Uta couldn’t believe it that the rusted brick facade was going to be her new job. Aluisha had offered her a job after the law offices were banished with the founding members trapped inside, ending the months long period of stress about the stigma associated with such nefarious goings on.
Leaving the foggy Sunday afternoon outside, she passed through the renamed entryway (relieved at the lack of resistance) that still had tape on the name but she could she the important part, the recognized title to be associated onwards with:
HIGH STAKES CASES
She chuckled at the name. It was only after they agreed to watch little Remy for a week together that their secrets were revealed to each other, unprepared for each other’s life kept close to the heart.
Aluisha was in her office early, and had been watching Riri who seemed unaware of her new partner’s presence until she dropped a pen.
“Hello?” a confused Uta called out.
“It’s just me,” she said, opening up the oak door with a characteristically out of place scar under the handle.
“Luca, I can’t thank you enough. Seriously, it means so much that you would offer a job to me after everything I did.”
Aluisha Card smiled, slightly asymmetrically. It was the exact same way that she had when Uta came to her door years ago questioning her career, hoping for an easy answer out of law. The same smile she had while incapacitated in a hospital bed after the bounty hunter incident that appeared right as Uta busted down the door of the room to visit her.
“After everything we did together, I couldn’t just offer you a job.”
“But you renamed the office! I brought boxes over.”
Aluisha apprached closely. “Did you read the sign? Because the tape on the door suggests not.”
Ms. Uta Refson marched over and yanked off the tape from the clouded glass door.
HIGH STAKES CASES
UTA REFSON & ALUISHA CARD
ATTORNEY’S AT LAW
She let out an audible gasp, and her heart would have skipped beat were anyone else. Almost anyone else.
Aluisha had come up next to her. “What do you think, Riri?”
“Why?” she screamed through tears. “Why would you do this for me? Is this pity? Are you just going to say it’s Pro Bono again?”
But Aluisha was not where she expected, but a few feet lower. Uta looked down to see the woman who had been there through the most trying times of her life. Who always took her side when she needed. A shoulder to cry on, a friend to talk to. Now was heads below her on one knee, with eyes almost as watery as hers.
“It’s a proposal.”
Bamboo Shots of the Mind 