“Ah, right. Got it. That’s him. Anyway, enough about that gobshite. I need your legal advice.”

“Excellent, considering as how I just got the news that I … wait for it …”

“No!” she squeals. “You didn’t!”

“I did. I totally did. I passed the bar exam!” I’m so excited I can hardly stand it, and my voice is all over the place as a result. “I’m officially a lawyer in the greatest city on earth!” Fist pump! I grin at the homeless man who starts drunkenly fist pumping along with me. I’d kiss him if he didn’t smell so bad.

“Oh my God, gwan ya good ting!” Erin sighs happily. “Oh, I’m so proud of you. This is excellent timing, ‘cause I’m completely and utterly serious when I say that I need to hire you.”

“For what?”

“I went to the bloody solicitor’s office today.”

“Lawyer, Erin. Solicitors don’t exist here any more than unicorns do.”

“Okay, that gimp of a lawyer’s office.”

“She sounds nice.” In the seven years I’ve known my best friend Erin, I’ve learned many Irish swear words. In fact, I’m undergoing a kind of Jedi training in Irish slang, so Erin keeps the language colorful for me at all times. It’s not taking too much effort at the moment.

“Okay, so she was really quite friendly, all things considered, but she’s still a manky bitch.”

“A super nice picture you’ve painted for me there, sweetie, but may I remind you once more that I am a business lawyer and not a probate attorney?”

“Get away te fook with your hair splittin’. It’s six of one or half a dozen of the other. You know the law, so just wear your big-girl lawyer pants to the pub tonight so we can strategize our arses off.”

‘Fuck it’ is Erin’s favorite response to anything bothering her, but when she’s especially angry like she is now, her Irish accent gets really strong and it sounds like she’s saying fook. I can’t help but smile at it, even when she’s mad. Seven years of fook it, and I’m still not tired of hearing it. Someday, I’m going to go to Ireland with her crazy ass.

“Is it that bad?” I press the button on my Audi A1 keychain and open the locks. Settling into the car, I inhale the delicious leather scent. My signing bonus from the firm paid for this baby. That and the loan I took out that I will be paying off in my first year as an associate with one of the biggest law firms in Boston. Aaaaand another fist pump! The engine actually purrs as I pull out into traffic and attach my phone to the holder on the dashboard. Erin’s voice comes out over my car speakers.

“It’s worse. Worser that worse.”

I frown. “That’s … unexpected.”

“You’re foockin’ tellin’ me. I never saw it comin’. The old biddy blindsided me but good.”

“What’d she do? She didn’t cut you off, did she?” I know how devastated Erin would be if this were the case. She wouldn’t be talking to me on the phone like this; she’d be jumping off a building. It can’t be that bad.

“Pretty nearly so, yeah. The old wench. You know, only the good die young, Rid. You know that, right?”

“So you’ve said about a thousand times. What’d she do?” I’m ten blocks away from the knacker … I mean Jeremy. He better not have stolen any more of my stuff.

“She only gave me half the pub. Half, for fook’s sake! If she wasn’t already toes up, I’d throttle her meself and bury her behind a dumpster.”

“What?” I slam on my brakes to avoid running over a bicycle messenger. “Bastard!” Flipping him off gives me very little satisfaction since he doesn’t stick around to enjoy it.

“She is a right bastard, you got that straight— though, teaching point here, Rid … we usually use ‘bastard’ for males. But I’ll tell ye who is a right fooking bastard— Padraig Flanagan, that’s who! I’d love to get my hands on that bollox.” Erin’s growling now.

“I’m lost. Who’s Padraig Flanagan?” I turn left, the view of my apartment coming into focus. I’m already tingling with desire imagining Jeremy there, waiting for me. It’s been a really long week.

“He’s the fooker who’s now fifty-fifty with me in the pub. Aren’t ye listenin’ t’ anthin’ I’m sayin’?”

“Who is he, though? A cousin?”

“How the hell do I know? I’m just the idiot who poured her heart ’n soul into the place and brought it up, like a fooking phoenix from the ashes, to the shining pot of glorious gold it is today.”

“Yes, you are, sweetie.” I turn into the underground parking and glide into my parking space as I adopt my most soothing tone. “Don’t you worry one little bit over this. We are going to fix it right up and then get you started on turning the P.O.G. into the number-one Irish bar chain on the entire East Coast.”

“East Coast? Why think so small? Try entire United States.”

“Okay, then. United States it is.” I get out of my car and lock it up, my blood pressure going through the roof at the idea of sliding into my silk sheets as Jeremy slides into me.

“I’ve lost you, haven’t I?” Erin asks, sighing in defeat.

“Hmmmm…?” I’m stepping onto the elevator as my cell phone signal fades out.

“See you later t’night, ho. Go get your flange serviced.”

“Smooches!” I say, just before closing my phone.

The elevator is completely silent. It gives me fifteen or twenty seconds on the ride up to imagine what my next hour is going to include. Wine for me … beer for him. Soft music. Lights low. Naked legs, intertwined. Sweaty, slippery bodies and clothes strewn around the room…

I start to use my key, but the door isn’t locked and it pushes in with little effort. I haven’t even seen anything yet, but I already know that my normally perfectly pristine apartment is a wreck. Pizza boxes are stacked near the front door and the distinct odor of pot permeates the front entrance. My iPod is sitting on the front hall table with a giant tangle of headphones around it.

“What in the holy hell …?” I come around the corner of the foyer and look at the destruction that used to be my living room. My couch is covered in hairy men wearing football jerseys and they’re all staring at a television screen that has naked women dancing on it.

“Oh, hey, babe, what’s going on?” Jeremy smiles up at me from the armchair where he’s reigning over the clan of the cave bears he calls his boys. His ugly gold tooth winks out at me. “You’re back early.”

I give the knacker who’s about to be tossed out of my fifth floor apartment a tight smile. “Jeremy, can I talk to you for a sec?”

“Yeah, babe, sure.” He stands up and trips over his friends’ legs. They’re all too high on life and whatever it is they smoked my condo up with to pay me or him any mind.

We make it to my room with the door closed before I blow my top.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing out there?!” My hands are clenched into fists at my sides. They’re itching to slap his stupid, in-desperate-need-of-a-shave face, but I resist … for now, anyway.

“Just havin’ a little party, babe, no big deal.” He sidles up to me, hands going for my waist.

Normally, I’d find this part fun, where he acts all suave and kind of dangerous and I pretend to be an innocent damsel who’s not sure if she wants to mess around or not, but right now all I want to do is send his balls right up into his throat, courtesy of my stilettos.

I back up to stay out of his reach and to keep myself from turning him into a eunuch. “No big deal? No big deal?!” I throw my arm out towards the living room. “You’ve destroyed my apartment! Your pet gorillas are probably farting God knows what into my leather couch right now. I’ll never get their stench out of here! All the Febreze in the world isn’t going to fix this catastrophe. And I just passed the bar exam, you idiot! I can’t have you cheezedicks in here smoking dope. What’s wrong with you?”

He frowns enough to pull his eyebrows into one giant, very messy caterpillar. “Yo, babe, chill, a’ight?” He grins in what I’m sure he thinks is a sexy manner. “Ain’t no need … to get all tee’d … cuz you got meee … and I got the weed …” He pulls a plastic baggie out of his pants as he chuckles over his busta rhyme and dangles it between us.