I woke up Sunday morning with a hangover. I hadn’t told my friends about the kiss. I had been too unsure how I felt about it when I got back to the table, I didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, I just sat quietly, allowing them to go back and forth, replaying the greatest hits from the various fact patterns they had encountered in their exams. In some ways, the replays were worse than the exams themselves. It gave you the opportunity to figure out exactly how you screwed up. I preferred just letting it go and waiting until my grades came in. I wondered how it would feel when I was actually practicing, when my mistakes didn’t just affect my grade, they affected someone else’s life. Would I be able to just let it roll off my back? Or would it stay with me, haunting me for weeks and months? I wasn’t sure what I would prefer.

I thought back to what Asher had said in his office. About how you didn’t get rich defending innocent people. He seemed not to care about how his clients’ lives were affected as long as he got paid. I didn’t want to be like that.

In the bright light of morning, I was shocked that I had let him kiss me. I was shocked that I had enjoyed it. But maybe he was different than how he had appeared when we first met. Maybe I had seen a glimpse of the real Asher in that hallway. A lot of lawyers had a kind of bravura, a tough persona that helped them to keep themselves protected in the cut and thrust of practice. You couldn’t let the angry, sometimes vicious, arguments get to you personally. So, sometimes lawyers created a kind of hard shell to protect themselves. Maybe I saw Asher’s shell at the office. The real him was the one who kissed me.

I guess I would be finding out on Monday.

Monday morning broke with a haze of low clouds. The technical term for it was the marine layer, a cover of clouds that came in from the cold Pacific Ocean most mornings in the early summer. Most people just referred to it as the June Gloom, even if it did start in May. It was kind of nice, it kept the days from getting too hot and it always burned off by noon.

I woke up an hour before I needed to. I rolled about in bed for a few minutes until it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep. I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. I was nervous for my first day, but that nervousness hadn’t translated to energy, so I was stuck in a combination of anxiety and sluggishness. It wasn’t a comfortable place to be. Coffee would help. While it was brewing, I grabbed a bagel, popped it in the toaster, and took some raspberries out of the fridge. Breakfast ready, I sat down at the table and read the news on my phone.

Apparently, an arrest had been made in the murder of Art Crane, the director. The crime had been all over the news in recent weeks. Crane was big-time back in the early 2000s, but hadn’t done much in the past few years. He had been in the middle of production for a new project that was supposed to be his come-back when he was found dead in his office, shot twice in the chest. The person who had been charged with the murder was his assistant, Amber Warner, a young woman who had worked for him for two years. The rumor was that she had been his lover as well. But Crane was said to be reconciling with his wife and the police were saying that she had killed him out of jealousy. I had my doubts.

I wasted time for a while, since I didn’t have to be at the office until nine. But as often happens, when you have too much time, you end up being late anyway. By the time I got into my car, I had just enough time to make it up Flower to the Citigroup Center. I gave my name to the security guard and got a security badge. It wasn’t a temporary badge, either; it had my picture on it and everything. I clipped it onto my jacket and walked to the bank of elevators.

Stepping out of the elevator on the fortieth floor, I felt a confidence, a spring in my step that I hadn’t expected. Maybe it was having been to the office before, maybe it was the calmness that comes with the end of expectation and anticipation, maybe it was the fact that Asher had kissed me the other night. Even if he was going to be my boss for the summer, I wasn’t going to feel intimidated. He had exposed himself, put himself out there. I felt like I had the upper hand.

I said good morning to the Cosmo cover behind the reception desk and walked through the glass doors and down the hallway to Asher’s office. The floor was already buzzing with activity. Rows of cubicles in the center housed paralegals and assistants while the associates had rooms ringing the building, the more senior the attorney, the more attractive the view.

After a few moments, I realized that I had forgotten the way to Asher’s office. It didn’t help that everything looked the same, identical furniture, partitions, nothing to serve as a guide. I nearly completed a lap around the building when I remembered that the view from his office faced straight west. I looked out the nearest window and saw the Staples Center down the street. I turned right and kept walking until I reached the corner and walked up the west side of the building. I finally recognized where I was. But my little detour meant that I was a couple of minutes late.

Asher was standing when I walked in, leaning over a pile of papers spread out over his desk. Another person was in the office as well, his paralegal, Rebecca. She was leaning over the table as well. Her blouse was unbuttoned, not so much as to be obviously inappropriate, but certainly enough to allow anyone who was interested a fine view of her large, rounded breasts. They didn’t look fake at first glance, but given her narrow waist and toned, muscular legs, I had to imagine that they were. I didn’t think anyone was lucky enough to gain weight in their breasts without putting it on elsewhere as well. Me, if I put on any extra pounds, they went first to my hips. Not to my butt, that wouldn’t be so bad, but right on the sides of my thighs. So, I tried to stay thin all over, which meant my own chest wouldn’t come close to spilling out the way Rebecca’s threatened to with every breath.

They were speaking quietly, so I couldn’t make out any of the words. Not wanting to interrupt, I just stood by the door, waiting for them to finish.

Without raising his head or looking in my direction, Asher raised his voice and spoke to me.

“You are late. I said to be here at nine.”

My presence having been acknowledged, I took a few steps forward. My feet were a little unsteady. His tone was cold, unexpectedly so.

“I’m sorry, it took me a few minutes to find your office again.”

He had turned back to Rebecca, speaking low enough that I couldn’t hear clearly. But, apparently, it was quite funny, because the paralegal laughed musically, then straightened up, the buttons on her blouse straining to contain her. She smiled at me as she left the room.