chapt 1

Val gave him a thumb's-up and headed off to his own desk. He hadn't been lying about needing to prepare himself for whatever Catherine wanted.

He didn't run into Catherine between Aidan's desk and his, which meant he had time to settle in, turn on his computer, and check his email. Whatever part of the network was down, or whatever the IT guys were doing, it hadn't affected him as far as he could tell, because there was the usual collection of first-thing-in-the-morning email, a lot of which didn't really need his attention. Internal emails tended to be brushed with a faint sheen of paranoia and ass-covering, so in any given batch of mail, you were guaranteed a high number of messages you'd been copied or blind-copied on for no other reason than the sender needed everyone to know he or she had sent them. And Caswell Velez Malcolm and Simonson was not a small firm, so there was a lot of unnecessary mail traveling to people's inboxes.

( Val felt like he had to at least skim everything, though, just in case )

words: 1733
total words: 3800

chapt 1

"You too." And then the elevator arrived and he got in, rode it down to the first floor, and went to the atrium to find his lunch date.

Aidan was sitting at a little table near the cafe, apparently texting someone on his phone. There was a paper lunch bag sitting on the table in front of him, as well as a can of Coke. It looked like he'd brought his lunch. Maybe his girlfriend had packed it for him - sometimes she assembled an interesting lunch so Aidan wouldn't have to pay for one. Val felt lucky if he remembered to eat breakfast, never mind pack himself a lunch. For some reason it was a little too much work to do in the morning.

"Hey," he said, dropping into the chair across from Aidan. "Chad had to get me out of the library."

"That's what he told me," Aidan said. He was still looking at his phone. "Stella says hi." Stella was the famous girlfriend.

"Hi Stella."

( Aidan finished texting or reading or whatever he was doing and snapped his phone closed. )

words: 1736
total words: 5391