“If I recall correctly, Jamie,” Penelope said, her hands folded on the table in front of her, “Genevieve didn’t raise concerns, per se. I took her comment to involve situating this case in the larger context of the legal landscape of LGBTQ rights, which is our ultimate goal with this collaboration.”

  By the time the meeting ended, they had established legal strategies for a dozen cases, in addition to organizing responsibilities for a dozen more. Under Penelope’s deft hand, all parties concluded the meeting by saying their organizations had been treated fairly and the agreed-upon agenda reflected their collective strengths.

  As she walked back to HER’s office, Genevieve thought back to their conversation about the New Mexico case: Jamie had wanted it to himself; Genevieve offered a challenge, hoping for a piece of the action; and Penelope played the diplomat by somehow cutting Genevieve out and dividing the case with Jamie.

  Essentially, she’d lost that entire negotiation. Yet somehow, she didn’t really mind. Maybe she was learning to practice what she was trying to preach, focusing on the bigger picture.

  Or maybe that was just the effect Penelope had on people.

  * * *

  Genevieve pulled into Tori’s driveway, turned off the car, and sat, staring at the door. It had been a long day, made even harder by the anxiety of knowing that Tori and her colleagues were discussing her case. And by the churning in her stomach every time she debated how to behave around Tori.

  The front door opened, and Tori leaned against the jamb, crossing her arms. “You just going to sit there in your car all night?” she called out loudly.

  Genevieve removed her sunglasses and squinted in the late afternoon sun. No sense putting off the inevitable.

  She walked up to Tori and pulled her into a hug. Tori’s body against hers, so familiar and steady, slowed her frantic heartbeat. She gave Tori a sweet, affectionate kiss to smooth over some of the rough edges between them.

  “Hungry?” Tori asked, taking her hand and shutting the door behind them.

  “Always.”

  They settled into their familiar kitchen routine, and Genevieve struggled to read Tori, who excelled at masking her emotions. Tori couldn’t reveal anything that went on in the conference, and the Court wouldn’t release the docket for another week. Instead of asking a question she would never get an answer to, Genevieve poured them glasses of wine and got to work on a faro salad while Tori started the grill.

  What would they talk about over dinner, since they couldn’t very well talk about their day at the office? Well, Tori couldn’t. Genevieve just didn’t want to. Monologing wasn’t really her style—why reveal her professional successes and challenges when nothing would be reciprocated?

  At least she wasn’t dating someone in the CIA.

  The last time they had salmon, they were on vacation in France, a much simpler time that seemed to mock her now. They had talked about art, architecture, landscaping—the kinds of carefree topics that contrasted sharply with the focused and tense environment of DC. Well, she’d listened to NPR on her drive over and had picked up a few stories she could share if conversation stalled.

  Tori’s kitchen would make Martha Stewart jealous, and Genevieve always felt out of place in it. Copper pots and pans hung from a rack above the range, providing yet another reason Genevieve would never even try to cook for her girlfriend. A few months back, she had seriously contemplated bringing over a couple of her own nonstick, Teflon pots and trying out a Thai curry dish. At least that way, if she burned it beyond recognition, she’d be able to clean the cookware, rather than throwing it away. She didn’t even want to know how much those bright, hanging pots cost.

  There was one domestic, dinner-related bit of flair Genevieve did better than Tori, and once the table was set, she located a pair of scissors and a woven basket and headed into the backyard. The breeze was chilly, and she turned up the collar on her jacket. The low orange streaks of the sunset made the trees in Tori’s backyard glow, hinting at the colors their leaves would turn in a few short weeks. In fact, a few of the leaves on the farthest maple tree were already a yellow-orange, so Genevieve snipped a handful of small branches and dropped them into the basket. Next to the maple stood a crabapple tree, its fruit already fading from brilliant red to a darker shade with hints of purple. After cutting a few thin branches, she glanced at the herb garden on her right and contemplated the rosemary. Too Christmas-y. On the opposite side of the yard, where Tori’s flower garden ran the length of the fence, she spotted some crimson chrysanthemums that would complement the crabapple branches.

  She brought her loot back to the dining room table, rummaged around Tori’s cabinets until she located a large footed bowl, and began tinkering. By the time Tori came back inside with the grilled salmon, the chrysanthemums formed a bed of color just above the lip of the bowl from which the maple branches sprung up, and the crabapple branches snaked around the base of the bowl, extending to the two sides of the table without plates.

  She was standing back to admire her work when Tori came up behind her and wrapped an arm around her stomach.

  “That’s gorgeous,” Tori breathed into her ear.

  “Well, I know how you like flowers in the house. When was the last time you bought flowers from Rosie, anyway?”

  “Never. That woman is a genius with flowers, and she doesn’t let me buy.” Tori kissed her cheek, her lips lingering long enough for Genevieve to close her eyes and sigh. “Thank you.”

  “I’m glad you like it. I wasn’t sure if the flowers in your backyard were fair game.”

  “Well, I don’t usually cut them, but I think that’s mostly laziness. Or hesitation to take a risk—I wouldn’t know what to do with them or which ones look good together. You’re welcome to experiment with anything that grows out there. Except the basil plant—that thing is finicky.”

  “Sounds like a good arrangement.”

  She felt Tori chuckle against her back. “Pun intended, I hope.”

  “Always.”

  After giving her another kiss, Tori stepped away. “I’ll dress the salad. Will you bring the salmon to the table?”

  Genevieve did her one better, pouring more wine too. When they were settled at the table, she asked, “How was your day, darling?” and winked.

  Tori laughed, but it sounded forced, and her eyes darkened a shade. “Good. It was nice to see everyone again. My new crop of clerks seems promising and decidedly overeager.”

  “How’s Kellen?”

  “He wore that stupid bow tie I hate. Honestly, I think he must do it just to annoy me. It’s all droopy and cockeyed, and I spend far too much time distracted from the conversation just thinking about how badly I want to retie the damn thing.”

  “Must not have had any interesting, contentious conversations, then,” Genevieve said between bites of salad.

  “Genevieve.” The hint of warning in Tori’s voice compelled Genevieve to take a healthy drink of wine.

  “I get it. You can’t talk about anything that happened today. I’m just trying to make conversation.”

  “No, you’re fishing.” Tori’s volume was soft, but there was steel in her voice.

  “Can you blame me?”

  Tori sighed and leaned back in her chair. “I thought we had established boundaries last session.”

  “Last session you weren’t considering one of my cases.”

  “Right now, we’re not considering anything. We’re considering what to consider, and since that’s all I’m legally permitted to communicate, let’s talk about your day instead. What’s on your plate right now?”

  To buy time while considering whether she wanted to press the issue or change subjects, Genevieve tried the salmon. It melted in her mouth, the way all of Tori’s food did, and she moaned a little. “Jesus, Tori, if you ever want to change careers, you could cook for the president.”

  “You know, I offered once. At the White House holiday party last year, he was raving about the crab cakes, and I told him mine were far superior and offered to prove it.”

  Genevieve shook her head. Of course Tori could take a simple joke about the president and turn it into a real-life scenario. “Is he going to take you up on it?”

  “Actually, we got sidetracked when a waiter brought over a tray of stuffed mushrooms and we started debating the best cheese to use for the filling. He never gave me an answer. About dinner, I mean. He thinks blue cheese is better than feta for stuffed mushrooms.”

  “For the record, you’ve never made me your crab cakes. Or stuffed mushrooms. So now I know where I stand.”

  “I haven’t? Well, now we know what’s for dinner tomorrow night. Come hungry.”

  “Do you want to invite the president to join us?”

  The fact that Tori thought about it for a minute drove Genevieve to laughter.

  “I’d rather it were just us,” she said. “Besides, I’ll just bring you to the White House holiday party this year, and you can meet him there.”

  Genevieve almost choked on her wine. “Really?”

  Tori gave her a look she couldn’t quite decipher. “Yes, really.”

  “But that would be so…” Genevieve’s sentence hung in the air, filled with the things she’d never accuse Tori of, at least out loud.

  “Yes, it would be ‘so.’ I’m not saying an event that public would be easy for me. Still, I’d like to take you as my date to the holiday party,” she insisted.

  Genevieve raised her wine glass. “Well, then: to dinner at the White House. ”

  They clinked glasses. Would Tori really follow through with this offer, or would she find some excuse to back out? Being ripped out of the closet hadn’t exactly diminished the vise grip Tori kept on her privacy, and Genevieve could count on one finger the number of joint public appearances they had made in the few months since I Fought the Law had posted that picture of them almost kissing. Well, she’d just have to wait and see. In the meantime, if Tori couldn’t talk about her day, well, Genevieve supposed she could fill the void.

  “HER just filed a new suit in Michigan on behalf of a transgender woman in prison who’s seeking access to sex reassignment surgery.”

  Tori put down her fork and stared at Genevieve. “You’ll never win.”

  “Oh, I think we will. When she first petitioned the state for surgery, they balked, and she turned to the media there. Detroit Free Press ran the story a few months ago, and we got involved. We put some pressure on Michigan prison officials until they hired an expert to assess her. They brought in a psychiatrist from Johns Hopkins who determined that her gender dysphoria was so acute that denying her reassignment surgery would cause severe and undue pain, and that surgery would significantly alleviate her anxiety, depression, and likelihood of suicide attempts.”

  “The prison’s own expert said this?”

  “He didn’t just say it—he signed a declaration.”

  Tori nodded and, for the first time since she’d come home from work, genuinely smiled. “Sounds like you’ve got a good case on your hands, Counselor. What’s her name?”

  “Amelia Garcia.”

  “Can I ask what she’s in for?”

  “Jesus, Tori, haven’t you watched Orange is the New Black? You’re not supposed to ask that!”

  Tori rolled her eyes. “I suppose it’s not really relevant.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be. We’re going to make this case about medical and psychological issues, but I’m sure that the prison’s lawyers will try to make it about character.” Genevieve finished her wine and fetched the bottle from the kitchen to refill their glasses.

  “That can cut in your favor, of course—you just need to spin any negative character traits so they appear to be the result of discrimination, or lack of access to proper care and procedures, or her dysphoria, which reassignment surgery would address.”

  “Telling me how to argue my case, Madam Justice?”

  Tori blushed, which was about the cutest response she could give.

  “I appreciate the input,” Genevieve said, “and I’ll take it under advisement. But, as you well know, I can’t discuss strategy with you.”

  She grinned to take a little of the sting out of her dig—she could, of course, discuss strategy with anyone she wanted. That was the difference between her job as an advocate and Tori’s job as a judge. She’d never stopped to wonder how Tori would take it if their situations were reversed and Genevieve was the one withholding information. Badly, she surmised.

  “Anyway, I’m flying out there next week to meet with the client and take a couple of depositions of fellow inmates. I leave Wednesday morning, and I’ll be home in time to swim on Friday.”

  “I can work with that,” Tori said.

  “Work being the operative word there. If I had to guess, I’d say you’ll work the whole time I’m away.”

  “Probably. I like to feel on top of research before we start hearing arguments. And my editor got back to me with comments on my book manuscript,” Tori said.

  “Is this the book about international law? I hadn’t realized you’d finished it.”

  “Well, as much as any book is ever finished. But yes, I finished the chapter on capital punishment when you were in California for those fundraisers, at the end of summer.”

  “See? It’s a good thing my job requires travel—otherwise, you’d never get any work done.”

  “Well, I have to do something to keep from missing you.”

  Genevieve reached across the table and took her hand. “That’s sweet. You can be very sweet, Victoria Willoughby.”

  “Shh. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  After dinner, they retired to the living room, where Genevieve won a hard-fought Scrabble game. Tori rallied in their second match, drawing all the high-value letters, while Genevieve was stuck with six vowels for most of the game, no matter how many she managed to dump out each turn with words like louie and aioli. She suggested a tiebreaker, but Tori demurred, saying she’d had a long day.

  They were brushing their teeth when Genevieve asked, “When will you all release the docket?”

  Tori glared at her. “You know I can’t answer that.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Genevieve said through a mouthful of foam. “You wouldn’t be telling me what the docket will reveal, only when I can expect to see it.”

  Tori’s electronic toothbrush buzzed, and she swiveled it in her mouth. Her answer came out muffled. “We release it when Kellen decides it’s ready, and press releases are sent simultaneously to all the major news outlets. I’m sorry, Genevieve, but you’ll have to find out when everyone else does.”

  Genevieve spat and wiped her mouth. “And here I thought being your girlfriend would come with perks.”

  Heading into the bedroom, she pulled open the dresser drawer where she stored pajamas. She hadn’t often worn them here, but somehow she felt compelled to arm herself in a layer of flannel. The pants felt cozy and warm, and she was buttoning the shirt when Tori slid behind her and stilled her hands.

  “It does come with perks. Very personal, very physical ones. Perks reserved for you and you alone. Would you like to see them?”

  Genevieve sighed. “Not particularly. Let’s just sleep, Tori.”

  Disappointment permeated the bedroom, as they pulled the covers over themselves and lay without touching.

  “I don’t feel particularly drawn to sleep with someone who won’t even talk to me about basic things,” Genevieve said.

  “Not won’t—can’t. And we talked about tons of basic things. Look, our jobs are only going to come between us if we let them.”

  “That’s easy for you to say.”

  Tori rolled over and snuggled against Genevieve’s side. “No, it’s not. You’re being uncharitable.”

  She might be right, but Genevieve wasn’t about to say as much. Instead, she wrapped her arms around Tori, kissed her head, and whispered, “Good night, Tori. I love you.”

  Tori said it back, and Genevieve drifted off to sleep, wondering how long those three words could hold back the storm threatening them.

  Chapter 7

  A prison guard with a Michigan Department of Corrections badge led Genevieve into an interview room, a dark, soulless cube with fluorescent lighting. A metal table and two chairs stood in the center of the room, the only furniture. Both the metal door through which Genevieve had entered and the one on the opposite wall had panels for guards to peek into the room, but otherwise they were entirely smooth; neither door had a handle on the inside.

  She wasn’t allowed to bring a bag through the security checkpoints. After placing her notebook, a binder filled with legal briefs, and the prison-issued pencil on the table, she sat down, folded her hands, and waited for her client.

  She hadn’t met Amelia yet—so far, they’d communicated through phone calls and one handwritten letter from Amelia, detailing the ways in which she had deteriorated mentally and physically since becoming a ward of the state a year and a half ago. Although transgender inmates in Michigan were supposed to receive their hormone medications while incarcerated, Amelia’s had disappeared as soon as she reached out to the media about her sex reassignment surgery.

  A guard led Amelia in from the other door, nodded at Genevieve, and left.

  Genevieve rose and extended her hand over the table. “It’s good to finally meet you, Ms. Garcia.”

  Amelia’s fingers were freezing, but her handshake was firm. “Ms. Fornier.”

  “Please, Genevieve is fine.”

  “Okay. Amelia for me, then.”

  The chairs ground against the concrete floor as they sat. “You look good—healthier,” Genevieve said, studying her client. Although Amelia looked older than fifty, Genevieve knew her to be forty-one. Her black hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which drew attention to her guarded eyes. But her dark skin looked clearer than in the picture she’d sent a few weeks ago—or maybe it was just that the florescent lighting failed to show any blemishes. She was taller in real life than she looked in the pictures.