That was my last hearing of the morning and I went over to get my files together. When his case was done, Braden came over and leaned against the defense table. I looked up at him and sighed. I was still totally in lust with him. I just happened to be in love with him now, too. Before I could say anything, though, I saw Jack Davis, one of the senior defenders from my office, approaching me.

“Gabrielle, I’ve got some news on that West Six Ten thing,” Jack began. “Turns out your guy’s a shooter.” This was the case that Mark had offered to take for me. The West Six Ten was a West Philly street gang and it sounded like the young guy I had been assigned wasn’t as uninvolved as they originally thought.

“They’re charging him with homicide? So, are you here to tell me that the office is taking the case away from me and transferring it upstairs?”

“That’s just it. No word yet on if or when they’re going to add the homicide charges. It’s your case until they do, unless you want somebody else to take him.”

“I’ll only have him for the preliminary hearing. If he’s really a shooter they’ll charge him and then our office will transfer it up to you homicide guys anyway.”

“Okay, I just wanted you to be aware.”

“Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it.” Jack patted me on the arm and left. I knew immediately that Braden was upset. Very upset.

“Gabrielle, let someone else take it,” he said immediately and he sounded deadly serious and very tense. He started pacing and raking his fingers through his hair and this time I knew it didn’t have anything to do with sexual tension.

“Braden, I’ll only have him for the preliminary. I’ve represented lots of shooters in prelims before. I’m a criminal defense attorney. That’s what I do – defend criminals.”

“Not gang members charged with homicide.” He paused in his effort to wear a hole in the carpet long enough to give me a look announcing that he was very serious about this.

“He’s not charged with homicide,” I reminded him carefully. I knew that I had to tread lightly here because we were close to having this escalate.

“Not yet!” Now, Braden sounded angry. This was it. The moment of truth. Did I dig in and tell him that I would make my own decisions when it came to my career choices, or did I try to understand where he was coming from and figure out if I could honor his request? Suddenly, it was like time slowed down and I saw the two paths ahead that I could take. I had a decision to make and after a few moments of thoughtful analysis and searching my feelings, I made it.

This was how the thoughtful analysis part went. If I gave up the gang case, Braden would be relieved and if he were less stressed out, he would be more reasonable about the other cases I handled. It wouldn’t have any impact on my career to give it up and the case didn’t have any special significance to me. Braden wasn’t doing this to try to control me or because he didn’t respect me. His fears weren’t totally unrealistic, even if amazingly few public defenders were actually lost, or even injured, in the line of duty. Mark had offered to take it and I would take whatever case he wanted to give me in return, so it wasn’t like I was unloading it on someone.

And this was how the searching my feelings part went. I don’t want to fight! Especially not over something stupid!

“Okay,” I said, committing to my choice. “If it means that much to you, I’ll trade cases with someone else. I can see if Mark will still take it and I’ll take one of his really lousy, but nevertheless, nonviolent cases.”

Braden looked stunned. I think he had been prepared for this to turn into a battle. I saw all kinds of emotions cross his face but the strongest ones appeared to be relief and love. I knew immediately that I had made the right decision.

“You would do that for me?” He had stopped pacing.

“Yes, if it means that much to you. It’s just one case. We are going to have to come up with some plan, though, because there will be others, and for the record, I would rather you didn’t handle them either; so we had better think of something fast.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “And thank you. I promise that I’ll try to come up with a plan.” Phew. Crisis avoided. Amazing what a little discussion and compromise could accomplish.

“What’s the plan for tonight?” I leaned against the defense table and looked up at my beautiful, and very happy looking fiancé.

“Some guys from my office invited me out to O’Malley’s with them for beers after work. I haven’t hung with them in a while and I think that I’d like to go.” He walked over to me and pushed a strand of hair behind my ear.

“They’re not going out to pick up women, are they?” I teased, giving him a raised eyebrow.

“No,” he assured me with a smile. “That’s Adam and Mark and they usually go out later and somewhere besides O’Malley’s. Most of these guys are happily married.”

“Well, okay then.” I smiled. “As long as you promise to say nice things about me. I’ll pick up Bruno and go back to my place and then Lily and Jess and I can get ready and have some fun of our own together. Remind Adam to be nice to Lily, by the way.”

“I’ll do my best but I can’t make any promises.”

“Don’t forget that we’re also there tonight to see if someone was trying to send us a message with that napkin.”

“Yeah okay, Nancy Drew. I’m just happy that I get to be included in The Mystery of Club 51. I would hate to think of what I might walk in on this time.” He leaned down to kiss me goodbye and promised to call me later.

As I walked back to my office, I told myself that this would be exciting. Not that I was a big fan of clubs but it really had been a while since I had gone out with a bunch of friends. Speaking of friends, Jess would get to put on a sexy dress and some high heels with Cam there to check her out. That should give him a nice little nudge. And there was always the possibility that someone had left the napkin on purpose, and they would try to contact us there. Maybe we could figure out who had sent me those notes, and whether or not someone was really following me.

Best of all, though, I was going on a date with Braden! Thinking about how good he looked on the last date almost made my mouth water. All that sexy in one package. It almost wasn’t fair. It didn’t matter that he had ridden me like Secretariat in the jury room the day before, I was going to put on my sexy clothes and get my boyfriend’s engine revved. He had seen me in an elegant gown but he had never seen me in a little black dress and six inch heels.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lily Adler and I had been friends since we attended Penn Law together. She had gone to law school mostly to please her family. It was her dream to be an author, and presently she worked as a law librarian rather than as an attorney because it gave her more time and freedom to write. She and Jess had hit it off immediately when I introduced them. The three of us were close, although lately Lily had been distracted by her career as an author and I had been distracted by Braden.

She came over to our place at eight and she looked great in a red dress that flattered her curvy figure and her dark brown hair and eyes. The three of us chatted and managed to polish off a bottle of wine while Jess and I got dressed. I really was starting to get excited! We danced around Jess’s room to 80s music which we all liked, and in between choruses of Don’t You Want Me Baby, I filled Lily in on the details of everything that had happened to me in the past month. Bruno, not being one to discriminate when it came to petting, made his rounds between the three of us, busting all of his most adorable Chihuahua moves.

“So Braden’s cousin was that guy from college?” Lily asked. She had heard the most basic details one drunken night back in law school. “But you’re friends again now. So, I guess you forgave him?” She took another sip of wine. We had just opened bottle number two.

“He says that he really did have feelings for me, but he was going through a hard time and he was feeling really down on himself,” I said, standing with my back to Jess’s mirror and nearly dislocating a few vertebra attempting to examine how my ass looked in the dress. “I took him by surprise when I told him that it had been my first time and it made him feel even worse. Like he had taken advantage of me or something.”

“So I guess he didn’t realize that he was entering uncharted territory at the moment of truth, huh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows and scratching Bruno’s belly. He had rolled over on his back and turned his head to plead with her silently with those big brown eyes. He was a little doggie flirt.

“I guess not. It wasn’t a big deal for me though,” I said fluffing up the waves in my hair. “When it wasn’t going in very easily, he just had to push a little harder and that worked! He was in! It hardly hurt at all even though Yale was almost as well endowed as Harvard and Harvard is really well endowed, let me tell you! I swear that thing’s got to be almost ten inches.”

“Oh my God, honey!” Jess laughed, rolling her eyes at me.

“I guess that it’s safe to assume that Braden went to Harvard?” Lily asked Jess with a surprised sounding laugh. I had a feeling that I might have been a bit overly candid again.

“Uh oh. Was that too much information? I’m sorry. I guess I shouldn’t be talking about the size of my boyfriend’s endowment, or Cameron’s endowment for that matter either, since he’s probably Jess’s future boyfriend.”

“It’s okay, honey. I asked you about that myself,” Jess reminded me. “I was more amused by how you put things.” She was just finishing up her makeup and she looked amazing. Her long auburn hair was gleaming and her skin looked like ivory. She was also wearing a killer dress in a deep green that was perfect for her. Cam would pass out when he saw her. Bruno was duly impressed. He decided that it was her turn to love him and so hopped down and went over to sit at her feet adoringly. He was more than a flirt. He was a little doggie player. She bent down and picked him up to pet him and he looked at her with pure bliss.

“Why is he probably Jess’s future boyfriend?” Lily asked, sounding very curious as she paged through a copy of Vogue.

“Because they make a great couple,” I explained. “You should see them together. They’re always laughing. And he said he thought she was very attractive and that he was thinking about exploring it more.” Jess blushed but she looked very happy.

“And do you want to be explored?” Lily asked Jess with a suggestive smile.

“Well, he’s really cute and smart, and sexy,” she said, blushing even more. “And I do have fun with him. So yeah, I would like to be explored, but there’s no rush. I want him to work through anything he has to work through with Braden being Gab’s boyfriend and me being her friend first. Then I’ll know that he’s ready to be involved, because I’m not interested in a one-nighter with a meal plan either.” She threw me a smile.

“I want to be as well-grounded as Jess when I grow up,” I said and poured myself another glass of wine.

“Slow down there, you lush,” Jess chided. “You’re not drinkin’ for the gold.”

“I hardly ever drink!” I pointed out and for some reason at the moment that argument seemed to make sense to me. Probably because I was drinking. I took another sip of wine.

“Uh oh, I see some drunk dancing on the horizon!” Lily teased.

“For an uncoordinated person I’m a very good drunk dancer. In fact, I think I dance better drunk,” I answered thoughtfully, wondering why that was.

“I hope so, if you’re planning to try to dance in those Loubies, honey. Maybe we had better bring a first-aid kit along with us,” Jess said, looking worried.

“Very funny. So, tell us about your latest novel!” I said to Lily, changing the subject.

“I assume you mean my latest thriller,” she teased. Lily wrote legal thrillers but she also wrote erotic romance under a pen name. Jess and I had definitely become addicted to her naughty books and we weren’t the only ones. She was developing quite a little following.

“You know what we want, honey!” Jess piped up. “Spill it! What kind of smut are you writing now and how soon can we buy it?” Lily sketched out the details for us and we made a show of fanning ourselves and giggling with wine-fueled, dirty-minded delight. Speaking of dirty-minded delight, Braden called just before nine. I grabbed my phone and headed into my own room to talk to him.

“Hey there, sexy guy,” I answered. Just hearing his voice made me all fluttery and I couldn’t help the big goofy grin that I saw gazing back at me from my vanity mirror.

“Uh oh, I think someone’s been drinkin’.” He laughed.

“You could tell from one sentence?” I asked, sort of surprised.

“Well, call me conceited, but I’m assuming that you meant to call me a ‘sexy’ guy not ‘sudsy’ guy, although I did just take a shower and I have had a few beers myself, I must confess.”

“Uh oh, you’ve been hanging around with me too long. You’re starting to tell corny jokes. So how was hanging out with the prosecutor types?”

“It was fun. I was catching up with everybody and letting them know where I’ve been. They were joking around saying they were going to put my picture on a milk carton and file a missing person’s report on me. Don’t worry though. I said lots of nice things about you.”

“Did you tell them that I’m a brilliant and incredibly gifted attorney and that you worship the ground that I walk on?” I plopped down on my bed and let his deep rich voice wash over me.