Page 53 of Master Debater

I accidentally smiled at that one.

“Time to lay out all the cards. I’ll start with the logical and move the emotional. If Nate wins the Doxon case, obviously it’ll be huge for his firm. However, if he loses, he’ll lose a whole lot more than the case. Clients will jump ship, left and right. Just the cold, hard truth.

“As for the emotional reason…” Gil clenched his jaw and cleared his throat a couple of times before he could force out the rest. “Bobby had lung cancer. He didn’t want to toss that in as a bargaining chip to gain pity or inflict guilt, as he feels enough guilt as it is. He had a lung removed, and there was a stretch in there when it looked like…”

The ice I’d attempted to keep around my heart cracked, unable to withstand the heat of a grown man tearing up over nearly losing his brother.

After more throat clearing and scuffing his shoes on the cement step, Gil managed to rein in his emotions. “What it boils down to is that during those bleak, painful moments, he was sure he’d die with unresolved regrets. Now that he’s got a clean bill of health, he doesn’t want to live with them anymore either. He’ll be pissed as hell if he finds out that I spilled his secret, but what Nate does, Rylee will follow, and that girl’s lost enough, don’t you think?”

“Their entire family’s lost enough.”

“All the more reason for us to take some of the burden off them. Help us make amends, Willa.”

“You’re asking an awful lot of me, and it’s not like you’ve given me much of a choice after burdening me with the truth.”

“Funny thing about the truth,” Gil said. “Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t always set you free.”

Chapter 29

Willa

Lawyers, man.

That was it; that was the whole statement.

Actually, I had a lot more to say on the subject. They waved their pursuit of the truth in your face, along with how burdened they were by all those billable hours, as though they weren’t going to wreck your life with both.

The absolute gall.

When Nate told me he’d left the office early so we could have dinner together, my surge of excitement had been immediately eclipsed by everything Gil had dumped in my lap. Did I tell Nate about the run-in, spilling the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Did I hint and nudge? Or did I plead the fifth, wash my hands of the entire situation, and tell the grown men to deal with their own mess themselves?

Expelling a long breath to prepare myself for whatever scenario unfolded, I shifted the box of pizza onto one hip and entered Nate’s place. He’d told me he’d likely be on the phone or buried under a stack of files, so to just come on in.

“Honey, I’m ho—ere!” Without thinking, I’d almost said home, but I didn’t know if he’d find it funny. Over the past week and a half, I’d gone from feeling rock solid about everything between me and Nate to finding patches of shaky ground. I knew he was stressed, but it’d been a long time since we laughed, talked the way we used to, or made music together.

Was that a mark for keeping the incident with Gil to myself so that I wouldn’t upset him further? I didn’t want him to think I was hiding something from him, though, and I had a feeling that no matter what I did, his uncles would keep bombarding him.

Not that it’d be easy to mention anything since Nate was on the phone, a thick legal document in front of him, so engrossed I don’t think he registered my presence until I was directly in front of him.

As I bent to place the pizza box on the coffee table, he wrapped his hand around my thigh. He kept it secured in place as I twisted slightly to peer down at him, and my entire being lit up like a sparkler, burning fast and bright, all for him.

He gifted me with half a smile, pivoting the mouthpiece of his phone upward so I could lean down and kiss him. As soon as my lips were on his, everything felt right with the world again.

“I’ll grab plates,” I mouthed, gesturing toward the kitchen, taking comfort in his hesitance to let me go.

A few minutes later, I was seated at his side, downing cheesy slices of pepperoni.

“Do you see what I’m talking about?” Nate asked, and when he went to dip his crust in the marinara sauce that’d come with the garlic cheesy bread, he missed. Crumbs and a spot of grease remained on the black glass top, and I don’t even think he noticed there wasn’t sauce on it as he jammed it in his mouth.

I couldn’t make out the words on the other side, only that the person was distressed.

“It’s not a little thing to miss, Christina. It’s a huge fucking thing that you glazed right over. The person has a history of suing and spends more time fishing for a payout than working, and we can use that to discredit them. We can’t afford to make a mistake like that. It’ll cost both us and the client, and result in the loss of possibly millions of dollars.”

From what I gathered, she was apologizing, and I winced on her behalf. I wanted to nudge Nate and suggest he go easy on her, but I didn’t want his ire aimed at me either.

“Make sure that you do,” he said, then reached up and tapped his AirPod. He lifted out a piece of pizza, bit off the end, and sat back with a sigh.

“Long day?”

---