Start With Me: A Novel (Start Again Series Book 3) Read online

  “Thank you, Franco,” I say, not bothering with the formality of his surname. “Congratulations on the verdict. I am so pleased for you and your family.”

  I get a tight nod for that and a half a smile, because no doubt the son-of-a-bitch can see through my façade.

  He turns and leaves hastily, his wife under one arm, his eldest son under his other. I watch them go, trying to find comfort in the fact that his family hasn’t lost their patriarch. That his wife has her husband and his son has his father. But I’m still left cold.

  I shake hands with the dismayed district attorney who can’t even be bothered to congratulate me or make eye contact. That’s fine. She’s not my favorite person either.

  I’m about two steps towards the exit when I hear my name over the buzz of the lingering crowd.

  I spin around on my eight hundred dollar, Italian leather shoes to see one of the partners of the firm, my direct boss, Ty Jones. Ty is one of the top defense attorneys in the world. He’s also my mentor and I’d be lying my ass off if I didn’t say that I love the asshole.

  “Hey, Ty.” We give each other a hearty handshake followed by him slapping my back. “I didn’t know you were going to be here for the verdict.”

  “Had to see my protégé in action, didn’t I?” He gives me a self-satisfied grin. “Congratulations on the NG.” He calls a not-guilty verdict NG, in case you missed that one. “Excellently fought and won.” His deep brown eyes light up, no doubt thinking about all of the publicity and new clientele this not-guilty verdict will bring the firm.

  “Thank you. It was a great win.”

  We make our way to the exit together, most of the courtroom having cleared out. “With a difficult client,” Ty adds, slapping my back once again. “The other partners are very happy with your work, Kyle. Keep this up and we’ll be seeing your name on our letterhead soon.”

  I nod my thanks, but don’t offer anything else. I’ve heard this speech before. So has every other associate and junior partner after a win.

  “You heading back to the office?”

  I shake my head. “No. I’ve got an appointment uptown.”

  Ty smiles wider, showcasing a set of perfectly straight white teeth that seem to glow against his dark skin. “Going to meet your latest girl?” he teases. “What’s this one’s name again? Marti, Maddison?”

  I roll my eyes at him, only making him laugh harder. Ty has been married for thirty years to a former model and they have six kids together. He wears five thousand dollar suits, and drives his hundred thousand dollar Mercedes to his beach house in the Hamptons after defending celebrities and some of the toughest cases out there. But for some reason, he gets his kicks by giving me shit about my love life. Or lack thereof.

  “It was Margret, and we’re done.”

  “So soon,” he mocks, making a tsking sound as he shakes his head, feigning dismay. “What went wrong this time?”

  I shrug. “Same as always. I work too much,” I grin at him and he laughs out loud and hard, slapping a hand on my back once more as we make our way through the throngs of people lining the courthouse hallways.

  “Well, I’m glad you do, Kyle. You’re my ace in the hole.”

  I leave Ty on the steps of the courthouse, push through the waiting paparazzi with a few small comments about justice being done and hop in a waiting cab, to head all the way uptown to see my doctor. This sort of appointment is not something I’d ever share with Ty, or anyone else for that matter, and since I’m always scheduling these appointments last minute around work, I’m cutting it close on time.

  Just as we set off, my phone rings. I smile the second I see the picture staring up at me. “Hiya, cupcake,” I breathe into the phone, all of my stress starting to melt away as I hear Claire’s voice through the phone.

  “How’d it go? Did you kick some serious ass?”

  I smile wider, leaning back a little in the seat. “I did,” I tell her.

  She laughs. “I knew you were just being modest or superstitious or whatever the hell you call your crazy, I’m going to lose,” she mocks my voice, “nonsense. I mean, you always freaking win, so why bother with that crap?”

  “Because I’m modest or superstitious or whatever the hell you want to call my crazy nonsense.”

  She sighs and I know she wants to ask me about my case, but won’t. We’ve already had that discussion. And the truth is, I don’t want her to know about Franco Rovelo. I usually tell her about my other cases, but this one is different. And I refuse to think too deeply on why.

  “Where you headed now? Back to the office?”

  “Yes,” I lie. Yet another thing I’m not telling her about.

  “Awesome. Dude, thank you so much for bailing me out with my date last night. That guy was a total letch and just wouldn’t take my not-so-subtle hints.”

  “I’d love to say that’s what friends are for, but I think that’s really more what your female friends are for.”

  I was in my office last night when my phone pinged a text from her.

  Claire: Code Red. I need your help! Now!!!

  Me: What up? I’m working on a motion.

  Claire: You can work your motions later. I need you to call me and tell me that my house is on fire or that there is some sort of emergency that requires my presence this very second. Something. Anything. Now!

  Me: Um . . .

  Me: You don’t live in a house and I can’t think of any emergency off the cuff.

  Claire: Jesus, do I have to hold your hand? It doesn’t freaking matter what it is. Just. Call. Make it good, baby cakes. Kisses.

  So, I did.

  In the months since Ryan’s wedding, Claire and I have talked or texted nearly every day. Sometimes it’s just a quick hello. Sometimes it’s for hours, but that’s rare since I don’t have a lot of time.

  She’s become my guilty pleasure in a purely platonic sort of way.

  Because that’s what we are. Friends.

  She made that shit clear the first night I met her.

  “I gotta run,” I tell her as we draw closer to my destination. “Go do something productive with your day.”

  “Later, skater.” She hangs up and my smile lingers for approximately three minutes until the cab stops.

  I step out right in front of the medical office building of the hospital. I’m late. Only five minutes, but by the time I get upstairs to the office, the receptionist is going to be pissed. I’m practically panting when I reach my floor. The elevator was maddeningly slow, stopping on every goddamn floor it could before it reached mine.

  “I know, I know,” I say to Helen, the receptionist, who’s scowling at me like I’m screwing up her entire day by showing up ten minutes late. I get it, though. I can’t stand it when people are late. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s fine. Go sit down, he’ll be with you shortly.”

  “Did my blood work come in?” I ask before I leave her.

  “It did.” I get a genuine smile for that, her dark brown eyes standing out against the light color of her hair. “Go have a seat,” she says sweetly, my tardiness forgiven.

  Before my ass can hit the leather, the nurse is calling my name. Apparently being late means I don’t have to wait. She checks my height, weight, and vital signs, but once she takes my temperature, she frowns.

  “You have a fever,” she says, looking at the screen of the ear thermometer in her hand.

  “I do?” I ask, surprised. I don’t feel sick. Maybe a little run down, but that’s sort of par for the course with me.

  “Yeah,” she says, flipping the thing around so I can see the screen as well. “100.8”

  “Oh.” I don’t really have a response for that. It’s not exactly a high fever, but it’s definitely something.

  “I’ll let Dr. Winters know you’re here.” Her tone morphs back into professional mode as she leaves me to sit on the hard pleather bed with the white paper crinkling beneath me, wearing only my gray boxer briefs and a stupid paper gown.


  A shudder runs up my spine as my skin pebbles with chills. Maybe I do have a fever.

  I don’t have to wait long before the surly, middle-aged man, wearing his standard starched white lab coat, khakis and frameless glasses hanging low on the bridge of his nose, walks in. I’ve never seen the man smile in all the years I’ve been coming to him, but I guess when you work in hematology and oncology there isn’t a whole lot to smile about.

  “Kyle, it’s good to see you,” he says, sitting down on one of those rolling stools before rolling himself over to the computer on a nearby desk.

  “You too, Dr. Winters. How’ve you been?”

  He gives me a nod as he types in his password and pulls up my chart. I’ve been coming to see Dr. Winters since I moved to New York to attend NYU as an undergraduate. That was ten years ago. When I first met him, I was still considered to be in remission from the double run of Leukemia I had as a kid.

  My family is originally from Philadelphia and I was treated at the children’s hospital there. I was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia or ALL when I was five. I was given chemo and went into remission after two rounds. At fifteen, it came back and that time the chemo wasn’t as effective. Eventually, Ryan ended up donating bone marrow and I had a stem cell transplant that finally kicked the leukemia’s ass into remission. I’ve been there ever since.

  At this point, I’m considered fully cured.

  But every six months, I still come in for blood work for the simple reason that I’ve had a couple of scares. Once when I was in college and once when I was in law school. Apparently, stress does funky things to my body.

  But I’m not one to back down from something simply because there is risk involved. Many of the kids I knew who had leukemia and survived see the world differently than I do. They’re all about stopping to smell the roses, living life to its fullest, carpe diem and all that shit.

  I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that mentality. That’s just not inherently who I am. I survived fucking leukemia twice. I like to think that if I can do that, I can pretty much do anything I set my mind to.

  Which brings me back to Dr. Winters and his not-so-friendly bedside manner. He’s ignoring me, scouring over what I assume to be the blood work that I had done three days ago.

  “You have a fever,” he deadpans. I have no idea if he’s surprised or bothered, or fucking ecstatic.

  “Yeah, the nurse told me. 100.8 or something. I feel fine. Maybe a little run down, but I haven’t had much sleep lately. I just wrapped up a big case.” I get another small head nod for that, but his eyes are fixed on his computer so I don’t exactly know if he heard what I said or not.

  “When did you have this blood work done?”

  “Monday.”

  I don’t like this. Something about the way he’s studying that computer screen as if it’s lying to him makes me uneasy. My heart begins to beat a little faster and my hands turn clammy, though I avoid wiping them on the gown I’m wearing.

  Never let them see you sweat.

  “Well,” he says, finally pulling his face away from his screen and rolling back on the stool so that his entire body is facing me. He pushes the bridge of his glasses up his nose. “Your CBC is concerning.”

  I stare at him. I hate it when doctors speak to you in vague generalities.

  “And that means?” I lean forward, widening my eyes, hoping he’ll elaborate on this one. The man is brilliant and top in his field, but he holds his cards a bit too close to his chest for my liking.

  “It means that you have a significantly elevated leukocyte count.” Seriously? What the fuck now? “You’re also anemic and borderline thrombocytopenic.”

  “Okay,” I draw out the word, completely baffled.

  “You have a fever, Kyle, and this blood work could mean nothing more than an infection. Or not. You look pretty healthy, other than being a little on the pale side.”

  He crosses his arms over his broad chest and I can’t do anything other than stare at him. I know what’s coming. I know what he’s saying. And none of it is good.

  “That said, I’d like to admit you to the hospital to run some tests including blood cultures and a bone marrow biopsy.” Yup. He thinks it’s back. Fuck! My stomach rolls as that familiar twinge of fear creeps its way up my spine. “Have you had any unusual bleeding? Weight loss? Night sweats?”

  I think on this. I’ve lost some weight. But that’s not exactly uncommon when I’m working on a big case like the one I just finished this morning. Long hours mixed with an inconsistent diet lends itself to that.

  “No,” I answer instead of admitting to that. I don’t know why, but for some reason my pride is holding on to that one. Maybe because I don’t want him to give me the look. The one that says I’m a moron for not taking better care of myself.

  “I’ll just make a few phone calls and see about getting you a bed.”

  “No,” I say firmly, sitting up straight and trying for some fucking dignity, despite the fact that I’m sitting on this hard plastic table, paper crinkling under my ass and only wearing this stupid paper gown. “I can’t. I have a pretrial hearing tomorrow.”

  He sighs out long and hard. We’ve played this particular game before and he’s not used to people refusing when it comes to their health as easily and frequently as I do.

  “Kyle–”

  “Can’t we do this outpatient?”

  “No. We can’t. Your blood work is concerning. You have a fever. Something is going on and if I send you home, things could get worse. I’m not risking you going into septic shock. I want stat labs and we’ll probably put you on IV antibiotics. Make the call and have someone fill in.”

  Shit.

  Chapter 2

  Kyle

  When I was six, I used to love spending time in the hospital. That may seem like an odd thing to say, but it’s true. I played video games, had my own television, a DVD player and could pick out whatever movies I wanted to watch. We had an art room, a music space, and terrorizing the nurses and doctors became our sport.

  The other kids were my family.

  People who understood what I was going through in a way my regular family never could.

  Kids with cancer spend a lot of time living in the hospital. We’re susceptible to infections, require frequent doses of chemo and necessitate a lot of procedures. The hospital becomes our home away from home. And in a children’s hospital, they go above and beyond to try and make it fun for us, despite our looming, life-threatening, illnesses.

  But now, at twenty-seven, the idea of spending five minutes, let alone an overnight, in the hospital is abhorrent.

  For one, they smell bad.

  Like chemical cleaners and people. And fucking disease.

  You can never get a straight answer about anything, and time moves at a snail’s pace. Not to mention I always feel freaking nasty being in these beds that a million other people have slept in and done God knows what else in.

  But that’s exactly where I find myself, laying in one of those beds, with nothing but a thin white blanket and a johnnie to cover me. Dr. Winters directly admitted me, so at least I was able to bypass the emergency department, and they have Wi-Fi, so I can get some work done even if I can’t be in court.

  The reality is that I’m in a crap mood.

  The reality is that I’m angry and frustrated, and so very tired of dealing with doctors and needles and medical runaround. I’m tired of having this threat always lingering over me. My arm is hooked up to an IV, pumping fluids, as well as antibiotics, into me. Three different doctors have poked and prodded me so far, and have all asked me the same set of questions.

  Oh, and they took more blood than I thought was humanly possible to give without dying.

  Maybe my cancer-surviving friends who spend their lives floating along aimlessly have it all figured out. Maybe I’m the sucker in this scenario for working myself to the point where my body shuts down on me. It’s not exactly like I love getting murderers, rap
ists, and goddamn mob bosses off for their crimes.

  I just happen to love the law.

  And the paycheck. That’s not so bad either.

  “You’re next on the list,” the thirty-something nurse in her bright pink scrubs says from the threshold of my door. At least I’m in a private room. “Shouldn’t be too much longer now.”

  I smile at her, enjoying the way her cheeks blush every time I do. She’s pretty, but a little old for me. Not to mention married. “Thanks, Tammy.”

  She lets out a breathy sigh, lingering for a moment longer than necessary before she spins around and bounces away. My eyes scroll back to my laptop, just as my phone vibrates with a call.

  Work. Crap.

  “This is Kyle,” I answer, my eyes scanning to the open door to make sure no one is within hearing range.

  “Hi Kyle, it’s Nancy,” my assistant says in her chipper tone. “Thought you’d like to know that the pretrial hearing went well and that Judge Renbrooke says we can expect a ruling by early next week.”

  “Great,” I sigh, a bit relieved. “That’s good to hear.”

  “It is. Also, your brother has called the office twice today asking for you to return his calls.”

  He’s called my cell phone twice since I’ve been here too. And he’s also called a bunch of times in the last few weeks, but I’ve missed him every time I tried to call back. Life’s been busy for both of us, I guess. But today, I was reluctant to answer because I don’t exactly relish the thought of telling him where I am and why I’m here.

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll give him a call.”

  “Great. Hope you feel better and I’ll have my phone with me this weekend if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, Nancy. Have a nice weekend.”

  I hang up before she can say anything further. Staring at my phone, I deliberate my next move. Do I call Ryan back? Four calls in one day is not like him. Do I tell him where I am or lie like I did to my office? They think I’m home with the stomach flu. No one questioned me because I’ve never missed a day of work.