Page 113 of With Wine Comes War

ME: “That sounds good to me. What did you get?”

ALEX: “Kind of a sampler platter since I didn’t know what you liked.”

ME: “That’ll work for me.”

ALEX: “Are you drinking tonight?”

ME: “Are you?”

ALEX: “I don’t think so.”

ME: “Ok, neither will I. See you soon.” I finished what I was doing and headed up to the penthouse.

She wasn’t kidding. She had a ton of food ordered from a Chinese restaurant.

She spun around and said, “Do you think I got too much?”

I laughed. “Not if we’re having ten people over for dinner.” At least she seemed to be in a good mood. “Leftovers for days.” I kissed her and grabbed an eggroll on my way to change clothes.

***

ALEX

Lisette was at the door as always when I pulled into the drive.

I waved as I was getting out of the car and yelled, “Hi, Dr. King.” I followed her to the office. She gave me a quick hug and put both hands on my shoulders, looking me up and down.

“Let me look at you. You look fantastic. I may have to start taking your classes.” She was always so encouraging and sweet to me. I hated what I was about to do.

“Roman and the guys are going to take kickboxing classes with us girls, you should definitely join.” Keeping things light should help with whatever emotions I might be feeling.

“I’m going to look into it. Could be something fun for me and Fitz to do together,” she agreed.

“That’s the same thing I thought. Couples’ kickboxing should be a thing.”

After our initial chit chat, Dr. King asked calmly, “Tomorrow is the start of the hearing. How are you feeling?”

I held her gaze, thinking about my level of stress as it pertained to this hearing and stated confidently, “I feel really good.”

She relaxed her position on the couch and crossed her legs.

“You know what? I believe you.” I was glad for that because I did feel good about it, but maybe not everyone else would.

I got right to what I wanted to talk about because I had so much nervous energy. “What do I do if I say something that someone may not like hearing? There’s going to be a lot of people in there and we already know his lawyer is going to spin this whole thing back on me. I’m going to have to defend myself. My dad’s going to be in there, my brother, Roman, you and Mr. King…”

She interrupted. “Alex, we’re all going to be in there by choice, if we don’t like it, we can leave.” That was about as matter of fact as it gets, it was just hard to think why my dad would be leaving.

“That makes me feel better, maybe. I still might feel uneasy about having to talk about this in front of everyone.” Now I was wringing my hands and bouncing my knee.

“What is it that you may have to talk about?” This was a little weird, but I felt like honest communication was the way to go.

“Dr. King, I’m afraid they're going to talk about my past behavior. Not that it's actually a big deal, honestly. But…” My eyes shifted downward as I tried to think of how to put this where I didn't sound like a complete floosy.

She uncrossed her legs and sat up a little straighter. I couldn’t tell if she was uncomfortable or just getting ready to run out of the room.

“Without getting into detail, what kind of past behavior do you think might make people uncomfortable?”

Where the hell should I start?“How shall I say this? Short relationships?” The heat of embarrassment rose to my face.

---