I think it brings out their inner outlaw, or something close to that, anyway. In the exact same way that Def Leppard brings out my inner stripper.
Yes, just like that.
Only to be an outlaw you just sit back and wish you were in your rode-off cowboy boots, threadbare jeans and a leather jacket, unshaven for four or five years and able to kill a man with ease. To be a stripper you've gotta move, though leather and cowboy boots are fine. You can be unshaven for an hour tops, though waxing is better, and you can kill a man with your gaze but then he'll toss a five dollar bill in your direction, wink, and walk the fuck out to his truck and leave. Because that's what outlaws do.
So we split everything down the middle around here. They can be outlaws but no strippers and no draws. I can be a stripper, but only after midnight, as Patsy instructs.
What was I here to write about again? Because I can't remember.
Oh, yes. That. The lawyer meeting yesterday that almost saw an Avengers-caliber level of destruction before my baby lawyerling managed to get the floor long enough to put everyone in their place. I call him a lawyerling because he must be eleven, tops. But he has expensive taste and encyclopedic knowledge and he's too naive to actually be afraid of Caleb. He has no idea who Caleb is (was?) which works well in my favor but he also has no idea who Patsy Cline is either so sadly, while this kid will always be the law, he'll never be an outlaw, that's for certain.
He advised me to sue.
I already did that, I reminded him. Look where it got me.
He throws a net worth statement at me with his eyebrows raised.
There's more to life than money.
The eyebrows turn to question marks. Sigh. I need a lawyer who at least was alive when the Challenger blew up. Or at least saw the inaugural broadcast of Muchmusic. Something.
He suggested a bond of limitations, similar to a peace bond except that I can contact Caleb at will. Or I could block him completely. The settlement would continue but with much harsher restrictions. Or better yet, follow the advice of every lawyer, psychoanalyst and professional mental rearranger I've ever met who all say the same thing: Bridget, you won't get better until you get him out of your life. Cut off all contact. Excommunicate him forever.
I can't do that.
Or rather, I won't.
So the meeting as mostly to finish up extracting him from the remainder of Henry's official paperwork and mine and to reassure him that I'm not cutting off his access to anything. This is where Lochlan lost his mind. Lochlan wants this to be done. He wants Caleb finished. He wants me to save myself.
And I can't.
There won't be any punitive damages this time around, except to me once again and like Patsy my heartbreak will swell up around us like a song. If I explained it any further you'd hate every last one of us and I have enough enemies these days. Most of them claim to be in love with me. I never know for sure. I guess that makes me the outlaw. I have the cowboy boots but they're pink and I have the killing part down cold.
