Love Proof (Laws of Attraction)

Eight

Mickey Hughes had sought her out.

He made no attempt to hide why.

“I want you on my team. You’re beautiful and you smell good, and you know we’ll kick their asses. Which one do you want to go to?”

The Moot Court meeting had only just ended, and Sarah was looking over the list of national competitions taking place that fall. There were ones all over the country, each focusing on different areas of the law. The one that caught her eye was a patient confidentiality issue in a health law case. The competition would take place at Southern Illinois University School of Law at the beginning of November.

“That’s the one I’m doing,” she said, pointing to the description.

Mickey gave it a quick read. “Fine. Great. Whatever. Let’s go grab a beer.”

Sarah glanced around the room at the other potential partners she might have asked to work with her. She knew Mickey from their first year Torts class, and had been in Trial Prep with him their second year, so she had seen enough to know he wasn’t stupid. Maybe not the best choice out of everyone in the room, but not an awful one, either.

“You sure you’re up for it?” Sarah asked him. “I’m not just doing this for the credit—I’m doing it to win.”

Mickey flashed her a smile. “Counting on it, Henley. Why do you think I picked you?”

While Mickey bought their beers, Sarah looked over the paperwork she picked up at the meeting. It included a longer description of what the case was about.

She passed it across to Mickey and took a sip of pale ale. “Which side do you want to take?” she asked him. “Petitioner or respondent?”

He didn’t bother reading the sheet. “Whatever you say. I’m just your dog, Sarah. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

“Huh-uh,” she said, setting down her glass. “First of all, I hate group work, because someone—me—always ends up doing most of it. Second, you need to decide right now if you’re willing to work as hard as I am. Because if you’re not, let’s just enjoy our beer and part friends. No harm, no foul, we’ll just go find other partners.”

“Don’t be so touchy,” he said, smiling. “Of course I’m going to work. I just meant I’m not going to fight you on anything. I know how good you are at this, and I’m not one of those guys who can’t take their woman showing them up every now and then.”

“Their woman?” Sarah repeated, her voice thick with sarcasm.

“Okay, ‘moot court partner’—you like that better?” Mickey asked.

Sarah sipped her beer and took a few more moments to consider. Her partner the year before had been an older woman who was an excellent writer, and had done a great job on her portion of the brief, but who began to fall apart the moment they argued their case in front of the judges. Catherine had barely gotten out two sentences of her prepared statement before the judges began firing questions at her, one after another.

That was how Moot Court was supposed to go—it was an imitation of arguing an appellate case in front of a panel of judges primed to interrupt and ask questions, and generally to overwhelm and challenge the lawyers. And for the past two months Sarah and Catherine and everyone else in Moot Court had been rehearsing exactly how to deal with that.

But suddenly Catherine seemed very tired. She rested her arms against the podium and her head started to droop. The next thing Sarah knew, Catherine was swaying to the side, and both Sarah and one of her opponents from the other team leapt up just in time to catch the woman before she fainted. They helped her back to her seat, and Catherine folded her arms on top of the counsel table and laid her head there. Her breathing sounded ragged. Sarah hoped her partner wasn’t going to throw up.

“You’ll have two minutes, counsel,” the chief judge informed her. “If you don’t resume by then, you forfeit.”

Sarah wasn’t sure her partner would recover in time. Her face—what Sarah could see of it—was still deathly pale, and Sarah could hear a soft moan.

“Catherine?” she whispered. “Are you going to be all right?”

Catherine gave a slight nod.

Sarah glanced at the timer ticking away in front of them. What a disaster. If only the rules allowed her to take over for Catherine, it would have been all right. But as it was, all Sarah could do was rub the woman’s back and say soothing things to her, like, “You can do this. It’s almost over. You only have to argue a few more minutes.”

When the chief judge warned of the last ten seconds, Catherine slowly rose to her feet. Sarah helped steady her back to the podium. Then Catherine made a valiant—and successful—effort to remain on her feet until the allotted time was over. Then she sank back into her chair and laid her head on the table again.

Needless to say, they lost.

But Mickey Hughes didn’t seem the fainting type. If anything, he looked like he’d enjoy the spotlight while judges tried to hammer holes in his argument.

“You’ll have to make time for this,” Sarah warned him. “I don’t care what your class load is, I want to meet at least three times a week.”

“Sounds good,” Mickey said.

“We’ll divide up the briefing and decide who researches and writes which part.”

“Great,” he said.

“And before you start saying yes to everything,” Sarah added, “let me tell you this is strictly professional. This isn’t you getting into my pants.”

“All right,” Mickey said with a grin, “I’ll deal with that separately, on my own time.”

“I’m serious, Hughes, it ain’t happening. I’m here to work.”

He gave her a salute and downed the rest of his beer. “Want another?” he asked, getting up. “I have the feeling you’re more fun when you’re drunk.”

Just to prove her point, Sarah pushed away her still mostly-full glass. “Time to go study,” she said, also rising to her feet. “See you tomorrow. We’ll divide up the work then.”

“See you, beautiful,” he said.

“That’s the last time you say that or we’re done right now.”

Mickey chuckled. “I meant see you, scrawny, high-strung girl with the big brain.”

Sarah smiled at that. “I’m never high-strung,” she said. “You’ll see. And you’d better be a lot cooler in court than you are trying to pick me up.”

“I definitely am,” Mickey assured her.

She held out her hand for him to shake. “Guess you’ll do for now.”

***

The next time Sarah checked the sign-up sheet, she could see Joe Burke and his partner Ellen Kiptar were the other team working on the same case. They had signed up to represent the respondent—the hospital which had failed to protect sensitive patient information from someone who hacked into the computer database—whereas Sarah and Mickey represented the petitioner, a woman whose medical records had been exposed. The question was whether the patient had a constitutional right to privacy that the hospital violated by being so lax with its computer security. Sarah liked the patient’s side of the argument better than the hospital’s. She thought she could do a lot with that.

She knew Joe Burke only by name and sight. And all she knew about his partner Ellen was that she was on the Moot Court board and acted as treasurer. Even though they were all third years, UCLA’s law school was big enough that students only got to know the people in their smaller classes, and so far Sarah hadn’t had any of those with either Joe or Ellen.

Although Sarah did remember one incident involving Joe in her second year, when they were both in the same Federal Tax Law class. He always sat in the back of the large, theater-style classroom, on the opposite side of the room from Sarah. On this particular day he looked like he was sleeping.

Which was exactly why the professor called on him. But instead of proving the professor’s suspicions that he was another one of those lazy students caught partying too much instead of studying, Joe completely nailed the question the professor threw at him. Then he kept on going and gave the professor case law that hadn’t even been cited in the textbook to back up what he was saying.

Sarah, along with most of her classmates, had a good laugh at the whole exchange. Then Joe Burke went back to slouching into his seat like a slacker, even though his cover had just been blown.

Sarah had also seen him around school with a variety of different female companions. And that right there crossed him off whatever list she might have had. She didn’t like players—never had. Like she told Mickey Hughes, she was there at the school to work.

She would make time for a personal life later. Once she had gotten everything she came for.

***

The first time she watched Joe Burke argue his side of the case during one of the practices, she should have known.

He was that good.

That electrifying, that charismatic, that smart.

Trouble.

“Wonder if any of the other teams have thought of that argument,” Sarah murmured to Mickey, who sat beside her in the audience watching.

Even though the two teams were dealing with the same case, they wouldn’t argue against each other at the competition. Each of them would be matched with a team from another school.

And Sarah had to admit she was grateful.

Burke was that good.

Maybe even better than she was.

“He’s not that great,” Mickey muttered back. “We could take him.”

“His partner, for sure,” Sarah said. Ellen underwhelmed them both.

But Burke . . .

When the guest judges were finished questioning him, Joe thanked them all and headed back to his table.

But not before looking straight at Sarah. And smiling.

She looked away as if she’d been caught at something. Because she had.

Mickey nudged her with his elbow. “Let’s go grab a beer.”

Sarah stared at the back of Joe’s head a moment longer before answering, “Not tonight.”

And maybe that was the start of it, she thought later. The moment when she might have faintly written Joe’s name down on her imaginary list.

Like the Flourish list: things she might want but didn’t necessarily need.

Maybe, Sarah thought as she watched him walk out of the room—saw him once again glance her way and deliberately look her in the eye—a guy like Joe Burke could be interesting to know.

But not now. Maybe later.

After she beat him and everyone else in the competition.