Page 47 of Legal

I heard a “Here, it’s Jillian” and then Perry’s equally groggy voice, “Hey, Jills. What’s up?”

“Was Stephen up all night?”

“Kinda.”

Dammit. “Tell him sorry again.” My brother was frequently called during the night and had to drag himself out of bed to deal with systems crashing and all kinds of urgent work crap. No different than any other time of the day, but at least then he was coherent. “But, why are you still home? I called your phone because I thought you’d left for the day.”

“I’m going in later.”

“All right. Just call me back right away when you’re up.”

“You already got me up, Jills. Talk now.”

I took a deep breath. “Before I start making accusations, please explain to me how Chase knew about the lavender dress.”

“What dress now?”

“The dress at Summerfest. The one I loved. You told me I should get it. Chase bought it for me. How did he know, Perry?”

One second. Two seconds. Three—

“Holy fuckballs! Chase bought you that dress?”

She almost blew out my eardrum. “Shhh, keep it down. Isn’t Stephen—”

“Who’s Chase?” I heard in the background. Just great. “Wait, isn’t he… Fuck, Jillian. Why’s he buying you a dress?”

“Down, Fido,” Perry said. “They’re friends. No problem.”

“Perry—”

“Of course, there’s a problem,” Stephen said. I started pacing around the room, ready to whack my phone against the wall. “Guys his age don’t have their shit together, and they sure as hell shouldn’t be buying my sister any dresses.”

Should I just hang up? Let them have this conversation without me?“Jillian, you listening?” my brother continued. “Are you encouraging him? If so, that’s fucked up.”

“Nothing’s fucked up, you crabby ass. Go back to sleep,” Perry yelled back.

I heard some shuffling around, and Stephen said something else, but it was too muted to make out.

“Okay, Jills. Had to leave the room. Now, back to this dress. Holy fuck, do you know what this means?”

“According to what you told my brother, it means nothing.”

“Well, yeah. You told me not to say anything to him.” Forget the phone; I wanted to smack my head into the wall. Didn’t she realize her big mouth already had?

“Perry, you… Never mind. Were you or were you not the one who told Chase about the dress?”

“Of course not! I swore I wouldn’t help anymore, and I meant it. I don’t know how he knew something like that. Got lucky, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t call it help, and your ‘got lucky’ theory sounds pretty impossible.” I sat down at my desk and thrummed my fingers against the hard wood. “So, it really wasn’t you?”

“That’s what I said. Weren’t you listening?”

“I…” I didn’t know what to think. It hadn’t been off-base to assume Perry was involved, but now I was back to a dead end.

“Bottom line, Jills: You’re not just a pump and dump to him, and you need to accept that.”

“What?”

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