“No sir, but she checked in with her officer this morning. We also checked her monitor the second we received your phone call so she’s still in the state...I must warn you that we don’t take too kindly to false reporting, Mr. Hamilton. If this was some type of—”

“I know what the f**k I saw.” I seethed. “She was here.” I hung up. I didn’t care enough to think about Ava right now.

I headed into my bedroom and lay against the sheets, hoping this second round of alcohol would work better than the first.

I lay there for an hour, watching the seconds on my clock tick by, yet no sleep came and thoughts of Aubrey began to fill my mind. I was thinking about the things she’d told me when we we’d first met, things she’d told me about her sex life, and I had the sudden urge to hear her voice.

I rolled over and scrolled down to her name.

“Hello?” She answered on the first ring. “Andrew?”

“Why haven’t you sucked a c**k before?”

“What?” She gasped. “How about ‘Good morning, Aubrey’? Are you awake?’ How about asking those things first?”

“Hello, Aubrey.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re clearly awake, so I’ll bypass that unnecessary question. Why haven’t you sucked a c**k before?”

She was silent.

“Do I need to drive to your apartment and make you answer the question in person?”

“Are you really in need of this information at three in the morning?”

“Desperately,” I said. “Answer the question.”

“It’s just something I never wanted to do.” There were papers shuffling in the background. “One of the guys I used to date would ask me to do it to him from time to time—to reciprocate, but I just...I didn’t like him enough to do it.”

“Hmmm.”

Silence.

We hadn’t had an actual phone conversation since the last time we had phone sex, right before I found out her real name was Aubrey and not Alyssa.

“Were you thinking about me?” she suddenly asked.

“What?”

“Were you thinking about me?” She repeated. “You’ve never called me this late before. Are you lonely?”

“I’m horny.”

She let out a soft laugh. “Would you like me to tell you what I’m wearing?”

“I already know what you’re wearing.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really.” I put a hand behind my head. “It’s Wednesday, which means you had practice until midnight, which means you went home and showered and immediately put your feet in an ice tub without putting on any pajamas.”

She sucked in a breath.

“And from the way you’re breathing right now I take it you’re still naked, and the reason you picked up my call on the first ring is because you want to touch yourself to the sound of my voice.”

Another gap of silence.

“Am I wrong?” I asked.

“No...” Her voice was low. “I don’t think you’re horny right now though.”

“Trust me. I am.”

“Maybe, but I think you called me because you like me—because you want to hear my voice since we haven’t talked on the phone in a while.”

“I called you because my dick is hard and I want to make you cum over the phone.”

She laughed again. “So, you don’t like me?”

“I like your pu**y.”

“So, the white roses and the “He’s just yelling at you because he knows you’re the best/Don’t let him get to you” note that was on the hood of my car today weren’t from you?”

I hung up.

Retraction (n.):

The legal withdrawal of a promise or offer of contract.

Andrew

“How do you think we should proceed with the client, Harriet?” I leaned back in my chair the next night, dreading my “Let the Interns Help with One Case per Month” required hours.

“Um, Mr. Hamilton...” She twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “My name is Hannah.”

“Same thing,” I said. “How do you think we should proceed with this case?”

“We could put his ex-wife on the stand. She could vouch for his character.”

“They were married for thirty days.” I rolled my eyes and looked at the intern sitting next to her. “And that was ten years ago. Bob, what do you have?”

“It’s...It’s actually Bryan.”

“It’s whatever I say it is. What. Do. You. Have?”

“I was doing some research on his background and he apparently was reprimanded for breaking his university’s fire wall his senior year. We could start there and build a case around his past of anarchy...”

I sighed. “He’s our client, Bryan. Why would we intentionally make him look bad?”

He blinked.

I turned toward the last intern in the room, a petite brunette. “What do you suggest?”

“You’re not going to try to guess my name?” She smiled.

“I just realized that you weren’t my janitor today. What do you have?”

“This.” She slid a folder across the table. “If we’re trying to prove that he wasn’t in breach of his company’s policies when he took out his initial shares, we could use this case as a reference.”

I opened the folder, reading the first line of a case that was not only over a hundred years old, but it had been overturned by the Supreme Court decades ago.