“I just tried one where my client claimed he was urinating in a back alley. Turns out he was jerking off on a street corner. The prosecution had twenty-one witnesses. They were nuns.” She looked pained.
“I understand,” I said gently, patting her on the back.
“Did you put on the 'my client has a right to a trial defense’ too?” Mr. Roth asked.
“I loved it when she said 'that's his story and he has a constitutional right to tell it.' That was a classic moment in American jurisprudence,” Mr. Pierce added, coming over to the defense table and leaning against it immediately next to where I was standing. I noticed that he had a very nice scent — spicy, with a trace of mint. Mr. Pierce even smelled attractive.
“I'm glad that we amuse you guys. You have no idea what it's like to have to stand there and say that with a straight face.” I turned quickly to face him and my mouth almost popped open. Christ on a cracker! I had been looking at this man across a courtroom for months, and I had even sat across a table from him when negotiating a deal, but I had never been this close to him before. Wow. I realized that I was just staring at him stupidly and I managed to pull myself together. I really had to get laid soon.
“Poor Ms. Ginsberg,” he said and smiled, looking at me curiously.
That smile made my girl parts warm. Mr. Pierce was too attractive for my own good. With him standing right here next to me, I could see that his eyes were a gorgeous sky blue ringed in indigo and his hair wasn’t really blonde, but actually a shade of light brown with golden highlights. I couldn’t help it, I started imagining how he could make me feel better with a nice massage and a warm bath together, maybe a glass of wine and some sexy music… “Yeah well, maybe you should comfort me…” I mumbled distractedly. My eyes widened. Jesus, Gabrielle! “Confront! Maybe you should not… confront me because I can be”… I searched for something… “dangerous.” Huh? I rolled my eyes and felt my face get hot.
“I don’t doubt it,” he said with a cocky grin. “I think that confronting you could be very dangerous.”
“I just hope they threw the grapes away,” Mr. Roth said, completely snapping me out of my lust-fueled reverie. I had finished straightening up my own papers, so I started straightening up everyone else’s papers too. I was tidying up the whole damned courtroom and Mr. Pierce was watching me do it with an extremely amused look on his face. I wondered what he was thinking — probably, “I wonder if she’s off her meds.”
The jury was back in ten minutes. Shockingly, they didn't believe Mr. Harris. I went back to my office in defeat. Inner-Gabrielle went out for a drink.
CHAPTER TWO
I sat there preparing my cases for the next day. I had to figure out a way to convince a six foot five, three hundred pound biker named “Tiny” that nobody was going to believe that he had just “found” 27 thirty-inch HD flat screen televisions in an alley behind his apartment. One had to tread lightly when telling someone like Tiny that even his lawyer thought he was full of shit. I wasn't really looking forward to it, or any of the sixteen other cases I had scheduled. Luckily, that was a light work day.
Jessica finally got back an hour later, looking like she had gone a few rounds with Mike Tyson. It had probably just been Mr. Roth being a dick, though. He did that from time to time. (Daily.) Jess and I had both begun working for the Defender Association at the same time almost a year ago and we had been office-mates from day one. As of a few months ago, we also shared an apartment in a building a few blocks from our office in the upscale Rittenhouse Square District.
To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really need to have a roommate. My parents were very successful business people, so I guess you could say that I came from a wealthy family. I liked knowing that I could support myself, though, so I mostly tried to live on my own salary. Unfortunately, that worried my parents, but then everything worried my parents. They worried about me working with criminals. They worried about me living in a different city. They worried because I wasn’t good at financial stuff. Most of all, though, they worried that I would eventually end up living alone with a bunch of cats and a couple of million dollars in a shoebox under my bed.
My social life wasn't exactly thriving at the moment. I did go out, but only if I were surrounded by friends because, frankly, I had spent enough nights fending off drunken players at bars and clubs. I didn't want to date anyone from my office, and I wasn't really meeting anyone new, so I hadn't been out with a guy in a few months. That was going to have to change, though, because I couldn't live like this anymore. My job created a lot of tension and I needed an outlet. I had to find a sex partner that didn’t require batteries.