Laws of Attraction by Sarah Title (12)

Chapter Eleven

It had been a pretty good week. Nobody sent her any last-minute urgent research requests, three of her dogs got adopted, and Foster sent her a picture of Starr and said he hoped she’d recovered from the dinner-that-shall-not-be-named. She probably owed him an apology, but because they were more or less normal and professional around each other, she just kept her head down. She didn’t need to see him any more than was absolutely necessary. Not because she was falling for him, but because every time she talked to him, he seemed to do something that annoyed her. Like show up and try to charm her parents into being nice to her.

The nerve.

Then, over the weekend, she hadn’t run into him at the shelter, which wasn’t disappointing at all. It was a relief. The week before, she’d seemed to run into him everywhere she went, so this was a nice change of pace.

Because she didn’t care about seeing him. Also, because no Foster at the shelter meant he hadn’t had some kind of breakdown and returned Starr. In fact, Maddie said Foster was embarrassingly in love with the dog, even though he denied it. He’d bought her sweaters. Plural.

So when she happened to be on his floor to deliver some misdirected mail, she just poked her head in to ask how Starr was doing. That was it. God, like there was another reason she would talk to him?

He was staring at his computer. He wasn’t exactly pulling his hair out, but he was definitely using lots of force to push it out of its normal, neat position.

She shouldn’t bother him.

But then he looked up at the doorway.

And smiled at her.

Well, it would be rude to walk away now.

“Hi,” she said. “I was just . . . passing through.” Like a stalker. To be fair, she was stalking the dog.

“Come on in. Sit down.” He stood up and walked around the desk and pulled out a chair for her. His hair was still sticking up. Without thinking, she reached up and brushed it down.

“Oh! Sorry. You’re, uh . . . it’s better now.”

He frantically flattened out the rest of his hair. “I was concentrating. Sometimes I . . . you know.”

Why were they acting like two kids who’d never spoken to someone of the opposite sex before?

“So . . . how’ve you been?” he asked.

“Fine, good.”

“Convincing.”

“No, I’m fine. And . . . Sorry about last weekend. After the dinner with my family, I mean.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“Okay, thanks. I appreciate that.”

“Unless you want to reconsider your opinion that I’m not good with parents. For the record, I am.”

“Despite all evidence to the contrary?”

“Hey, you’re the one who insists your parents aren’t normal.”

“Don’t make me laugh,” she said, but too late. She was laughing.

He didn’t say anything for a minute, just watched her. She was starting to worry that there was something on her face when he said, “Your family is terrible.”

“Tell me about it.”

“They don’t deserve you.”

And now she was sure there was something on her face because it felt all hot and weird.

She cleared her throat. “So that’s why I want a normal life. Because for me, that’s not normal.”

“No kidding.”

“Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about my family. I came here to talk about your dog.”

“Oh! She got a haircut!” He took out his phone and started scrolling through the dozens of pictures he’d taken of . . . well, she assumed it was Starr. Starr looked a little . . . naked. Except for in the pictures where she was wearing a sweater.

“You’re really smitten with that dog, aren’t you?”

“What? No. She just needed to be taken care of, that’s all. It was a favor to Madison. And to you.”

“Really?”

“Really. So you owe me one.”

“Oh really. And what do I owe you?”

He tapped his finger against his chin and made a maniacal face. Still cute, though. “I’m going to hold on to that marker for a bit.”

There it was again. That thing on her face making her feel all hot.

“Well, um. I should let you get back to work.”

“Sure. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Thanks for showing me pictures of your dog.”

“Foster dog.”

“Foster’s dog.”

“Ha ha.”

She turned and was almost out the door when he called after her: “Normal’s overrated.”

Ha. What did he know? He wasn’t normal at all.

* * *

The first thing Foster wondered was whether he could bring Starr to the office because he was going to be working such late hours. But Claire—who was an intern, not a clerk—was allergic to everything, so that probably wouldn’t work.

The second thing he thought was that he had a long way to go to get this team up to speed if they were going to start giving evidence later that month.

The third thing was whether he could get a specific librarian assigned to their case.

Better focus on thing two. Especially because they had just finished a conference call with Goliath.

Goliath was based right outside of Denver. He didn’t know why his folks couldn’t go across town to meet with them, or the team couldn’t come here and meet in one of P&G’s conference rooms, but that was the way they wanted it and they were the client. The junior associates had a pool going about the reason they wouldn’t meet in person. So far his favorite was that Goliath was just a cover for a superhero conglomerate and their identities couldn’t be compromised. His least favorite was that they were nudists.

Whatever it was, they weren’t messing around. Which was good; he didn’t waste his time on clients who messed around. But that also meant his team had to stop thinking about superheroes and start thinking about document review.

Boxes and boxes of document review.

“OK, let’s divide this up.” He pointed at the junior associate who thought the people at Goliath were nudists. “We’ve got a long night ahead of us. Order us some food.” He flipped through what he thought was the newest box. “Claire, is this stuff we just got from the library?”

Claire looked a little nervous. “About that . . .”

Just when she was starting to like him.

Becky watched as the P&G email program ate the last three messages he’d sent. Like she hadn’t already opened them and seen him being a total brat. Ha.

Ha ha ha.

She watched her screen for another minute. Then another.

Not because she was waiting for him to write back. No, he’d already done that. And recalled them. So . . . technically, she’d had the last word.

“Mail call.”

She jumped out of her seat when Will stuck his head through her office door.

“Whoa, there, what’s up, jumpy?”

“Nothing! Nothing. Hi, Will.” She held out her hand for the mail and took her eyes off her computer screen.

* * *

Foster hoped that email recall worked. God, he was a brat. No, he was just tired. And sick of reading and delegating and being an adult.

He needed to stretch his legs and clear his mind.

“I’ll be back in a second,” he told his team, then went in search of something to help him focus.

He probably wasn’t going to find it in the library, but he ended up there anyway.

“Hi, Foster. Can I help you with something?” Anne, the head librarian, watched as he stood dumbly in front of the reference desk.

He didn’t actually have a reference question. And he didn’t have a problem with Anne. She just wasn’t the librarian he was looking for.

Not that he was really looking for her.

If he was really looking for her, he would have been annoyed to see her rush out of her office, her coat half on, and sneak down the backstairs to the exit.

Good thing he had nothing to say to Becky. Cuz she was gone.