Cash dropped his fork, and it clattered to the floor.
“What the fucknow?” Chase said, narrowing his eyes.
Wilder was up and halfway down the hallway to the front door before I grabbed him by the shirt to slow him down.
“Hold up,” I said. “I got it.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting when I opened the front door a crack—Harlan with a flamethrower, maybe—but it was some blond guy around my age wearing a Hawaiian shirt, sunglasses, and a grin.
“Hey,” he said and gave me a little wave. “Are you Danny Hall? I’m Marty. I’m your attorney. I’m here about the tree.”
“What?” I asked. “I didn’t call—I can’t afford an attorney.”
“Don’t worry about it, bro,” the guy—Marty—said, an easy grin spreading over his face. “It’s quid pro quo, dude.”
“Pro bono!” another voice called, and I opened the door a little wider to see a second guy hurrying up onto the porch, clutching a leather satchel. He washot. He was taller than me, with that trim build you associate with runners or swimmers. He had dark hair that was carefully styled away from his face, dark lashes that framed deep brown eyes, and a jawline that made you think of lumberjacks and superheroes. He also looked like he was about half a second away from strangling Marty. “And you’re not an attorney!” He elbowed Marty out of the way and stuck his hand out toward me. “Danny Hall? I’m Miller Clarke.Iwill be your attorney, if you agree to that. This is Marty O’Brien. He’s an intern.”
“And tree law specialist,” Marty said.
“Intern,” Miller repeated. He tipped his chin toward the mess of branches and sawdust littering the driveway. “I’m guessing that’s the tree in question? Is it okay if we come inside and talk about what’s happened and what the process is if you agree to engage me?”
I just stared at him.
Wilder poked me in the back. “Dude, it’s a free lawyer. Let him in.”
So I let him in.
I showed them into the living room. It was kind of sparse. Like, it was obvious it was just us guys here, you know? When Grandma had lived here, the living room had been warm and welcoming and put together like a picture from a magazine, if that magazine had been printed in the 1980s. Now we had the couch, an old recliner, a sagging beanbag, the TV, and abookshelf that had like, three books and mostly collected dust and empty beer cans. Oh, and we had a rug that Cash had found in a dumpster. But we’d washed it, so it was fine, right?
“Uh,” I said, looking at Miller’s nice suit and our not-nice couch. “Sorry about the mess.”
“It’s fine,” he said and took a seat on one end of the couch.
I took a seat next to him, still wondering what the hell was going on.
“Oh,sweet,” Marty said, checking out the games stacked underneath the TV.
“Marty,” Miller said and pointed at the couch.
Marty went and sat.
Wilder leaned in the doorway with Cash peering into the room from behind him. Chase came and collected a few beer cans from the bookshelf. Better late than never, I guessed.
“I didn’t call a lawyer,” I said.
Miller pulled a tablet out of his satchel and tapped at the screen. “Someone called Bobby Merritt called and said you needed a lawyer, so here I am.”
“It’s that easy?” I asked dubiously. There had to be a catch.
“My boss, Callahan Fisher, is apparently an old friend of Bobby’s,” Miller said.
“He’s a bro,” Marty said.
Miller shot him a look. “Callahan believes in giving back to the community, so he’s happy to take your case pro bono. So, my job here today is to see what sort of case you have and, if you agree to have me represent you, to move forward on getting you a resolution.”
Those seemed like a lot of words that weren’t really saying anything.
“What sort of resolution?” Wilder asked from the doorway. “We had a tree and now we don’t.”
