in during normal business hours of ten to five, with the occasional early appointment. It seemed that many of our clients preferred the after-hours appointments. When Dylan got back, I planned to discuss changing my hours and seeing more clients in the evening.
My first client of the day needed to meet with me in our conference room with the dampening spell. I was representing him in a dispute over the rights to a spell, and he was known to fly into a rage, which frequently resulted in damage to the building he was in. It was ironic, considering he wasn’t a very powerful warlock, except when he was angry.
When I walked into the reception area, I found Sage behind the reception desk, her fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard. Sage could type faster than anyone I’d ever seen. As always, Sage’s black hair hung down her back. Her green eyes were focused on the screen, and she looked almost angry, which was how she normally looked. Sage was efficient, even if she wasn’t overly friendly. Since she was a werewolf, we’d had to negotiate with her pack to hire her, but it had been worth it. I was surprised to see her here on her day off.
“Good afternoon, Sage,” I greeted her with a smile.
“Hey, Trevor.” She flashed a rare smile. “How are you today? I was sorry we didn’t get to talk at the reception.”
“I’m surprised to see you in the office today,” I remarked. “Was there a problem with the temp?” The agency should have called my cell phone if there was an issue.
“I didn’t like the way your idiot temp was messing up my office, so I figured I could work some extra hours until Dylan gets back and you have time to hire someone to work my off days,” she explained.
Her explanation made sense, and I had no problem with her calling off the temp without asking my permission. I’d never complain about having Sage in the office more. Sage had originally only worked two six-hour days a week because she had responsibilities with her werewolf pack, which was the norm with werewolves. Now, she worked three full days and had even managed to fill in around the full moon a couple of times. I still wasn’t sure how she’d talked her pack into that.
When we’d first opened the offices, we’d wanted one full-time assistant, and a full-time receptionist. For that reason, we’d been tempted to look past Sage’s resume. Thankfully, we hadn’t. Sage liked running the front office on her own, and she never seemed overwhelmed. In fact, she handled most of the legal assistant work, meaning our assistant working the other two days mainly handled receptionist work. Needless to say, we paid Sage a lot of money because we did not want to lose her, bad attitude or not.
“I don’t know what we’d do without you,” I told her. “You are truly amazing.”
Sage did something I never thought to see; she blushed. “Thank you, Trevor,” she stammered out somewhat nervously before clearing her throat and looking at the computer screen. She clicked the mouse and then her face was all business again. “I see you have a meeting with Fluffy in ten minutes.”
My lips twitched at the nickname we’d given our cantankerous client. “Yeah, I’d better go make coffee before he gets here. Sad as it is to say, his rants are starting to bore me.”
Ten minutes later, Sage led Davis Ellington, AKA Fluffy, into the conference room. Davis wore a designer suit today with his long black hair tied back from his almost feminine face. To say he was pretty would be an understatement. Davis was so beautiful, I’d be hitting on him if I were into men. It was probably a good thing I wasn’t into men since Davis was a homophobic bastard. We’d gone to school together, but it would be a stretch to say we’d been friends. I hadn’t liked him all those years ago, and I certainly didn’t like him now. Still, I planned to give him the best representation. I didn’t have to like my clients.
“Trevor!” Fluffy greeted me as if we were the best of friends, which was how he greeted everyone. “How was Dylan’s wedding? I was sorry I couldn’t make it, but I had other plans last weekend that simply could not be rescheduled.”
“Dylan understands completely,” I assured him, leaving out the fact that he hadn’t been invited to Dylan’s wedding because Dylan liked him even less than I did.
“Tell me you have some good news for me,” Fluffy said, settling into a chair on the opposite side of the table.
“Listen, Davis, I’m not going to bullshit you about this,” I began.
Fluffy’s head moved in an overly dramatic nod that made him look like a bobble head. “That’s one of the reasons I hired you. I know I can trust you to be a straight shooter and see that I get the best possible outcome. What have you got for me?”
“I spoke with the attorney representing your brother, and I think it would be best if you settled,” I advised.
“What?” Fluffy roared, getting to his feet for his tirade, which I chose to ignore. I sipped my coffee and pretended to listen to every word Fluffy said.
Davis and Corbin Ellington were currently fighting over patent rights on a spell to enchant bunny slippers. When Davis had first approached me about representing him, he’d made it sound like the idea and work on the spell had been his alone. In his version of the story, Corbin had nothing to do with it but wanted to ride on his older brother’s coattails. Unfortunately for Fluffy, Corbin had been better at documenting the events surrounding the creation of the spell, and we had no way of winning in court. A more dishonest attorney might agree to proceed with the lawsuit, since Fluffy was set on having his big, dramatic day in court. I wasn’t that kind of lawyer, and I would do my best to dissuade him from wasting any more money than necessary on this matter.
When Fluffy finally settled down, I continued. “I understand that you feel your brother didn’t contribute much. Maybe I’m missing an important detail.”
“Damn right, you are,” he practically shouted.
“Why don’t we go over some of the details?” I suggested.
“I came up with the idea and then I made the spell,” he snapped. “What other details could you possibly need?”
“Well, in court, they’ll want to know how it all went down,” I began. “Can you tell me again how you came up with the idea for the spell?”
“Our sister was having a sleepover, and Corbin thought we should have a bit of fun with her,” Fluffy began. “That was years ago. Don’t go thinking we still get into this sort of mischief. You have sisters, so I’m sure you understand playing tricks when you were younger.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “So, you and Corbin were planning to play a trick on your sister?”
“Yes,” Fluffy agreed. “We tossed around a bunch of ideas before we came up with putting a spell on her bunny slippers. We expected those girls to scream their heads off when the slippers started talking, but they were a hit, and they all wanted a pair of their own. Since I’m the expert on writing spells, I worked on that part.”
I nodded and pretended to make notes. “So, you wrote the spell with no input from Corbin at all?”
We’d gone over this before, but I was hoping Fluffy would see reason before I showed him the evidence. I had other appointments today and didn’t have time for him to adjust to a forced dose of reality.
“Corbin may have helped with some details,” Fluffy hedged.
Forty-five minutes later, I had Fluffy ready to sign the contracts which would allow them to sell their bunny slippers and copyright the spell under both names. While I wouldn’t say Fluffy was happy with his brother, at least he’d moved past feeling like his brother was stealing from him. Having Fluffy agree to this was a huge relief, partly because it meant he wouldn’t be my client much longer.
“I’ll have everything ready for you to sign next week,” I told him.”Sage can set up an appointment for you.”
“Excellent!” Fluffy practically shouted. “I’ll see you next week, Trevor. Oh, I almost forgot. I brought you something.”
He handed me a bag, and I eyed it suspiciously. “You didn’t need to bring me a gift.”
“They’re for your next lady friend,” he explained with a wink.
After Fluffy left the office, I opened the bag to find a pair of bunny slippers, which immediately began to chatter and growl at me. I laughed, thinking about how Melina would react when I gave them to her.