Overtime

by Speranza

"Really. Seriously. What can he do to me?" Josh extended his arms backwards, and Donna slid his suit jacket up, onto his shoulders. Then she turned him around, adjusted his lapels, and straightened his tie.

"He's a lawyer, Josh," Donna said with implacable reasonableness. "He can twist you into—"

"I'm a lawyer," Josh pointed out. "I'm a good lawyer—"

"—knots, get you to contradict yourself—"

"I'm a Yale lawyer!" Josh declared, flinging down the ne plus ultra of his credentials.

"—or I don't know, maybe prick that mountainous ego of yours so that you say something, oh, unbelievably stupid?"

"Never happen," Josh deadpanned, but he was unable to sustain it, and giggled. A moment later, he had his face back under control. "Mountainous? Really?"

"You're not that kind of lawyer. You need a real lawyer. So take a lawyer, Josh." Donna looked him up and down, then began roughly brushing something off his left shoulder. "A shark, somebody who can—"

"What do you know from mountains, anyway? Wisconsin's flat as a board."

"—protect you from yourself." One last assessing look, and Donna stepped back, satisfied. "Which, believe me, is a full-time job. More than a full-time job—"

"—so we've decided to take shifts," and Josh turned to see Sam standing there, impeccably dressed and carrying a briefcase, white shirt gleaming beneath his charcoal-grey suit. He reached into his breast pocket, pulled out a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, and put them on. He looked unbelievably deadly. "So let's go," Sam said evenly, and glanced at his watch. "When we get there, say nothing. And I mean absolutely nothing."

Donna yanked hard at his tie. "Nothing, Josh."

"I—all right, all right," Josh said, jerking back and raising his hands, because he couldn't stand being tag-teamed by both of them—except he thought he could stand it, hours and hours of it. Josh swallowed. "Fine. I'll let Sam do the talking," and Josh couldn't help but notice the swift, conspiratorial glance that flashed between them. He turned, pulled his raincoat off the hook, and slid it on. "Back in a couple of hours, I guess," he said, but Donna was already sliding past Sam on her way out to the bullpen, and Sam was tilting his head expectantly toward the exit. Josh grabbed his backpack and followed him. "I thought you were the night shift," he muttered, slinging his backpack over his shoulder as they strode down the corridor. "Donna's the day shift and you're—"

"Yeah. Call it overtime," and there was a flash of white teeth as they pushed through the swing doors to the lobby.

The End

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