The Spark

Excellent—a line of assholes. I nodded. “Thanks for the info.”

My oldest friend and I walked around the block a few more times. He caught me up on the neighborhood. Back in the day, I couldn’t wait to get out of this place, yet there was something comforting about being back. Maybe it was the trust I had in some of my old buddies, and they had in me. Years could pass, but we’d been through too much shit together for that bond to ever break.

When we rounded our way back to Dario’s porch for the fourth time, we stopped. “Have you heard from Linda?” he asked.

My jaw tensed at the mention of my mother. “Not in a while. She must’ve found some other sucker to give her money.”

Dario nodded. “I hear you. Go

“Nah. Another time. I gotta be back at the office at the crack of dawn.”

We shook, and my friend punched me lightly on my arm. “Don’t take three years before you stop by again.”

“I won’t. Take care, Dario, and tell your mom I said hello.”

***

The next day I put a call in to the ADA assigned to Storm’s case. I learned he was out for the rest of the week, so it would be a while before I’d be able to talk to him and have an excuse to call Autumn. Yet I kept eyeing her business card on my desk. Right before I headed out to lunch, I took the card and tossed it into my drawer. Maybe removing her name from plain sight would help me stop thinking about her so much.

I met Trent and Juliette in a conference room to have lunch. We’d ordered in Chinese from the place down the block.

“So, I have gossip,” Juliette said as we dug in.

“If you’re going to force us to listen to dumb stories again, this time they’d better be about actual people,” I said, opening my food carton.

Last time we’d had lunch, Juliette had told us some elaborate story about a woman dating a dozen guys. I’d been getting into it until I realized the people she was talking about weren’t actual friends of hers. She’d been reciting crap from the last few episodes of The Bachelor.

“Oh, this is about actual people. Though, I know you secretly want to know what happened to Kayla when she took Jeff home for her hometown visit and had to tell him she has a kid. But I’ll save that for after.”

“Gee, thanks,” I grumbled.

“Be nice, or I won’t tell you that I ran into my friend Trina earlier today in the ladies’ room.”

“Which one is Trina again?” Trent asked.

Juliette gri

Now that got my attention. “What did she have to say?”

“I asked her how her grumpy boss was doing. She said he’d been more tolerable lately.”

My fork froze with a shrimp halfway to my mouth. “I don’t want to know what’s making him more tolerable.”

She scrunched up her face. “Ewww. I didn’t go into that kind of detail. But she said he’s been seeing someone new. I thought you might want to know what the deal is between them.”

“The deal between who?” Trent asked.

I forgot I hadn’t yet told him about my run-in with Autumn. “I’ll catch you up in a minute,” I said. I lifted my chin to Juliette. “Go on.”

“Well, they’ve only been dating about a month and a half, and they only see each other once a week, that she knows of. Not surprisingly, The Dick makes his assistant make his di

Trent’s forehead wrinkled. “Autumn? The woman who ghosted you?”

I filled him in on what had transpired since the call I’d gotten when we were out to di

“Shit. So what are you going to do?”

“Considering I need Dickson’s vote?” I shrugged. “Nothing.”

Trent and Juliette looked at each other. Some unspoken communication passed between them, and they both cracked up.

“What the hell is so fu

“You,” Juliette snorted. “You say it as if you actually believe it.”

“Believe what?”

“That you can control going after something you want.”