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The first time Reese saw Morgan, he knew the man would make the perfect partner. The younger lawyer was driven, compassionate, and best of all, easy on the eyes. Reese checked himself. There was no way that he could go and make Felder a partner at Shah Mothersbaugh LLP just because the man was inordinately attractive.
Felder would have to prove himself first—that drive may merely be for the money lawyering could bring. The compassion could be a mask, the physical appeal… well, that one was undeniable, but the point still stood.
“Shannon Shahid,” Reese said, slapping a manila folder down on Felder’s desk. The man startled slightly, having been deeply absorbed in a book of tort case law.
“Who?”
“Our next case. Pro bono, I might add,” Reese said with a slight smile. “They’ve filed a case against their landlord—apparently, she’s trying to evict them, even with the covid mandate in effect.”
“That’s awful!” Felder cried, pulling the case file towards himself. Then he paused. “...Our?”
Reese allowed himself a beat to appreciate the adorably confused wrinkle between Felder’s brows.
“I did not mispeak. We’ll be working on this case together, Mr. Felder.”
This would be the perfect instance to observe him and determine if his internal beauty was as authentic as his external. Right now, that beauty shone through in Felder’s excited smile.
“I look forward to working with you, sir.”
———
The case went well—Mx. Shahid got to keep their apartment for at least six months more, and Felder only continued to prove his worth as a member of Shah Mothersbaugh LLP. To Reese, who was dedicated to choosing only the best partners for the firm, it was not yet enough. At least, that was what he told himself.
When he mentioned his problems to Casey, she bluntly suggested that he was in denial about his attraction to Felder. (This was clearly, most certainly, not the case. Reese acknowledged that Felder was attractive, and objected to Casey’s interpretation of events. Casey merely leveled a cold gaze at him and told him objections were only valid in court.)
In the meantime, Reese had other things to worry about. It was New Year’s, and if he argued his case right, he thought he might be able to convince his ex-coworker Aubrey Roy to take him on as a student. He straightened his tie (emblazoned with caribou just for this purpose of persuasion) and approached the boisterous man and his pet reindeer.
“Mr. Roy! How fortuitous to see you here!” he declared. “What a magnificent specimen!”
“Her name is Ingegerd,” Roy replied, stroking the beast’s neck.
“A pleasure to meet you, Ingegerd,” Reese said. The conversation progressed naturally from there, and Reese was just about to set a date for his first training session when he saw the door open.
The man that entered looked stunning—his navy blue suit hugged his form most flatteringly, and the flurrying snow illuminated by the streetlights behind him created a halo worthy of the most holy archangel. Reese swallowed hard. Morgan Felder hung up his coat before grinning widely at his coworker. Being hit with the full force of that smile, which was usually reserved for after winning a particularly hard case, felt just as he imagined take-off to be, and almost exactly how he knew ecstasy to be. It was at that moment that he realized he might be in love.
“Mr. Campbell?” someone asked.
“Sex,” he answered hoarsely.
“Excuse me?”
Reese shook his head, trying to focus. “Er, six. The sixth of January should do nicely.”
He didn’t stay to hear Roy’s response, instead hurrying off in search of Morgan. Unfortunately, the man seemed to have disappeared into the hubbub of the party, and Reese found himself standing near a window, craning his neck to peer over the crowd.
As it turned out, Morgan was the one to find him.
“Sir?” a melodic voice said, almost hesitantly.
Reese whirled around to see Morgan standing there with two flutes of champagne in his hand. He opened his mouth, but despite his usual courtroom eloquence, found no words. He had worked so hard to hide his burgeoning attraction to Morgan, surely all that work would not be ruined now?
“Are you alright?” Morgan said, frowning slightly. “Nice tie, by the way.”
“I- Fine. I’m fine. How are you, Mr. Felder?” Reese asked, coughing slightly to clear a suddenly dry throat.
“Oh, you know how it is. I’m, uh… having some relationship trouble. With Ari, that is,” he admitted. “But nevermind that—champagne?”
Reese accepted the glass just as the clock started to toll the dawn of 2021.
“To a better year for the two of you, then,” he said.
Morgan smiled. “For someone, at least,” he said, and lifted his glass to clink it softly against Reese’s own. “A good year to you as well, sir.”
“Reese,” he blurted out.
“Sorry?”
“My name- you can call me Reese. Sir was my dad’s name.” Immediately, he wanted to crawl under the nearest table. What on earth would Morgan think of him, to say something so inane-
“Alright. Reese,” Morgan said, and the shine of his laughter felt better than any multimillion-dollar settlement.
———
Morgan started hanging around the office late after that. When Reese pressed him about it, he said, winking, that Ari thought he was working late, and that he liked the other lawyer’s company. It was on a cool April day that Morgan offered to pick him up from the airfield, and it was on that same day that Morgan kissed him for the first time.
“Mr. Felder-” Reese began, but Morgan put a finger to his lips before fixing him with a look usually directed towards an opposing counsel.
“Before you say anything, no, I’m not doing this to try and make partner. No, Ari doesn’t know I’m here. And no, I don’t expect anything back from you…” he sighed, a sad smile gracing his (soft, as Reese had just discovered) lips. “I just wanted to do that. Just once.” He looked at Reese, clearly expecting some sort of rebuke, or even a demand for him to resign, as if Reese could ever do such a thing.
Instead, Reese surged forward to kiss him back.
It was a while before they extricated themselves from each other. Both men were panting slightly, Morgan’s pupils blown wide with lust. Reese was sure that he looked just as debauched.
“Mr. Felder-“ Reese said again, but Morgan once again interrupted with a grin.
“Please, Reese. You can call me Morgan.” He shrugged. “Mr. Felder was my dad’s name.”
They both laughed, the tension of the moment deflated by the levity. Reese decided right then that he could live in that moment forever.
———
“What about your wife?” Reese asked some weeks later as they lay together on the office floor of Shah Mothersbaugh LLP.
Morgan sighed. “I’m working late again. I don’t know what to tell her- a divorce would break her heart, but we shouldn’t have been married in the first place- we were college students, young and stupid, and I didn’t want to admit anything to myself yet.”
“What changed?” Reese had to ask, brushing a wayward strand of hair out of Morgan’s beautiful eyes.
“I met you.” Morgan closed his eyes. “I still love her, I just… I can’t stay with her anymore. I can’t live a lie, but I have no idea what to do.”
———
It was after the June 25th office party that Reese came up with the answer.
“What if you die a lie?!” he asked Morgan as soon he came into the office.
“What?”
“We fake our deaths,” Reese said excitedly, starting to scribble on his legal pad. “You know our flight for the fourth?”
“I thought we were cancelling it?”
“Yes, I was going to wait a little longer to show you the beauty of the sky… but I’ve got a better idea!” Reese spun his legal pad around to show it to Morgan, who squinted at it.
“A bird landing on a tent?”
Reese flipped the pad around to add some flames. “A plane crash . We fake our deaths and run away together- Morgan, we can be free! ”
“I-”
“It solves all of our problems! You don’t have to get a divorce, Ari can even get money from the litigation—I’ll embezzle a bit from Casey to fund our escape, he won’t notice, his net worth is fifty million dollars,” Reese said, continuing to scribble down his plans. “What do you think?”
“I…” Morgan took a deep breath, then smiled. “I’m in.”
Reese kissed him then, long and deep. “I love you. So much.”
Morgan frowned, and Reese worried for an instant that he had moved too quickly, before he spoke.
“Where are we going to get the bodies?”
Reese’s answering grin would have terrified the most predatory of loan sharks. “Leave that to me.”
———
Two weeks and a very strange phone call to Casey later, they were in N985MT with a pair of unidentifiable corpses lying on the floor of the cockpit between them. Morgan stared with wonder at the gathering clouds around them, occasionally texting his wife in order to keep up their pretense. Eventually, he glanced at the instruments with a frown.
“Is it just me, or does it sound like there’s a problem with the engine?”
Reese focused back in from his appreciation of Morgan’s elegant jawline to listen. Indeed, the engine sounded louder than usual.
“I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about—that Danny guy probably just fueled it wrong,” he said.
“That sounds like something to worry about!”
“We’ll just have to make our crash landing earlier than expected-”
There was a loud bang that resonated through the plane. Reese looked at Morgan.
“It might be something to worry about.”
He hurried to the controls, only to look up in panic.
“I can’t see anything out there!”
The plane started to turn to the left, sending both men stumbling into each other. Pinned between Morgan and the unyielding metal wall, Reese fumbled for the controls, trying to engage the landing gear and open the door of the plane.
“When you see ground, jump!” he told Morgan, shoving the other man towards the exit. Their hands remained clasped as Reese dialed ATC.
The person on the other end was asking him questions that barely registered. “I don’t know, I don’t know!” he cried into the headset. “I never should have-“ a sudden jolt rattled the plane, and Morgan’s hand was torn from his. Reese screamed out loudly, fighting his way towards the door against gravity.
“Morgan!” he yelled into the clouded beyond, and looked down to see the ground getting closer- too close-
———
Morgan picked his way through the underbrush, taking care not to touch the still-hot ruins of the engine. There was a hole in part of the crank case that he thought might have been made by the bang, but he brushed the idea aside and continued on, calling for Reese.
“Reese! Reese?!” he yelled, spotting the flash of a Mets jersey amidst the rubble.
He stumbled towards the still form, frantically checking for a pulse. He couldn’t find one.
“Reese, oh God, stay with me-”
It had been several years since his high school CPR unit, but he did his best—hammering down on Reese’s chest in a perversion of rhythm before blowing into his mouth for- how many times was it supposed to be?! This was not how it was supposed to go, he thought as he continued compressions, begging without words for him to come back.
Something cracked in Reese’s chest, and Morgan collapsed on top of him, weeping.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed, clutching at the ruins of Reese’s shirt.
Were it not for him, they would never have been here, and Reese would still be alive to hold in his arms, to banter with, to congratulate on a stunning impeachment-
There was movement. Subtle, but it was there, and Morgan immediately sat up, scarcely daring to believe his eyes. Tentatively, he extended a hand to hover Reese’s mouth; a slight puff of warm air hit his palm like the breath of a deity.
“Reese?” he whispered, cupping his cheek.
The other man opened his eyes and started to cough, but a smile broke through all the same.
“Morgan,” he said hoarsely once he had caught his breath. “You’re alive.”
“I could say the same to you,” Morgan replied, tears rolling down his cheeks. “I thought you died! You were dead, for crying out loud!”
“I came back for you.” Reese started to move, reaching a hand towards his pants.
“Wait- we need to make sure you’re alright; we need to get out of here,” Morgan said, grabbing his hand.
“I know, but I think I’ll be alright. There’s something I need to do,” Reese said, carefully extricating his hand to reach into his pocket and pull out a small velvet box. Morgan gasped at the sight, tears springing to his eyes once more.
“Morgan… if you’ll have me, I’d like to make you partner.”