Gaz
Fucking Trevor Waters.
I don’t really care when my clients are criminals. It’s not my job to care if they’re good guys or bad guys. What I do care about is the fact that withholding information and blatantly lying to me doesn’t seem to bother them. That is something I don’t want to deal with.
And this means I’m going to be stepping away from the case. I refuse to represent someone who won’t tell me the truth about their crimes and the evidence against them. I’m a damn good lawyer, and my time is precious to me. I don’t have any interest in wasting time on someone who can’t be bothered to keep me in the loop.
It makes all of us look stupid, unorganized, and ill-informed. My reputation is important to me, and Trevor is trashing it.
Well, fuck him.
Hayden arriving pulls me out of my pity-party and gives me something else to focus on: her. She’s too damn sweet for me. When she wraps her arms around me and pulls me close, I can’t help but relaxing. I don’t know how she does it. Everything about her is so fucking perfect, and she’s the only one who seems to be able to free me from my own mind.
Agreeing to go to Galaxy with Hayden isn’t a hard choice. We’ve been plenty of times before, but today we’re going because the stress of the world is just a little too much to bear right now. Even Hayden doesn’t know the entire reason I’m so shaken up by the arrival of the Orchidian police, but I’m sure after a couple of glasses of petal juice, I’m going to be pouring my royal heart out to her.
We head out of the office.
“Izzie,” I say to my receptionist. “Can you please cancel my afternoon appointments?”
“Already done, sir,” she says with a smile. She winks at Hayden, and I wonder if the two of them collaborated on this. “And if you don’t mind,” she stands, picking up her leather jacket. “I’m going to take the rest of the afternoon off with pay.”
“Please do.” I wouldn’t be where I am without Izzie. Seriously. That woman takes care of every aspect of my life. Without her, my entire business would fall apart. Yeah, I’m the one arguing in court, but Izzie is the one who makes that possible.
Hayden and I head out of the building and I pull my remote from my pocket. After inputting my ID number, my hovercar whirls around the side of the building from the parking area.
“Talk about front door service,” Hayden slides in the passenger side. I walk around and get in my side of the vehicle. “Is this a new feature?”
“Yeah. Programmed it myself.” Until recently, we actually had to walk to the parking area and start the hovercar. Now it comes directly to the front of the building.
“You’re get lazy in your old age,” Hayden points out.
“I just like to simplify my life as much as possible.”
“It’s really not a long walk, you know. How much time did you spend getting the programming right? Probably more than it would have taken you to just walk over, get in your hovercar, and start the damn thing.”
“It’s the principle of the thing,” I wink at Hayden, and she rolls her eyes.
“You’re insufferable,” she says.
“And you’re adorable.”
She stiffens, and I realize maybe I’ve taken our bantering a little too far. I love Hayden. I’m super, completely, totally in love with her, but I also know that she’s not interested in me that way. She’s the little sister of two of my best friends. I would do anything for Quinn and Ezra. Anything. And I would definitely, totally, completely do anything for Hayden.
All she has to do is ask.
Still, she hasn’t really dated anyone since she was kidnapped. Why would she? It’s been years, but as long as I’ve known her, Hayden has been single. If it wasn’t for Quinn drinking too much one night and pouring out his sorry heart, I probably would never even have known about what happened to her.
And it was my pleasure to get rid of the fucker who hurt her.
Although, to be honest, I would have rather choked the bastard to death than know he’s been sent to some prison planet. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, and Hayden was so relieved when she found out he was gone.
She became a different person: calmer, more relaxed. It was only once Hector was locked away that I saw her finally start to come out of her shell, even just a little bit.
I don’t say anything, but neither does Hayden. Instead, my comment hangs in the air, awkwardly, and with a sigh, I start to drive. I know the way to Galaxy and although my car can drive itself with just a simple word, I want the control of doing it myself tonight.
“You don’t want to walk to your car, but you want to drive?” She finally asks, looking at me.
“You know me, Hayden.”
“Yeah,” she says. “And I know it was a hard day. You know,” she sighs. “When I feel out of control in one area of my life, I overcompensate in other areas.”
“Explain.” I think I know what she means, but Hayden doesn’t open up often. I want to hear her talk to me. Her voice calms me, relaxes me, and reminds me that I’m not just a lawyer. I’m also a male. I’m an Orchidian who needs to feel grounded, just as she does.
“You know what happened to me, Gaz,” her voice is quiet. Hayden and I have never talked about her torturer, but it would be impossible for me to have properly defended her brother when he stole the bastard’s ship if Quinn and Ezra hadn’t filled me in.
“I know.”
“I think you can imagine that after something like that, control would become very important.”
“Fuck that guy,” I growl. Even though the kidnapping happened before I knew Hayden and her brothers, I hate knowing that someone was able to take this precious girl and torture her, hurt her.
Hayden surprises me by placing her hand on mine.
“I’m okay, Gaz,” she whispers. “But sometimes, if I think about it too much, I begin to feel trapped again, so I try not to think about it, and I try to find other ways to experience control in my life.”
“That’s why you don’t date,” I say the words before I even consider their ramifications, but Hayden doesn’t freak out or get upset.
“That’s why I don’t date,” she confirms. “A lot can happen when you fall in love, Gaz. Sometimes it’s easier not to let that happen. I was broken once. I don’t know if I could go through that again.”
“I would never break you, Hayden,” I whisper, but the catch of her breath lets me know that she heard me: loud and clear.
*
As far as bars go, Galaxy is an incredible one. It’s not one of the those, dingy places with a disreputable crowd. No, Galaxy is the biggest bar in Diamond and one of the most expensive. Fortunately for me, money isn’t an issue. While Hayden doesn’t make nearly as much as me, she’s thrifty and good with her money, and she enjoys a night out at Galaxy just as much as I do.
We head to a quiet table at the back of the bar. As soon as we sit, Hayden punches our orders into the screen on the wall beside the table. Then she swipes it away.
“What’s your pleasure?” She asks.
“Oceans,” I tell her, and she presses another button. Images of calm oceans from different planets appear on the wall where the menu was previously displayed.
“You know, not all bars have these features.”
“I’m well aware. Ezra and Quinn both like the quainter ones, the ones that are more Earth-ish.”
It’s only a second later when our robotic server appears and sets our drinks down in front of us before vanishing to deliver drinks to another table.
“To us,” Hayden says.
“To us,” I hold up my drink, and I take a sip. Hayden looks around as we drink. It’s still early in the afternoon, which means the bar should be empty, but it’s not. It’s filled with people from every planet imaginable, which is strange for a place like Sapphira. I would have expected nearly everyone in the bar to be blue, but there are a multitude of planets represented here. At a glance, I see people from Mars, Mirroean, and even Dreagle.
“I like the diversity here,” Hayden comments.
“It’s unlike anywhere else on Sapphira, for sure.”
“We’ve come a long way as a planet, but it would be nice to see more people from different places. Growing up, learning about what exists outside of the Hidden Planet was hard.”
“I can imagine,” I tell her, but that’s all I can do: imagine. I grew up on Orchid with private tutors from different planets whose sole purpose was to teach me about their culture. Learning about other places was never difficult for me, and it’s why Sapphira was the perfect choice when I chose to leave Orchid.
Sapphira is a place not many people choose to travel to because it’s still so far apart from the rest of the planets. Sapphirans, even after all of this time, still like to keep to themselves.
That’s just fine with me.
When I came here, it was to study law and then open my own practice. I wanted to help people in a practical way. What I didn’t want was to be forced to travel, especially back to Orchid.
“So, about this whole Trevor thing,” she says. Hayden has already finished half of her drink.
“I’m dropping him,” I interrupt her before she can even start talking.
“What?”
“I’m dropping him as a client, effective immediately. I’ll notify him tomorrow.”
“But why?” She asks, looking around the bar. No one is paying us any attention, though. She has nothing to worry about. “Even with this new evidence, Gaz, you’re good. You’re the best. You can win this.”
“I know,” I tell her. “But I don’t want to.”
“What aren’t you telling me?” She narrows her eyes at me. “Does this have something to do with the Orchidians coming to Sapphira?”
Now it’s my turn to look around.
“Don’t worry. No one knows your secret.” She jerks her head toward my shoes. “I don’t even think Izzie realizes which planet you’re really from. You want to talk about that today?”
Leave it to Hayden to uncover all of the things I want to keep hidden. Despite our friendship, that’s another thing we’ve never talked about: why I feel it necessary to hide my origins.
“Not particularly.”
“Good,” Hayden says. She turns to the screen beside us and orders another round of drinks. Then she motions to me. “This round’s on you.”
I press my thumb to the sensor on the wall and it registers my fingerprint and payment information I set up the last time we visited this bar. It makes sliding in and out of this place unnoticed very simple and easy, and it also means I don’t have to deal with sorting through cash, although on Sapphira, almost no one uses cash anymore.
The drinks arrive almost instantly and Hayden slams her drink down again.
“Maybe you’re the one who had the bad day,” I eye her curiously, but she shakes her head.
“I’m fine,” she says, but she’s lying to me, and I don’t know why.