3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Michael

"We, the jury, find the defendant, not guilty."

Wait. What? Not guilty? What?

Surely, I had misheard the jury foreman. There was no way they could find the scumbag sitting at the next table, not guilty. The trial had been a quick one, lasting a week. The jury had been sequestered over the weekend and had come back with a verdict this morning. This should have been an open and shut case, the evidence clearly pointing to the defendant's guilt.

"What just happened?" Shelby, my second chair, asked incredulously, her eyes wide. "Did they say not guilty? Michael?"

Too stunned to speak, I barely heard the judge, or anything else happening around me in the crowded courtroom. All that registered was my winning streak had just been ended by a group of twelve men and women.

Heart pounding, I assured my client we would appeal on her behalf. At least it wasn't a murder case, or we'd be screwed with double jeopardy. But the defendant had broken into the victim's house, held her at knifepoint for hours and terrorized her. Thankfully, he hadn't sexually assaulted her, but she was still suffering from nightmares and panic attacks.

And these people, this jury, had just let him walk.

What. In. The. Actual. Fuck. Had. Just. Happened?

Escaping the courtroom, and Shelby's questions that I had no answers to, I shouldered the men's room door open and thanked God it was empty. Grasping onto the sink with both hands, I stared at myself in the mirror, breathing hard.

Shell shocked wasn't a good look on me.

Why did I feel close to an anxiety attack? It was one case. I had lost one case. I had tried many. And won them all, a little voice in my brain helpfully reminded me. I didn't like not winning, and neither did my ego.

The twink from last night flashed in my head, and all the mumbling mumbo jumbo he had whispered under his breath. What had he done to me ? Had he really cursed me? Of course, he hadn't. Curses weren't real. This was just a…I wasn't sure what this was, but I didn't like it. Not one little bit .

"Fuck!" I slammed my palms against the porcelain sink hard enough to cause it to shake and rattle.

"Whoa, Counselor!" Detective Derek Adams voice jarred through the pity party I was about to throw myself. "What the hell just happened in there, Michael?"

Blinking my blue eyes at my best friend, I gaped at him, then gasped, "We…lost?"

The word felt weird and foreign on my tongue when I whispered it. It wasn't that I never lost at things…well, honestly, I couldn't remember a time that I had lost at anything. Certainly, when I had been fresh out of law school, I had expected to lose some cases. And then…I just never had.

It was my life on repeat, from elementary school through high school and then college. Everything I tried, I excelled at. Easily. From basketball to football to track. Even my grades were above average, and I had led my high school debate team to victory four years in a row. Even as a freshman.

Life had always come easy to me.

Everything came easy to me.

Losing at anything wasn't in my vocabulary, and I was not handling it well.

Derek clapped me on the back in solidarity. "It happens to most mere mortals, Mikey. I've told you your luck was bound to run out at some point. I'm just not sure what happened with this case. It was fucking airtight, and everything was by the book. This should have been a slam dunk. Your closing was perfection. You gonna appeal?"

Derek washed his hands after he took a leak, staring at me in the mirror, his brow furrowed. His thick, midnight brows made him look menacing when he did that. Which Derek totally could be when he put his mind to it. "Mikey, you look like you've seen a ghost. Don't take it so hard, man. And maybe now you'll be a little more humble."

Giving him side-eye, I tried to straighten my hair where I had mussed it with my fingers, and demanded, "What's that supposed to mean? When am I not humble?"

Derek dried his hands, tossing the towel in the garbage like he was shooting hoops at one of our Tuesday night pick-up games. Straightening my tie for me, he gave me a shit-eating grin. "Look, you know I love you like a brother, right?"

"Riigghhhtt." I already didn't like where this was going.

"Fuck, don't sound so skeptical," Derek sounded annoyed now. "Look, if your best friend can't tell you the truth, who can?"

"What truth?" I glanced at my watch. My next case was starting in ten minutes. We needed to wrap this–whatever the fuck this was–up. "Tell me what?"

Derek tilted his head, staring hard at me with his dark eyes. Giving a casual shrug, he waved a hand in the air between us. "Sometimes you come across a little cocky, is all. Okay, a lot cocky, honestly."

My brows rose to meet the perfectly trimmed and styled hair on my forehead. "Cocky?"

"Arrogant."

Mouth agape, I gasped, "I am not arrogant! Or cocky! I'm a very nice guy!"

The previous night rushed at me, and I stifled my wince. Mostly, I was a nice guy. I just didn't let people, especially one-hit wonders, sleep over. It was a thing I had. That didn't make me a bad guy. I didn't sleep with anyone in my bed. Ever.

"Mikey, you are a nice guy, but those things aren't exclusive. One doesn't count the other out. You can be nice and still be a bit arrogant," Derek told me bluntly, holding the door open so I could pass by him.

"Don't call me Mikey." He knew I hated anyone shortening my name. It was hard enough differentiating between my dad, grandpa, and me–all of us named Michael.

"You've lived a charmed life, Michael ," he stressed my name, and I rolled my eyes. "You're one of those people that things just come easily to. You breezed through high school at the top of your class, the top of every sport you tried–"

"How do you know about my high school years?" Because I seldom talked about high school with anyone and knew I had never mentioned much to Derek, if anything .

It was his turn to roll his eyes. "Dude, I'm a fucking detective. Do you really think I'm not going to run a background check on pretty much everyone I meet? Especially someone who was best friend material? Pftt, please. As I was saying, everything you touch is golden. But, and I'm telling you this with all my love as your bestie, you're cocky as fuck. I mean, I don't mind it, I'm a cocky fucker too. But sometimes people that don't know the real you, find it a bit…"

"Cocky," I finished for him, dryly repeating his earlier words.

"Don't forget arrogant." He was grinning now, and I knew he was trying his best to lighten the mood.

"How could I?" I asked on an annoyed breath. "I've gotta get to court. I've got a full day today."

"Knock ‘em dead, Counselor." Derek patted me on the back. "Don't let one loss get to you. I'm sure the higher ups aren't ready to rescind your golden boy crown just yet."

Only it wasn't just one loss that day. It was every single case I presented before a judge that day. Every single thing had been argued down or met with a wall of opposition. Two cases had even been tossed out of court in the preliminary charges by the judges on minor technicalities I hadn't seen coming.

Nothing like this had ever happened to me before.

After a phone call from my father, telling me for the four hundredth and fifty-seventh time that I should have joined his practice, where most cases were tried in a boardroom and not an overcrowded courtroom like civilized gentlemen, I packed my briefcase for the night, more than ready to put this hellish day behind me.

Even my administrative assistant gave me a sad, knowing smile, calling, "Tomorrow will be a better day, Michael. You can't win them all."

I knew I hadn't made any mistakes on any of the cases today. Just to push any doubts from my mind, I planned to go back over everything when I got home tonight. Every single case. Every letter, every word, every document. Deep down, I knew those cases had been airtight. Those criminals shouldn't have walked out of the courtrooms. They should all have been sitting behind bars, locked up tight.

Derek's words haunted me as I left the office, not sitting well with me at all. Was I cocky? I liked to call it confidence. I was good at my job, and I knew it. That didn't make me arrogant or cocky. Did it?

Today's losses weren't sitting well with me, though. My entire world felt upside down, and I wasn't sure how to handle any of it. Had my life been so easy that I couldn't even deal with one bad day? It seemed so.

I wasn't sure what that said about me as a person, honestly.

Tomorrow had to be a better day.