Page 15 of King of Justice

“Ah. Aren’t you the yang to my yin?” I took another sip. “You could’ve just skipped the workout, y’ know.”

“Then what?” He sat down in one of the desk chairs with wheels, spinning. “How am I gonna live with all the junk we’re consuming?”

“Gee, you sure have a way to make a gal feel fat.”

He chuckled. “Quit fishing for compliments, Sophie,” he said it in French again, “I already called you skinny.”

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and turned away, pretending to check an item on a colleague’s desk. “And what are you gonna do about your shirt? It’s soaking.”

“Why don’t you see if you can call your friend Marcus, huh? Don’t worry about me, I’m a pretty resourceful guy.”

“I’ll bet.” I picked up my phone and checked for a signal. It was back. Trouble was? My battery was at ten percent. “Here goes nothing.” I swiped and called Marcus’ number.

“The number you have called is unavailable right now.”

“Well.” I put the device back down and took a sip. “Marcus is off the grid.”

“Fantastic.” He leaned forward and looked at the landline device on my colleague’s desk. “And these use power to work, so…”

“So, you’d better figure out a way to handle your shirt, mister… or I’ll be sleeping in Alex’s office tonight.”

Much to my surprise, the man did take a cold shower and managed to deodorize his shirt enough not to smell.

We spent the rest of the day talking about music and film, and he even gave me a few ideas for my novel.

In the evening, we shared another joint, and he loosened up, singing along with me to an old Johnny Cash tune as we pretended to take the stage.

And at night, instead of sleeping upright, I agreed to lie down with him, squeezed side by side on the couch with my head on his chest. It was the first time for me to sleep next to a man who wasn’t a lover of some sort. The smell of his shirt, mixed with Alex’s cheap soap, was strangely comforting.

Sunday passed in the same way, with me getting comfortable enough around the handsome stranger to admit that I wished my novel was picked up by a big publishing house. From there, many declarations followed.

“I wanted to be an athlete when I was little,” he confessed on Sunday night. “But then in grade school, I realized that girls thought I was cute… then I wanted to be an actor.”

“Why didn’t you pursue it?”

“Giving my mother a stroke wasn’t on my bucket list.”

I laughed.

“In another life, my novel would be adapted into a film, and you’d play the main character,” I mused in a haze of herb smoke.

“Not if you wanted to enter some festivals.”

“Who’s the pessimist now?”

“I can’t act to save my life.”

“Well, if you’re gonna dream… dream big.”

On Monday morning, I woke up with a start as the noise of the snowplow startled me.

“Nathan.” I tapped on his chest and remembered how hard it was, so I quickly pulled away my hand. “Dude, wake up! I think that’s Marcus.”

He opened his eyes. “Oh, finally.”

I drew a breath, rolling off of him and leapt to my feet. “Yes, we’re about to be liberated.” The realization hit me; that was it for us. It was time for my storm partner and I to bid each other farewell and go our separate ways.

“Uh—” He moaned, stretching his arms. “The only person who’s gonna benefit from this is my masseuse.”

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