Page 1 of Take What Hurts

ONE

ELLIOTT

“Well, shit.”

Elliott Jackson stared at the flashing wing lights of the Southwest Airlines flight—her Southwest Airlines flight—as it rocketed up through the thick band of cloud that hung low on the horizon. Without her on it. Which was a problem when it was supposed to be taking her to San Francisco so she could attend this—likely fruitless—settlement conference.

Breathing heavily, with her bag hanging by the skin of its teeth off her right shoulder and dragging her flannel down her arm, she was the definition of a mess. She dropped the shoes she hadn’t had time to shove her feet back into after clearing security. Sweat pooled on her lower back, and her antiperspirant was working overtime. She didn’t know who made the decisions at Sea-Tac about how high the heating should be set in February, but whoever it was had decided whichever number was highest was the way forward, and it was suffocating. She wished she’d reconsidered her choice of pants as she bent over and, stumbling, pulled at the sticky, tight denim at the backs of her knees.

Elliott sighed, picked up her shoes, and shuffled over to a bank of the airport’s finest pleather monstrosities and poured herself into a chair. With her elbows on her knees, she buried her face in her hands and heaved a sigh.

The knot in Elliott’s stomach had first formed the moment the email from Mattias, her no-bullshit managing partner who supervised the divorce law practice, came through, assigning her to this matter. Now the knot tightened and twisted. It was faintly nauseating.

This particular matter was notorious in the firm not because the client, Matilda Jenkins—a seriously successful professional pianist—was a nightmare. It was because the client’s ex, Anna—also Jenkins—was.

And it was notorious because it was a cash cow. It had been trundling along for literal years, and there was, it appeared—barring a miracle—no end in sight. Every lawyer in the firm had unwillingly played a game of musical chairs to avoid it, and this time Elliott had been left standing when the music stopped. And despite neither Matilda nor Anna living in San Francisco, Anna had insisted the conference take place on entirely neutral ground. Meaning in an entirely different state, apparently.

When she’d read Mattias’s email assigning her the matter, she’d had to swallow a scoff when he’d said it was being assigned to her because this case needs a lawyer of your caliber to close it out. Immediately, she’d checked the cc line and noticed the other managing partners had been copied in, which explained the layers of bullshit in the assigning email. Usually Mattias would have been honest with her. He would have simply walked right up to her and said, “You’re the only lawyer left in the firm who hasn’t had a go.”

Despite all of that, Elliott was determined to finally put an end to it. Closing out a matter like this would unequivocally prove to herself she could do this. That she hadn’t wasted most of her twenties on a career she was doomed to fail at. And it would prove that Mattias hadn’t wasted all of his considerable time mentoring her. Trusting her. If she failed⁠—

A cold sweat broke out on her brow at the mere thought. Because where the fuck would that leave her? Right where she was, she guessed, and that wasn’t an ideal place to be.

No, if there was a lawyer at the firm more determined than she to finally close this fucking file, she didn’t know who it would be.

She’d done a lightning-fast review of the file in the hour before she’d made the dash from her Belltown apartment to the airport, and mere minutes after having opened the negotiations folder in the file, that determination had hit its first speed bump. The firm on the other side was infamous in Seattle. It hired only the top graduates out of the best law schools in the country and was famous for taking on only the clients that had chewed up and spit out other firms first. It was rumored in the profession that it only took on these unreasonable clients because they were guaranteed to make the firm the most money. Before, of course, the firm decided it was time to stop playing with its food. Then it was known for winning. A lot. She’d heard of the guy whose name was on the file and didn’t relish the opportunity to go up against him on a matter like this.

Because, from one look at the file, it had become abundantly clear the matter should have already been in court. That thought alone, of litigation, had brought anxiety rising like bile in her throat, and it had stuck there. Now, at the renewed thought of it all, the bitter taste settled in her mouth and the sweat on her brow began anew. Court proceedings involved filing timetables, deadlines—organization. And Elliott had always struggled with that. She got it done at work with the help of a likely unhealthy and diagnosable dose of anxiety, multiple alarms, and calendar reminders.

The other thing she had was her assistant, Hannah. She and Hannah had been best friends since their awkward teenage years growing up queer in a small town, and they had bonded for life the night in junior year when they decided it would be a good idea to get hammered on cask wine in a field and make out. They’d barely even pressed their lips together when they opened their eyes, stared at each other, and burst into laughter. When they graduated, they’d both gone to UW and roomed together in the dorms, and now Hannah kept Elliott from capitulating on a daily basis.

Despite all the strategies she’d implemented over the years and all the help she had now, it was draining. It had always been a problem. She had frequently overslept her alarm for the school bus as a kid, miscalculated the time it took to get between buildings for classes in college, and, consequently, suffered the withering stare of every professor at law school. She’d habitually left assessments and projects until the day before they were due. Most frustratingly today, she frequently underestimated the time it took to get through the many blockades and hurdles characteristic of a fucking airport, although she gave herself some grace this time—the snow hadn’t helped.

She’d wondered often, including once out loud to Hannah, if everyone struggled this much and found simple things like getting to work on time this difficult. Hannah was quick to tell Elliott no, things were not this difficult for most people and that Elliott was the most anxiously ADHD individual Hannah had ever encountered. That gave Elliott pause, because she supposed there might be something in that. But a cursory glance at the cost of testing and diagnosis had promptly put an end to any prospect of addressing it in any meaningful way. At least in the short term.

She heaved another sigh and watched the snow increase in its velocity against the window overlooking the runway. Yes, it was all a bit of a mess, and so was this case that had been dumped in her lap. But Mattias—the person who had taken her under his wing when she was a nervous little graduate with no experience and not a lot of confidence—was counting on her. The client wanted it to end as much as Mattias did, and she wasn’t going to let him down. And aside from all of that, she wanted to finally feel like she was succeeding rather than just surviving at this career she’d, well, kind of fallen into. And fallen she had. But she was two years shy of thirty, and she was in too deep. She had to make it work⁠—

“Is everything all right?”

The voice broke Elliott out of the spiral of self-loathing that often accompanied these thoughts, and she stiffened and turned her head slowly toward the bright sunshine of a voice and the person it belonged to. She sucked in a fast breath before promptly choking on it. Eyes watering, and spluttering entirely unattractively, she gazed at the woman before her—tall, with dirty-blond hair that finished bluntly at her chin, and sparkling blue eyes that appeared almost white around the pupils. The woman stared while Elliott recovered, the side of her mouth lifted in a not-unkind smirk. Elliott’s eyes moved from the woman’s mouth, finding their way down to the bit of clavicle peeking out from the neckline of her cream blouse, and further to where the top of her cleavage was visible. Apparently unable to stop, her gaze dropped further still, down past hips and thighs and ass that the clearly expensive tailored suit pants displayed like works of fucking art.

Elliott’s stomach fluttered pleasantly. Fuck. Suddenly aware she was so obviously checking this stranger out, Elliott shook herself out of it, dragging her gaze back to the woman’s face. She was pleasantly surprised to find that the woman’s cheeks had gone faintly pink, and her plump bottom lip had thinned with a smile Elliott thought seemed almost shy.

“Um, yes, everything’s fine, thanks.” It wasn’t, but this stranger didn’t need to be burdened by Elliott’s problems.

Seeing right through her, the woman said, “It kind of looks like it’s not. Was that your plane?” She motioned with a long-fingered hand toward the window at which Elliott had been standing while watching her flight leave without her.

Elliott sighed. “Yep. Missed it by that much.” She pinched her thumb and index finger together. “Bit annoying, really, because I’ve got kind of a big thing happening in San Francisco tomorrow morning and I’m a bit worried about being able to get on another flight with all this snow.” She glowered at the gates outside and the runway beyond, where the snow on the tarmac was building by the minute, the snowplows clearing a layer only to have to clear it again minutes later. Almost as if the universe were listening—and hated her—a voice came over the speakers announcing flight cancellations for the evening.

While the entire airport seemed to collectively groan, the woman laughed, and Elliott could taste the sweetness of that sound.

“Well, that tracks.” The woman sighed and glanced at the departures board hanging from the ceiling, where the word canceled was popping up all over. She collapsed into the seat beside Elliott. “I was also heading to San Francisco.” She looked away, her brow furrowed minutely, a line appearing between her eyebrows—almost like she was debating herself on something—before she returned her eyes to Elliott’s, resolve brightening the sapphire blue. “Were you heading home, or is Seattle home?”

Elliott chuckled under her breath. Why this gorgeous, probably straight woman wanted to talk to her, Elliott didn’t know, but she’d take it. “Neither, really. I’m traveling for work. Technically I live in Seattle, but I wouldn’t call it home. I’m from a small town not far outside the city.”

A singular eyebrow lifted to the woman’s hairline, and Elliott felt it in her stomach and in other places she had no business thinking about in a public place. “Anywhere I would have heard of?” the woman asked.

Elliott swallowed, cheeks reheating. “Heston. It’s a little ski town out near Stevens Pass.”