Hayden
Aliens have a bit of a problem with stealing.
My brother Quinn stole a ship. He saved someone, saved the woman he’s now mated to. He did a lot of good when he took that ship and even more good when he returned it, but he still took it without permission.
Ezra, my other brother, stole something, too. He stole a bow. He took it and he went hunting and he brought back an incredible haul, including a woman, but he still stole it.
And Gaz, my very best friend in the entire world, he stole something.
Only the thing Gaz stole is something he can never return. The only thing Gaz can do with what he took is to cherish it or break it because he stole my heart and I’m never going to get it back.
I can’t remember the exact moment I realized I was in love with him. I can’t remember when things shifted between us, when I stopped viewing him as a family friend and started viewing him as something more, as someone more.
I can’t remember.
Because when I think about my life, and I think about the things we’ve been through, I think that Gaz has always been there. He’s always been close to us, always lingering around, always ready if me or one of my brothers needed something.
And I love him.
I really, totally, completely love him.
There’s just one problem with this whole “falling in love with your best friend” thing: he has no idea how I feel.
There’s a part of me that wants to tell him, that wants to explain how much I love him, how much I think about him, how much I want, more than anything, to be his, but there’s a more rational part of me that knows this is a bad idea.
If I put myself out there and tell Gaz how I feel, there’s a chance he’s going to reject me. If that happens – when that happens – I know I’m never going to be the same again.
And right now, our friendship is good. It’s solid. I’m not quite ready for things to be over between us, so I keep my thoughts to myself.
“Hayden! Good morning.” Izzie’s voice brings me out of my daydreams and back to the present. Gaz’s receptionist is beautiful. She’s a Sapphiran, like me, so she’s tall and lanky and blue. Her hair falls past her shoulders in ringlets and for just a brief second, I wish I was half as pretty as Izzie is. She’s got the kind of beauty most girls would kill for. The craziest thing is that she doesn’t even know how pretty she is. Izzie seems to think she’s normal, ordinary, but she’s not. She couldn’t be ordinary if she tried.
“Hi Izzie,” I walk across the small waiting room and give her a hug. She smells like flowers. “How’s your morning going?”
“You do not want to know,” Izzie says, rolling her eyes. She says it in a way that lets me know she’s definitely going to let me know.
“What happened?” I ask politely, leaning against the side of her oversized desk. She’s Gaz’s receptionist, sure, but she’s more than that. She basically manages his entire life. Gaz is incredible, but he’s also a busy lawyer. He doesn’t have time to deal with things like scheduling or planning. Izzie controls all of that. She’s in charge of everything from scheduling client meetings to responding to emails to managing Gaz’s meals. She even tells him when he needs to do laundry.
That’s how much he needs her.
Her desk is a reflection of this. There are papers covering the entire desk, but they’re all arranged very particularly. Izzie explained the entire organizational plan to me once. It was very specific.
She keeps notes from clients on one notepad and later logs them into computer files. She keeps requests from Gaz in front of her, pinned to the top of the desk. There’s a pile of papers to her right that contain notes and important information about current cases. Her hologram messages all appear to the right of the desk and she has everything arranged so that anyone calling her holographically can’t see what’s on her desk.
I hope Gaz pays her well because she deserves it.
“This morning, Trevor came in.” There’s this thing about being a lawyer in the biggest city on the Hidden Planet. People expect a certain amount of privacy when they hire you. They expect you to keep your mouth shut about their case and not to divulge any information to outside parties.
Fortunately for me, Gaz considers me to be one of his employees. I’m not. By no stretch of the imagination am I one of his employees, but I spend enough time in his office that I seem to know everything about all of his cases. Sometimes Gaz lets me help him. I watched a lot of Earth television shows growing up, so I know a lot about how arguing to win a legal case works.
Things are different on Sapphira than they were on Earth, long ago, but the basic premise is the same: someone gets in trouble and their lawyer saves their ass.
Simple.
Only, there’s nothing simple about Trevor’s case.
“What happened?” I groan. I know right away that Gaz is going to need something strong to deal with today. He won’t want to leave the office, but I’ll have to drag him to Galaxy and make him have some petal juice or something to deal with the stress.
“Apparently, the Orchidian police arrived today with new evidence against him. Trevor isn’t just being accused of crimes on the Hidden Planet. Now they want to nail him for petty theft on Orchid, too.”
“This guy is crazy,” I groan. When Gaz agreed to represent Trevor, he was doing it as a favor to Trevor’s mother. Mrs. Waters is one of the nicest old women in the city of Diamond, but she’s also naïve. She’s convinced her son isn’t guilty of any of the charges, and at first, Gaz believed both her and Trevor.
It’s been weeks, though, and the evidence against him is mounting.
“How did Gaz take it?” I lower my voice. Most people know Gaz isn’t Sapphiran, but few realize he himself is from Orchid. Orchidians are known for being incredibly smart, incredibly brave, and incredibly good at hearing.
If the police from his home planet are here, chances are that Gaz knows some of the officers. He may have had to deal with some of them on a personal level, and those interactions could have brought up painful memories.
I don’t know how much Izzie knows about Gaz’s past because she’s so discreet. If she realizes how painful Orchidian interactions are for him, she won’t say a word. Then again, she has worked with him daily for years. Chances are that she knows exactly how much this is affecting him.
“Go to him,” Izzie says quietly. She turns back to her computer. “I’ve cleared his schedule for the rest of the day.”
I nod and head back to his office. The hand scanner that controls the door registers my palm print. It’s one of the benefits of being best friends with the guy who runs the joint. Gaz has given me full access to the entire building, which is really, really nice.
It’s also something I don’t deserve.
Gaz defended my brother when Quinn needed him the most. He stood by our sides when the odds were stacked against us. He was able to get the charges against my brother dropped and help put away the man who kidnapped and hurt me.
Gaz is incredible, but I am broken.
Still, I can’t help but reaching out for him when I know he’s hurting or in pain. In this case, I know his stress is probably going to get the best of him. Gaz is an incredible lawyer, but he’s still just one man. He’s still a solo guy on a mission to make the universe a better place.
He can’t do this alone.
I move quietly down the silent hallway, passing the conference room and a couple of empty offices. The building is big enough to house several lawyers and although Gaz prefers to work alone, he definitely has the space and the ability to expand his practice if he wants to.
When I reach the door to his office, I hesitate and take a deep breath. I’m not really sure what I’m walking into, but I know that I want to be here for Gaz. Finally, I press my hand to the sensor and his door slides open.
“I wondered when you’d come,” he says. His back is to me. He’s staring out the window at the lake. It’s shining and shimmering in the sunlight, but all I see is Gaz.
“You were waiting for me?”
“You always come when I need you most, Hayden.” He turns then, and I see the stress on his face, the anxiousness there. I can’t help myself as I run across the office and throw myself into his arms.
“Everything is going to be okay,” I tell him, even though I don’t really know that at all. What if he loses this case? It’s a big one, and with the arrival of officials from Orchid, it just got even bigger. Interplanetary crimes aren’t uncommon, but it’s different on Sapphira.
Our world is called The Hidden Planet for a reason. For years we didn’t communicate with the outside world. We didn’t want any part of interplanetary immigration. We were fine being our own, quiet world. We didn’t need anyone else.
Things are different now, but the attitude remains. Sapphirans often feel we are the center of the universe. We often think the rest of the planets should bow down to us, that we’re the most important ones in existence. This attitude might be wrong, but it’s pervasive on Sapphira, and it will influence the outcome of Gaz’s case.
“You can’t promise me that, Hayden. You don’t actually know that.”
I lean against him, resting my head against his chest.
“I know,” I whisper.
“I appreciate the sentiment, though.”
“Of course.”
I hug him for a long time, long past the appropriate platonic length of a hug, and then I let go.
“You wanna get out of here?” I ask him. “Galaxy is open.”
“Let’s go,” he grabs his jacket. “I could use a drink.”