Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 47606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47606 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 238(@200wpm)___ 190(@250wpm)___ 159(@300wpm)
But now a threat from Pax’s past is back, shattering that hard-won peace. With Pax in danger and needing protection, Colton immediately steps up and takes him in. Without distance, though, without retreating to separate homes, both men have to be honest about their feelings. The truth is, Pax was hurt, body and soul, and if he reaches for Colton and finds they can’t be more, he’ll lose everything. If Colton does the same and it doesn’t work, he’ll lose Pax, his best friend and the person who knows him better than anyone. With both of them terrified of the what-ifs, it might be too hard to have faith and jump. If only they could both be brave
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ONE
Icould have made an excuse not to go to the dinner, but I was trying to be more engaged with the people I worked with. Basic human connection was important, and my therapist had told me on more than one occasion how wonderful my progress was. I wanted to keep that going.
The issue was, when you sustained trauma as a child, and it progressed into early adulthood—this was how my therapist explained it to me—you could become trapped there, in that space and time, and would not be able to move beyond. Since it sounded believable, and I didn’t want to be closed off to making friends, I forced myself to do things that made me uncomfortable. And while I wasn’t always successful—some of it stemmed from being an introvert with a very small social battery—I had made the decision to go to dinner just as I had when I was invited in the past to go out and play pool, bowl, or simply have drinks. Not that I drank, but I could sit there and visit with everyone.
Saturday morning, everyone from our office had to meet downtown at one of the homeless shelters to perform our once-a-month community service. One of the three name partners at our law firm, David Burgess, had all the partners and associates at Mayhew, Burgess, and Somerset show up with blankets, coats, whatever we had collected, and help serve lunch as well as sit and create résumés for those who wanted one. We also coordinated clothing drop-offs and pickups for participating dry cleaners who helped with interview wear, made trips back and forth to the various establishments, and cleaned the shelter. Everything needed sterilizing, and because I didn’t mind, I was basically zipped up in a hazmat suit and put to work. Other people, when they had to unclog and clean toilets, scrub the showers, bleach the floors and walls, and remove hair and bugs, a lot of them hyperventilated or barfed. For me, having grown up in squalor, in similar conditions, all I wanted was to make it as pristine as I could in the amount of time given to me. I remembered what I dreamed of back when I was on the street, how sanitary I would have wanted it to be. I tried to make my past and my present intersect.
As always—which was nice after working all day—everyone was invited for dinner at Mr. Somerset’s condo in Streeterville, near the Gold Coast area of Chicago, where he had a lavish meal catered. His place wasn’t as big as the mansion that Henry Mayhew, our first name partner, called home, it wasn’t fifteen thousand square feet, but to me, it was still mammoth at ninety-four hundred. It was contemporary with that industrial feel in sparseness, open floor plan, and stainless-steel appliances. There were five bedrooms and a roof deck, walnut hardwood floors, Italian marble, quartz counters, fireplaces, floor-to-ceiling iron bookshelves, and a heated infinity pool and a Jacuzzi out back. The man was sixty-two, divorced, and was now a serial dater, and the women on his arm were socialites, heiresses, models, TV personalities—the glitterati of Chicago. Since our clients included some of the biggest names in sports and politics, lots of movers and shakers, everyone from moguls and architects to philanthropists and reporters, our law firm was one of the largest in the city.
A few years ago, the firm had struggled through a public-relations disaster as the last senior partner in charge of hiring had brought on Barrett Van Allen, who turned out to be aiding a psychopath in taking revenge on innocent people. It had taken a concentrated effort to redeem the firm’s image—they brought in a public-relations firm from New York, and their number-one suggestion was to bring on a new partner to change the culture. Because without a new face, a new name on the door, no one would notice what had been done. The new name partner, Winston Somerset, had always been a big believer in service to the community, and in that vein, created a pro bono department at the reenvisioned Mayhew, Burgess, and Somerset. No longer would they take on the occasional case for free—now it would be continual as there was an entire department whose sole purpose was helping those less fortunate who otherwise could not hope for justice.
Mr. Somerset had moved from San Francisco with his youngest daughter. I had no idea why she’d come with him instead of staying with her mother, and honestly, I didn’t care enough to find out. The only reason Mr. Somerset entered my circle of interest at all was that his money and the changes he made saved the firm where I worked. Most importantly, he was the one who lured my boss away from the state’s attorney’s office to Mayhew, Burgess, and Somerset.