Page 48 of Bullet

“No wonder he’s the size of a small house,” Willa whispers to her sister.

I’ve done more blushing in a single night than I have in my whole life combined. I don’t want to start again. I duck my face and talk shop. “Smoke will be coming over to keep watch. I’m going back to the clubhouse for a few hours. I’ll try to figure out what we’re doing about Harold, and I’ll get a meeting scheduled for you to sit down with Raiden and Tyrant and a few of the other officers.”

I glance sidelong at the table and find Lynette bent over the eggs, picking at them, but eating anyway. She doesn’t ask if I’ll be there. It’s like a fork jabbed into my side that I want her to.

“Raiden and Wizard will be here this afternoon. Raiden’s great with numbers. He does all the club’s books. Wizard will help you get a website set up for your business, get you incorporated, and everything else that needs to be taken care of.”

“What?” Willa fairly yells, dropping her fork. “You’re going to be setting up your own firm?”

Lynette winces. “Don’t sound so excited. It’s pretty much my only choice right now, given that no one else is going to hire me.”

“Babe! Working for yourself is going to be awesome!” Willa squeals. At least she’s excited enough for both of them. “I always thought you’d be better as a one-woman show, kicking ass, keeping all the money you make and getting the respect you deserve, than working for that stodgy place where everyone is so eager to be a partner that they’d slit anyone’s throat in a second if it meant getting there.”

“No one was going to slit anyone’s throat,” Lynette mutters.

“It was the very definition of cutthroat.” Willa uses her fork to make a quick slicing motion in front of her throat.

“They’ll get you signed up for health insurance. Willa is covered through the college, as far as I understand it. All the paperwork will be handled this afternoon.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Lynette protests. “It’s too much.”

“We do. I need a good lawyer representing me, and my court date is coming soon.”

“You’re a nice man, Bullet,” Willa cuts in. “The guys from your club are too. Lynette thinks so, she just won’t say it.”

Lynette turns crimson, but she faces me down, stubborn and proud as ever. “I do think so and I will say it. I’m sorry I judged you and made comments about the club when we first met. I was incredibly wrong.”

A beat of silence passes between us. I break it first, turning off the burner and shoveling the eggs onto my plate. There’s a freechair in the middle of the table. The other is shoved up against the wall for extra space in the kitchen.

I have my ass in the seat for all of two seconds before Willa makes me want to leap right up out of it. “The sexual tension between you two is so real that it’s stifling. Just bang already. I could go for a really long walk if you want to do it before Atlas comes to get me.”

“Willa!” Lynette snaps, just about the same color as her blouse now. “That’s far too blunt. It’s embarrassing.” Lynette’s no coward. She looks me right in the eye. “We’re just associates. That’s all we can be, as per the law. There are rules about professional conduct.”

“Yeah right,” Willa scoffs.

“Seriously.” Lynette’s hard expression leaves little room for doubt. “Unless a relationship existed beforehand, it’s considered unethical and is prohibited.”

“What are they going to do? Fire you?”

Lynette’s sigh escapes slowly, like a slow puncture. “I could lose the ability to practice as a lawyer at all.”

Willa might take that seriously, but she still rolls her eyes dramatically. “Just friends. Okay. Got it. Friends who bang when Bullet’s case is over and he’s not a client anymore.”

“The club will be a client,” Lynette insists.

“In that case,” Willa argues proudly, not at all afraid of her sister’s incinerating death glares, “the whole relationship existing beforehand will be true, so you’re good to go.”

“No.”

“Yes!” Willa tries pleading her case with me. “Lynette won’t ever allow anything good to happen to her that isn’t related to her career. I’m not saying that no shouldn’t mean no. I’m saying that you could romance her, because her no right now doesn’t really mean no. Her no means that she’s scared, though she’d never show it. Flirt with her. Do the cheesy stuff. She’ll pretend to hate it, and she’ll have every excuse ever why she shouldn’t be happy. But in the end, please succeed in wooing her. She deserves someone good. Something that is just for her.” Willa shovels down the rest of her eggs and takes a piece of bacon to go. “I’ve said my bit. I’m going for a walk now.”

“No!”

“No.”

Lynette and I both protest at the same time. She’s got both hands curled around the edge of the table, white knuckling it. Her eyes are unnaturally wide and more than a little frantic.

“No,” I explain calmly. “Please don’t walk around anywhere by yourself, at least right now.”

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