He’s handling himself well, but I didn’t study the Dean Dossier forward and backward to play the role of a potted plant. I’m fielding this one, too. “What’s even more impressive is that the firm lets Dean work on pro bono cases. Even though he has no time to spare, he supervises a team of students at Georgetown who represent low-income DC residents in landlord-tenant cases.”

“That’s fantastic,” Nia says. “Kimberly’s been doing pro bono predatory lending cases for years.”

“So you know how gratifying it can be,” Dean says to Kimberly. “Between us, if I could devote a substantial percentage of my caseload as a partner to pro bono work, I’d take that deal in a heartbeat.”

“You would?” I ask, unable to hide the shock in my voice. Recovering quickly, I tack on: “I mean, you never mentioned that to me before.”

“The partners would never go for it, though, so there was never any reason to. But yeah, I would.”

My jaw goes slack as I try to process this information, which, as I intend to point out to Dean later, was conspicuously absent from his dossier. If there’s one trait about Dean that rankles, it’s his preoccupation with becoming a law firm partner, which I thought stemmed from a need to achieve a certain perceived status. Learning that his pro bono work isn’t a résumé-building exercise but rather a sign of his commitment to helping others is enlightening. “So when you’re working in the office over the weekend, it’s because you’re—”

“Catching up on pro bono work, yeah,” Dean says.

“And the client call the morning of your wedding?”

He nods. “Also pro bono work.”

Peter swings his narrow-eyed gaze between Dean and me. Then he leans forward and steeples his fingers. “I’m curious about something, Solange. What do Dean’s parents think of you two as an item?”

Kimberly and Nia don’t even try to hide their surprised expressions—if I were them, I’d be wondering what the hell is going on too—and Molly drops her chin as if she wants no part of her husband’s asinine behavior. Beside me, Dean goes unnaturally still.

Oh, so Peter’s going there, is he? Well, let’s do this, buddy. “It’s just his mom, Melissa, and she’s cautiously optimistic.”

He nods a few times as he considers me, a fake smile plastered on his face. “Good, good. That’s great to hear.” Undaunted, he flattens his lips into a conspiratorial grin, as if he’s inviting me to be an accomplice to Dean’s downfall. “Now, you and Dean may be close friends, but I think I’ve known him even longer than you have. Did he ever tell you he almost flunked out of Michigan?”