VERSUS (Second Chances 2)

I’m not ending my day without seeing her beautiful face.

***

The best pizza in Manhattan is at a restaurant a block from my office.

It’s over-priced, under-sauced, but the crust is exactly how I like it. It’s crispy yet chewy. I’ve eaten enough bad pizza in my life to know that it’s a feat to create the perfect crust.

When Gunner dove in for this third slice, I knew I was looking at a convert.

He’ll be hitting the place up on the regular on his lunch break.

My assistant was prepared to extend our dinner into the evening. He suggested we take the party back to the office so he could run over the details for a case that I just took on.

Work can wait. I told Gunner as much when I directed him to the subway and told him to call it a night.

I took off in the opposite direction.

I’m still on a quest to find Eden. That’s why I’m standing on the sidewalk outside the building that’s home to the offices of Sufford, Lake & Chisholm.

It’s mid-evening, which means that anyone with a life outside of work has left for the day.

I’m banking on the fact that Eden hasn’t lost her drive to commit to whatever is in front of her.

That’s what took her to the rehearsal hall virtually every night during senior year.

I stalk into the lobby of the building, heading straight for the night guard who mans the desk near the elevators.

“Can I help you…” His voice trails. “Dylan? Is that you?”

It pays to help people who need it.

Myron, the guard, sat next to me on the subway one day when I was heading back to the office after court.

He was despondent and broke. I was feeling uncharacteristically generous after winning a case.

In the six hours before we met, Myron was let go from his job as a member of the cleaning crew at one of the city’s museums.

He was cut in the middle of his shift. He went home to the house he shared in Queens with his wife of twenty-two years to plan out how he’d break the bad news to her once she was done work for the day.

She wasn’t behind a desk in her office on Wall Street. She was on the dick of her boss in the bed she shared every night with Myron.

Myron told me his story as we took the train uptown.

I took on his case, we shook on the promise of a percentage of his settlement, and I got to work on drafting the papers that afternoon.

I topped it off with a new job for him. He worked security at the building that houses my office until he was reassigned to work here.

He’s got money in the bank, a pension to look forward to, and a new girlfriend who only has eyes for him.

“Myron.” I pat him on the shoulder. “I’m looking for Eden Conrad. She’s filling in for Kurt Sufford temporarily.”

“The beauty from Buffalo?” He smiles. “She slips me a candy bar almost every night on her way out.”

That doesn’t surprise me.

The smile on Myron’s face doesn’t surprise me either. He’s always friendly as fuck and eager to help.

Her cell number is at his disposable. I’ll be calling her before I exit this building.