Closed starter for @mossofteeth / Aaron & Genevieve
It had been a busy week, and a successful one at that. Not a lot of people would celebrate getting a murdering slumlord off scot-free, but Aaron was one of them. The whole firm was, really. The guy had put them on a pretty hefty retainer after his success, and Aaron had used that to cement his standing in the firm. That partner offer was right around the corner; he could feel it.
So they'd gone out to celebrate at the first ridiculously expensive restaurant they could find. Some of the others had invited wives and girlfriends along, and the evening had taken on a life of its own. All the while, Aaron personally preferred to blend in seamlessly, more or less quietly watching the evening unfurl. He was engaged loosely in conversation with a few of the other senior associates and their wives when something unexpected drew his attention. It was an instinct more so than anything he actually saw at first, but it pulled him from the conversation and made him look around.
The glass of red wine he'd been nursing still in his hand paused on the way to his lips when his eyes finally found what they'd unknowingly been searching for. They widened a fraction - and then narrowed. She'd just walked in - on the arm of one of the juniors who'd been invited to join the celebrations after dinner, and Aaron's mind stretched like a rubber band before snapping, focused on one overwhelmingly simple word: mine.
It took him all of one second to put his pleasant mask back in place, and he lifted a hand slightly to invite Gen and her date over, a casual smile on his face, attention focused on the male at her side as though she was any other two-bit girlfriend on the arm of a random colleague.