It's Complicated

Chapter 25

"Know?" Jamie said with a confused look on her face, "know what?"

"About us, that we were together when we were both on the Wilson case," I said.

"Shit," Jamie said, "well what do we need to do to fix it?"

I hesitated, wanting to avoid the subject and just rip the bandaid off at the same time.

"Jamie they want me to transfer to another office."

"Oh," she said, "well that's not terrible, right? Don't they have a lot of locations around here?"

"Yes, but - " I paused, still not wanting to even say this out loud. "They want me to go to the one in California."

Jamie's jaw dropped as she looked for the words to say. "Cas that's - you can't go there. That's - "

"On the other side of the damn country, I know," I said, cutting her off.

"We probably shouldn't talk about this while we're still here," I continued.

Jamie nodded, still looking like she was in shock. "Come over to my place and we can figure this out, okay?" She said.

I knew there wasn't much that could be done to figure it out, but I agreed so we didn't have to keep discussing this when we were still in the office building.

A few minutes later we arrived at Jamie's apartment and both came in and sat on the couch.

"Cas," Jamie started, "there has to be another way we can deal with this. What did Jason even say to you?"

I wanted to tell her the truth. To tell her that her firm had said they were going to fire her if I didn't leave, but I couldn't do it. I knew she would try to convince me to stay and let her lose her job, and I wasn't going to let that happen.

"He basically said that if we don't do it this way, it could get a lot worse. And that we're lucky that we're both not getting disbarred."

"God damn it," Jamie said, a defeated look on her face. "I'm sorry," she continued, "I should've listened to you when you wanted to tell them in the first place."

I shook my head and put my hand on her knee. "Jamie it's not your fault, I agreed to it too."

"What's going to happen if I'm here in Philadelphia and you're all the way over in California?" Jamie asked.

"I don't know," I sighed, "it doesn't seem like that would work very well, does it?"

Jamie shook her head slowly, "just when things had started to work out, this has - " she was cut off by a knock on the door.

She looked at the door with a confused look on her face, like she definitely wasn't expecting anyone. As she got up to open the door, I moved down to the end of the couch so I could peek over and see who it was.

Jamie pulled the door open and Maddox's smug face was waiting on the other side. Why did he always show up whenever there was a problem?

"Maddox, didn't I kick you out multiple times already? What do you want? This isn't a good time." Jamie said.

Maddox looked around Jamie and saw me sitting on the couch. "Oh no, trouble in paradise?" He asked.

There were few people I hated more than him. I stood up and walked towards the door to stand by Jamie, waiting to see what he had to say.

"There would probably be a lot less trouble if you'd leave us alone," I said with a small smile.

"Well," Maddox started again, "speaking of trouble, it seems like you two are probably in some after your firms found out you were together, huh?"

Jamie raised an eyebrow at him, "why would you know - Maddox you didn't."

I still wasn't sure what was going on until I heard Maddox say, "oh I just thought they would probably like to know what was going on between two of their top lawyers."

"Wait a minute," I cut in, "you told them??"

He shrugged as a smirk came across his face and he said, "the anonymous tip they got may not have been all that anonymous."

I could see the rage in Jamie's eyes as she moved forward and looked like she was going to lunge at him. I quickly stepped in front of her and put my hands on her hips.

"Jamie," I said, trying to get her attention away from him, "he's not even worth it, come on."

"I can't fucking believe you!" She yelled out the door at him. "Just because you're too much of a prick for me to be married to doesn't mean you have to try and keep me from being happy!"

I gently pushed her back in the doorway before turning around to face Maddox. "Go fuck yourself." I said as I slammed the door in his face.

Jamie pulled back from me and turned to lean against the kitchen counter. She put her head down and slammed her hand down on the hard surface. "How does he keep managing to ruin everything??" She said angrily.

I walked over and stood next to her, putting my hand around her waist. "Let me talk to Jason again before we panic too much, okay?"

She sighed and nodded slightly. "I fucking hate him. I should've known he couldn't just leave us alone."

"I know," I agreed with her, "we both know he's a grade A asshole, that's no secret."

She turned to face me with her shoulders slumped and sighed.

"I'll talk to a few people this week and see what I can figure out," I said.

"Yeah, okay," Jamie said quietly.

"I'm going to go home but I'll make sure I let you know what I find out."

Jamie leaned forward and pressed a light kiss to my lips. She kept her forehead against mine and nodded. "I'll see you tomorrow," she said.