Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
“What’s the difference, practically speaking?” Tucker asks.
“The big firm is right in my wheelhouse. Criminal defense. Major corporate clients. It’s where the big money is,” I tell him. “The cases I’d be handling would definitely be challenging. Stimulating.”
He nods slowly. “Okay. And Fischer?”
“Primarily civil defense. Not sexy stuff, but it’s an old legacy firm. They’ve been in the city for like a hundred years or something. The pay is competitive, which probably means old-money clients.”
“Those options don’t suck.”
“If I take the first one, we’re talking eighty hours a week. Minimum. On call day and night. Fighting for a rung on the ladder with a hundred other junior associates.”
“Yeah, but you like throwing elbows,” Tucker reminds me with a crooked grin.
“If I took the second, I could be home more with you and Jamie.”
Throughout law school, I was convinced I wouldn’t be fulfilled unless I landed my dream gig. Fighting tough cases tooth and nail, battling in the trenches. Since graduation, though, being home all day with Jamie has changed my attitude. It’s got me worrying about the sustainability of balancing work and family long-term.
Tucker, as usual, offers himself up as my rock. My one-man support system. “Don’t worry about us,” he tells me, his voice roughening. “You’ve worked your whole life to get to this moment, darlin’. Don’t give up on your dream.”
I study his expression. “Are you sure you’d be okay if I took the job with more hours? Be honest.”
“I’m good no matter what you decide.”
I see nothing but sincerity on his face, but one can never truly know with Tucker. He’s not great at telling me when something’s bothering him, on the rare occasions he gets bothered.
He reaches for my hand, his callused fingertips sweeping over my knuckles. “I can pitch in and do more around the house. Jamie will be fine. Whatever you decide, we’ll make it work.”
Coming from a broken home in Southie and getting knocked up in college, I could have done a lot worse than to end up with Tucker. At even half capacity, he’d be a great guy, but this big, beautiful man goes and decides to be exceptional anyway.
I can’t wait to spend ten days on an island with him all to myself. Sometimes I really miss the early days of our relationship. Before our little monster arrived, and I spent every waking second either in class or bent over a textbook. When we used to have sex in his truck, or when he’d come over after I got off work, push me up against the wall and hike up my skirt. Those moments where nothing else mattered except the overwhelming need to touch each other. It’s still there, that need. Other stuff just gets in the way. Part of me isn’t sure I even remember how to be spontaneous.
Then Tucker drapes his hand over my knee, dragging his fingers back and forth, and I start eyeing that lighted restroom sign.
I must doze off at some point, because about halfway through the flight I’m jolted awake by some brief turbulence and the raised voices of Marcia and Harold.
“She’s knocked up, mark my words.”
“Harold! Peter said she wasn’t.”
“That boy is a pathological liar, Marcia.”
“Our son wouldn’t lie about this.”
“All right then, let’s bet on it. If Trixie-Bell doesn’t have a bun in the oven, I won’t touch a drop of alcohol at this farce of a wedding.”
“Ha! As if!”
“But if she is preggo…” He thinks it over. “I get to dump that entire vial of your god-awful perfume in the ocean.”
“But it cost three hundred dollars!”
I’m loving this wager. My mind is already trying to figure out how we could learn the outcome. Is there some registry of weddings in St. Maarten? Maybe we can take a private boat over from St. Barth’s and crash Peter and Trixie-Bell’s ceremony.
I glance over at Tucker to ask if he has any ideas, but he’s busy looking around, scanning the aircraft.
“Everything okay?” I ask uneasily.
“You smell that?”
“Oh. Yeah. It’s the chain-smoker in 3E.”
“I don’t think that’s cigarette smoke,” he says in a hushed voice, peering out the window.
A frown creases his brow. He’s sporting that look he used to get after five straight hours of watching aviation disaster documentaries on TV at four in the morning between Jamie’s feedings.
The same two flight attendants casually float up and down the aisle with their professional smiles, but now there’s a deliberateness to their movements that becomes disconcerting as I watch them. Almost imperceptibly, the plane begins a gradual descent.
“Are we descending?” I hiss at him.
“I think so.”
And the odor of smoke is worsening. I swear there’s a slight haze to the air, and I’m not the only one to notice. A murmur ripples through the first-class cabin.
“Harold, honey, do you smell that?” I hear a panicky Marcia blurt out.