There wasn’t a response for a long couple of minutes and I hated that all I could do was stare at my phone and pace back and forth while I waited to see what he was going to say. I was acting like a smitten teenager and it was ridiculous. I snorted at myself and headed into the kitchen to pour myself a glass of wine when the phone rang, making me jump. I wasn’t prepared for him to call me right that moment and had a bout of anxiety about answering the call before I told myself to man up and swiped my finger across the screen.

“Hey. Everything all right?” I heard a car honk its horn wherever he was calling from, and he mumbled something that wasn’t directed at me before answering.

“Fuck no. I’m freaking out over this court date on Monday. I can’t think straight and I’m screwing things up left and right, which isn’t good when you deal with power tools most of the day.” He sighed and I so wanted to give him a hug. “I ordered the wrong color paint for the living room in the house I’m working on and the painters sprayed it today. It’s blue . . . like really goddamn blue, and now I need to fix it so my guys don’t kill me. I have to go get a layer of primer on the walls so the paint crew can go in and respray tomorrow. I’ve been working my crew like crazy because I’ve been missing so much work lately and this may be the last straw. I’m gonna have to work all night. I need you to tell me everything will be all right, Sayer. I’m going out of my mind over here.”

I didn’t want to lie to him, so I huffed out a breath and told him, “The case has some challenges, Zeb. We’ve talked about those, but the court advocate has seen how great you are with Hyde and it’s obvious the best place for him is with you. We just need to convince the court of that and you need to leave that to me. That’s why I’m your plan, remember?”

He swore again and I heard his car door open and shuffling as he got in. “I just wish I didn’t have that arrest staring me in the face every time I think about possible reasons the judge could keep Hyde from me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut as his remorse over his past misdeeds heavily laced his words. “All you can do is be thankful that no matter how bad the circumstances might’ve been that led you there, they did, in a roundabout way, lead you to Hyde. I see the way you look at him, Zeb. There is no regret there even if the path to him might have been bumpy.”

He sighed again. “You’re really good at this lawyer shit, Sayer. If I haven’t said it enough, thank you. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

I put a hand over my eyes and squeezed my temples with my fingers. His words pulled at so many different parts of me. I could feel those emotions that he called to pushing at all the things I tried to keep them tied down with.

“I’m happy to help. It’s not often I know for a fact that the parent fighting so hard for custody is the absolute right choice for the child. We are doing the right thing here, and you just have to have faith that the court and the powers that be will see it. One battle at a time, Zeb. That’s all we can tackle, okay?”

He was quiet for a long moment, but I could hear him breathing and then finally he grunted a little bit and replied, “Well, then the battle I need to tackle right now is those god-awful walls. Thank you for talking me off the ledge. It’s impossible not to hope for the best when I talk to you.”

Maybe it was the overwhelming quiet of my house or it was the wistfulness in his voice. Or maybe it was the fact that no matter how hard I tried to keep a clear divide between the two of us, I was always going to be too eager to cross over it when an opportunity presented itself.

Like a goddamn fool.

Calling myself every kind of name for fool there was in the book, I blurted out, “I’m not doing anything tonight, and Poppy went out with Rowdy, so if you need an extra set of hands to help with the paint I can swing by the house.” I wanted to groan. I was the least handy person in the whole world and I don’t think I had ever even held a paintbrush, but the idea of getting to spend some one-on-one time with him was just so tempting that I ignored all of that and secretly hoped he would ignore it, too.

He chuckled a little. “Are you serious?”

I shrugged even though he couldn’t see it. “Sure. Why not?”

“Well, I’m not going to turn down free labor, especially when that free labor looks like you. Do you even own anything that you won’t be pissed to get paint on, Say? What I do tends to get dirty.” His voice dropped a little bit and there was a husky timbre to the words that made me shiver.

There was a double entendre there that was impossible to miss and it made all of my skin heat up from the inside out. Not to mention no one had ever shortened my name before. I wasn’t exactly the cutesy nickname type. My father wouldn’t have approved and as such I was always just “Sayer.” Zeb’s shortening of my name felt intimate. It felt far more familiar than I should be allowing myself to get with him. Still I didn’t say anything other than “I’m sure I can find something. I’ll change and head over.”

He told me thank you again and I was eternally grateful no one was around to witness the way I ran up the stairs so fast that I tripped, or the way I started pawing through all the clothes in my closet like a deranged person. Things fell off of hangers and off of shelves, ending up in piles on the floor that got tangled around my feet and had me tripping all over again. Finally, out of desperation, because I really didn’t own anything that was worn out or already stained, I decided that what I wore to the gym would have to be good enough. I left on my stretchy yoga pants that I had changed into after work and added a tank with a built-in bra—both were colored a sedate gray—and shoved my feet into my running shoes. Those were black with hot-pink stripes on the sides. Overall it was as boring and uninteresting as the stuff I wore to the office, but at least I wouldn’t cry if I had to throw any of it out if it ended up paint spattered and ruined.

I yanked all of my hair into a messy braid at the back of my head and practically ran out the front door. I told myself to calm down the entire drive over, lectured myself sternly that appearing this eager and excited to see him outside of CASA or my office would send the wrong message. I could be his lawyer and his friend. I was strong enough, my heart cool enough from the deep freeze I kept it in, to put all the heavier, denser things I felt for him to the side and simply enjoy some casual time in his company while I offered a helping hand. I was just a friend helping out another friend.