xp_logs | Angelo and Jay, District X

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Jay comes to see Angelo to go over his contract with Warren. A mention of Julia sends things unexpectedly emotional.

Jay had picked Angelo out of the three lawyers Illyana had directed him to and was relieved to find that he had agreed to meet with him. The man had good Yelp reviews. He'd sent over a copy of the contract already to be looked over. "Thanks for meetin' with me," he said, offering his hand. "I'm Jay."

"Angelo, but you knew that." He grinned and shook Jay's hand. "Come in, sit down, and let's have a look at this."

"Looked it over and it looked suspiciously good," Jay said as he sat. "Figured there was a bunch of law talk hiding things. I mean- 100k?"

"That's probably just Warren, to be honest. He's never not been super-rich, he doesn't understand what's a reasonable salary for normal people." He pulled up his own chair. "I should tell you, my usual thing is criminal defense, but I should be able to make sure there's nothing bad in here."

Jay nodded seriously- he was pretty neutral on criminal defenders, and was just grateful Angelo had agreed to take a look. "Thank you," he said, expressing that gratitude. "I, uh, wanted to make sure."

"Right, then." He picked up the printout on his desk. "I'm guessing Warren's people drew this up?"

Jay nodded. "His secretary- I mean executive assistant- Illyana gave it to me."

Angelo grinned. "I don't know Illyana very well personally, but from what I hear, she's scary competent and knows exactly what Warren can afford. If she wrote it, it's more likely to benefit you than him."

"Got that sense too," Jay said before letting Angelo look it over and do whatever he needed to do. He didn't realize how difficult this stuff was, doing it all alone. He'd always had a union before.

Angelo settled back to thoroughly read through the contract, after a moment reaching for a pen to make notes on it.

"How's it lookin'?" Jay asked after a while, watching Angelo's pen flow over the page.

"So, OK. Most of this looks pretty routine, the wages aside. It does mention there would be some on-call time, did he tell you about that?"

Jay nodded. "He mentioned it. Don't see what I'd need to be on call for, but I get the concept. My girlfriend is training to be a nurse." He realized with a heavy sinking that he had to correct himself. "Was, I mean." he looked away from Angelo for a second to collect himself. It was like the first time everytime he remembered she was gone.

Angelo glanced up from the contract, catching that. The look on Jay's face didn't suggest his girlfriend had just given up the training. "...want to talk about her to a stranger?"

He couldn't help it. The offer broke him down. Jay deflated from any sense of professionalism he has and he just was able to grab the strings of being put together enough to say, "Her name was Julia. I love her so much. I-" He broke down into tears, having felt like he couldn't cry in front of his siblings, not wanting to worry them. "She would have loved seeing the snow up here," he said finally, struggling to find words. "I keep takin' pictures of the birds on the evergreens to show her. She was always shy about liking plants and birds but-" he stopped, not able to speak more through his tears. "And she'll never get them cause she's dead."

Jay wipes at his face, trying to collect himself from sobbing in this big-time defense lawyer's office.

"Hey. Jay. What happens in this room, anything you tell me, stays in this room." Angelo rose to put a hand on his shoulder. "And we've all lost people, I get it. If you need to cry, you cry."

"I don't hardly know you, I'm sorry," Jay said despite Angelo's spoken permission to cry, wiping at his face more. "I'm sorry, I just miss her."

“Course you do”, Angelo said quietly. “You loved her. And somewhere in there, you probably always will, but it will hurt less. With time.”

Jay knew Angelo likely didn't mean anything by it, but it felt insulting to be told someday he would hurt less. He knew it was irrational to be insulted by that but it still felt that way. Maybe he felt like he was betraying Julia for beginning to build a life up here- but what other choice did he have? He just nodded to Angelo. "Yeah."

That felt like a closure of that line of conversation. “You need to take some more time before we get back to the contract? Right through that door’s a bathroom, nobody has to see you.”

Jay nodded, appreciating the out. He'd intruded on this man with his emotions enough already. He headed to the bathroom to get himself sorted out. The contract could wait a few minutes.