Page 2 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

My long, auburn hair had started the day in a smooth twist and had since evolved into a loose professional surrender, soft pieces escaping around my face no matter how many pins I’d used. My eyes looked more green than blue when I was tired.

I smoothed the front of my thrifted silk blouse, checked that the tiny floral buttons were still behaving, and tried to look like a woman who belonged in a law firm.

“Please advise,” I repeated, then laughed. If I didn’t laugh, I was going to sit down on the closed toilet lid and start evaluating my life choices, and that would not improve the afternoon.

Instead, I did what I always did: I handled it.

I gathered the binders, stopped in the break room to swap out the bouquet I’d brought in the previous Monday, and carried the wilted flowers to the trash.

That part, at least, I never minded.

The firm had a service that dealt with the expensive flowers where clients could see them, but the flowers in the break room were unofficial, which was a nice way of saying nobody cared until they were dead enough to depress people.

I had raised planters on the small balcony outside my kitchen window, where I grew mostly wildflowers and whatever herbs could survive my hectic work schedule. Once a week, I clipped whatever looked happiest and brought it in to keep the room from looking like a place where people inhaled yogurt over case files and forgot they had bodies.

My mother had always said a space could tell whether it was loved.

She’d spent years cleaning other people’s houses, so she knew the difference between a place that was used hard and neglected, and a place that was cared for. My dad had laid brick until his back gave out. Neither of them had ever had the luxury of pretending small touches didn’t matter. Fresh flowers, folded dish towels, and toilet paper on the holder instead of perched nearby represented dignity.

Because of that, because I was raised to notice the little touches, I’d vowed I wouldn’t grind my way to the top and come out the other side incapable of noticing the people who kept the place running.

“Quinn.”

I turned to find Mrs. Mendez from reception peering into the break room. She took in the flowers, the restocked sweetener caddy, and the stack of get-well cards I’d left near the coffee maker for signatures.

Her face softened. “You brought more.”

“Last week’s looked tired.”

“That’s because Jonah microwaved fish in here on Tuesday and killed the atmosphere.”

“Honestly, that’s on us as a legal community.”

Her mouth twitched. “Moira’s looking for you.”

“She always is.”

“That one likes you.”

I glanced toward the hallway. “She only likes my willingness to sprint.”

Mrs. Mendez patted my arm as she passed, which was both comforting and bleak.

I found Moira, one of the junior partners, outside copy room three with a stack of binders braced against one hip, looking like she was one inconvenience away from committing arson for insurance money.

“There you are,” she said. “Cressler needs those family court binders, printer three is haunted again, and if any of the other interns ask, I have never heard of lunch.”

“Good, because I’m starting to think lunch is a rumor spread by union workers.”

“Move, Bradley.”

I delivered the binders to Cressler, who barely glanced up as he took them, then I got waylaid by one of the newer transfer associates, who asked if I knew where facilities kept the spare legal pads. I did, of course.

By four o’clock, my body had stopped with the hunger pangs from skipping lunch and had moved directly to a kind of distant moral disappointment.

I made it halfway down the hall before I saw Devon, another intern, cut left and disappear into the supply closet with the furtive urgency of a man fleeing war. A second later, Indira, also in the trenches with the rest of us, slipped in after him, balancing a protein bar and a yogurt cup in one hand.

I changed course. Sneaking into the break room, I grabbed my lunch and hurried to the supply closet.