Page 20 of The Wedding Situation Romance

“Who filed?”

“He did,”

“Grounds?” I ask. Not that the man needs grounds. If I had to guess, she makes little to no contribution to their situation. They have money, are living the dream, and like anyone else stupid enough to get married as soon as they’re old enough to pop a bottle of bubbly, they realized that the only green grass is AstroTurf.

“Loss of interest leading to irreconcilable differences.”

If I had to guess? Infidelity.

Quinn was right about that, actually. It is the leading cause of divorce. And depending on which side it was on, it makes my job easier.

“Alright,” I say. “Send him in three.”

“Yes, sir,” Jessie nods before we part ways.

I like a couple minutes to myself before clients walk in. I don’t want to look like I am walking from one case straight to the next, even if that is what I am doing. Nobody wants to be represented by an attorney that looks overbooked or flustered. Two things I am not.

A moment later, Jessie walks in with a man in a suit. But despite his ironed slacks and his fresh haircut and the overwhelming scent of pine aftershave, the bags under his eyes tell me the same story I always hear–

The man is tired. The man is discouraged. And the man wants a divorce.

“Mr. Remington, I’ve heard so much about you. Thank you for seeing me,” he rattles off, and I gesture at the chair in front of my desk.

“Sit, please,” I offer. Then, “Whiskey?”

He blinks. “Now?”

I glance at the clock. “It’s the afternoon. Unless my clock is wrong. Though it never is,” I say with a hint of a smirk.

“Hell, alright,” he says with a deflating sigh.

I offer a drink within thirty seconds of every first client appointment. It shows them that I am their friend. But I am not everyone’s friend. It also loosens them up enough that they tellme the truth. The only thing that makes my job harder is when I don’t know the truth. I don’t need my clients to be in the right in their cases. I just need to know all the angles so I can convince the judges that they are right. A task that is much easier to accomplish when they’re forwardly transparent.

I pour two fingers into two highball glasses and hand one to him before taking a seat.

“Alright, Mike, tell me why you want a divorce,” I say, taking a sip.

He lets out a lip flapping sigh and rakes a hand through his hair, diffusing another cloud of aftershave into the air between us. I’m starting to think the man bathed in it. First lesson I’m going to teach him: less is almost always more.

“Well, let’s see. Ashley and I met at a concert of all things, right before we turned twenty-one. And–”

“Mm,” I shake my head on a swallow. “Not the history. That’s not important right now. You…fell in love…when you were basically a kid. Not smart, but also not uncommon. Thus shackling you to false ideals. That’s almost always the story in these cases. And none of that matters. What matters is that right now you are sitting in my office, willing to pay an absurd amount of money for a divorce lawyer. I want to know why.”

For a moment, Mike just sits there, his eyes flickering in thought. In there somewhere is either enough hurt, enough disappointment, or enough logic that he has come to realize marriage is a scam. And I am going to excavate that information with the precision of a skilled surgeon and the indifference of demolition contractors prepared to take down a historical building without so much as batting an eye.

“Whatever we had…” he says as the weariness returns to his hollow eyes. “Is dead.”

And there it is. The conclusive feeling that will drive him to go through with the divorce and drive me to win the case against whoever she is.

After Mike leaves, I make my way out. But before I reached the parking garage, someone falls in stride with me. Someone with the same kind of stride as me. Another lawyer. And I don’t even have to look at him to know who it is.

“What do you want?” I ask.

“Why do you assume I want something?” Grant asks.

I scoff. “Because you work in the same field as I do. And it’s no secret that we aren’t exactly friends and never have been. Working on the opposing side of the courtroom kind of prevents that.”

“It’s not my fault you always choose the wrong side,” he jabs, and I bite the inside of my cheek with a smirk.