Nothing But Wild (Malibu University 2)

Taking the time to shore up my courage, I smooth the dark purple DVF wrap dress I bought for the occasion and check my open-toed slingbacks. Dallas comes around the car and, lacing his fingers through mine, leads me away.

“Watch you step,” he warns. “I already saw a couple of hypodermic needles and you’re wearing open shoes.”

He looks so adorably disturbed that I want to kiss him until that look is wiped off his face. Instead, he drags me across the street, heading for the Law Offices of Katherine Hamilton, a wingman with a job to do. We reach the glass door to a rundown storefront. This isn’t the top floor of a fancy law practice. This is the bottom floor of a practice struggling to survive.

Taking me by the shoulders, he ducks his head so we’re eye-to-eye. “You got this. I’m gonna hang back and––”

“A-Are you c-coming inside with me?” A flash of panic makes me speak louder than necessary.

Taking mercy on me, he says, “Do you want me to?”

“Yes.”

He nods and pushes the sooty glass door open.

“Gladys, get me the files for the Torres case and call the clerk at Judge Wozniak’s––do we still have leverage on him?” says the woman that looks exactly like me.

Well, not exactly, like me. She’s more gaunt, less boobs and butt. The wrinkled beige silk blouse hangs on her bony shoulders, a flowery thrift store skirt skimming her slender calves. Her heavy hair is curly where mine is straight, the color dull and streaked in gray. It’s piled on top of her head all messy and held in place by a bunch of pencils.

She appears at least five years older than my my dads––early fifties––which is a surprise.

Gladys, presumably––a middle-aged Hispanic woman seated behind a metal desk littered with brown files––bites into her bagel with cream cheese. “Yeah, the pictures did the trick.”

The office is a disorganized mess. Dead spider plants in macrame holders hang in a glass store window that doesn’t look to have been cleaned since the last century, the small space crammed with filing cabinets. And dust. This woman hordes dust. Has she not heard of hard drives and Windex?

“If you don’t want your wife knowing you’re fucking your niece, then don’t fuck your niece,” Katherine continues muttering under her breath while she licks her fingers and flips through a stack of papers, her purple reading glasses halfway down her small nose…the same nose I see every time I look in the mirror.

“I gotta leave early today. That damn dog has so much gas I gotta take him to the vet. It’s a week now he’s been farting.”

“Before you do, see if you can suss out if that cocksucker Wozniak is gonna have ICE wanting for us.”

“Uh huh,” Gladys mumbles around a bite of her bagel.

All of a sudden they both glance up and notice us standing by the door. Dallas squeezes my hand and I step forward.

There’s no doubt Katherine recognizes me; she’d have to be willfully stupid not to. Even Gladys gasps, her deep-set brown eyes moving back and forth between me and the woman who gave birth to me.

“You,” she says in a less that friendly tone. That’s fine I wasn’t expecting her to be happy about my surprise visit. She makes a defeated face and chucks the files she’s holding onto a filing cabinet. The papers miss their mark and hit the ground scattering.

“I guess you’re going to want to talk?”

“Yes. I-I’d l-like that.”

She frowns. “You stutter?”

Does she expect me to answer that?

“Your fathers didn’t mentioned it,” she announces with something weird in her voice. As if somehow this is important intel that was withheld from her. As if she has a right to know anything about me.

“I don’t have a lot of time so”––she gestures to the open door––“step into my office.”

Briefly, I glance back at Dallas. He’s wearing a perfectly blank expression, unreadable, though I suspect by the stiffness of his posture he’s not a fan of Katherine Hamilton. Parents are a touchy subjects with the boy I’m falling in love with.

I am falling in love with him. For real. Not the love tainted by endorphins and lust. With the real Dallas, not the fantasy one…and the real one is so much better.

Taking his hands out of his pockets, he follows me to the back of the room, walking past Gladys who’s watching us with unwavering focus.

“Have a seat.” Katherine gestures to the two ancient office chairs covered in junk. More files, a raincoat that has seen better days. The cramped room is trapped in time like the rest.

While Dallas leans up against the wall with his arms crossed, I clear one of the chairs and sit. Meanwhile Katherine rounds her desk to take her seat.

“Who’s Captain America, your boyfriend?” She jerks a chin at Dallas and smirks.