Episode 5

Lexi awoke to the sound of her phone ringing. She opened her eyes and fumbled around the pillow, trying to find it. She could see Asher stirring on the other side of the bed. He groaned and threw an arm over his eyes to shield himself from the light streaming in through the window. "What's that noise?" he moaned. "Turn it off."

"I can't find it," Lexi muttered. Her phone was usually under her pillow but she couldn't feel it anywhere. It rang again and Asher groaned once more.

"Shit. I think I'm lying on it." Lexi watched as a half-naked Asher wriggled around under the covers and finally extracted Lexi's phone from somewhere near his legs. He clumsily pushed it towards her before plopping his head back onto the pillow. "Here. Just turn it off."

Lexi sat up and answered the phone. Asher was lying on the pillow and watching her out of one eye. She cleared her throat to get the sleep out of her voice. It was her Dad. He hated it when she slept in late. "Hey Pop."

"Morning Lexi," her father's voice said calmly. "Were you still asleep? We thought you'd be here by now so your mother asked me to check up on you. But I see someone slept through the alarm."

"What?" she asked blankly, before suddenly remembering. "Oh no, it's Saturday. Pop, I'm so sorry, I forgot about breakfast! I had this huge Torts exam yesterday and I haven't slept properly in days because of this case with Annalise… I'm so sorry. I'll be there in half an hour."

David Gray cut her off. "No, don't do that. You sound exhausted. What did I tell you about getting a good night's sleep? I just wish you'd told your Mom you couldn't make it. She made a pretty amazing breakfast. Here, why don't you talk to her?"

Lexi waited while her father handed the phone to her mother. Asher was sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He opened his mouth to say something but Lexi placed a finger on her lips urgently. There was no need for her parents to know where she was. He raised an eyebrow but got out of bed and slipped into the bathroom. Lexi's mother finally came to the phone.

"Hello dear."

"I'm so sorry about breakfast, Mom," Lexi apologized.

"That's all right. I know you're working hard. Tell you what. I'll pack some and your father and I will come over and drop it off. I hate to see all the food go to waste and I'm sure Grace would enjoy it too."

Lexi blanched. There was no way she could drive home in time to get there before her parents. Asher's place was further from her apartment than her parents' home. She could tell Grace to cover for her… but she'd just told her Dad that she was in bed. Maybe it was time to come clean. "Um, Mom. I'm not exactly at my apartment. I, uh, stayed over at a friend's last night."

Lexi didn't hear what her Mom said next because the bathroom door opened and Asher walked out. He was still rubbing his sleepy eyes. "I'm going to put on some coffee. Do you want some?" he asked. At Lexi's wide eyed expression, he realized that she was still talking to her parents. "Oh. Sorry."

"Who was that?" Lexi's mother asked slowly. "Was that Connor?"

Lexi had been hoping that she could get out of the situation without blatantly lying to her parents, but that didn't seem to be working. Besides, she could never use Connor as an alibi for spending the night with Asher. He'd just flat-out refuse to cover for her. "No, Mom. I'm actually at my boyfriend's."

"You've never mentioned a boyfriend before."

"Yeah, I know, I've just been busy. He's, uh, he's in my class and he works for Annalise too. It's no big deal. Honestly. Don't tell Pop, he'll go ballistic."

Lexi's mother sounded interested. "Why don't you bring him over for dinner tonight?"

"Mom, no!" Lexi whined. "Come on, don't do this to me. We haven't been together that long, okay? Pop would take out his guns and start subtly threatening him, I don't need that right now. I'll come over for dinner. Alone."

"If you say so," Lexi's mother replied with a sigh. "Take care, darling."

"I will," Lexi promised. She hung up and tossed her phone on the bed. Asher was sitting in the living room with two mugs of coffee. Lexi smiled and grabbed one before settling into the sofa beside him. Asher lifted an arm and curled it around her. "You're warm," she mumbled as she snuggled into his side before lifting the coffee to her lips. "Oh God. Asher, this is disgusting."

"Thank you would be nice," he quipped, lifting his own cup to his lips. He winced. "I forgot to put in sugar."

"I don't even know how you survive, living here on your own." Lexi took his cup too and went into the kitchen to add sugar to them both. "I'm serious, Asher. You can't even make coffee. There is nothing in your fridge; do you even go grocery shopping?"

Asher raised an eyebrow defensively as she came back with the fixed mugs of coffee. "Of course I do. There's a grocery down the street. I go there when I run out of beer sometimes. Besides, I eat at home a couple times every week. One meal of my Mom's cooking and I don't have to eat for another 24 hours."

"That is not healthy," Lexi muttered. She sighed and flopped down on the sofa again. "My Mom heard your voice on the phone. It won't be long before she tells my Dad and they're going to want to meet you." She paused when he didn't react. "Am I freaking you out? I know it's really soon. I'll say no if you're not comfortable."

Asher shifted on the sofa. "No, I've just… never been asked to meet a girlfriend's parents before. Not since high school. And then it was just kind of a formality, you know?"

Lexi nodded. "Yeah, you know what, forget I said anything," she said quickly. He wasn't responding too well and the last thing she wanted was for Asher to feel obligated to meet her parents. Instead, Lexi drained the last of her coffee and set the cup down. "Well, I'm going to take a shower. You want to join me, hot stuff?"

"Is that even a question?" Asher asked with a grin. He put his mug down too, but his phone buzzed before he could get up. He glanced at it and groaned. "Fuck. New client. Annalise wants us there in an hour."

Lexi smirked. "Then we'll have to be quick, won't we?"

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Lexi felt numb as she listened to Ryan tell the tale of how his father had abused his mother. Growing up with a father as a police officer and with his colleagues coming over for dinner and telling stories of lives they'd saved, people they'd helped- Lexi had always felt they could do no wrong. But the idea that a police officer, a man charged with keeping people on the streets safe, could cause so much pain to his own family… that was difficult to take.

By the time Ryan had told his story, Lexi was holding back tears. She could see that Laurel was affected by the case too. Even Connor and Asher were watching in grim silence. None of them spoke as Ryan and his mother left.

"We're not just fighting a murder charge," Annalise explained firmly. "We're fighting the police. They're used politics and the media to fuel public outrage and turn Ryan, a boy who spent his entire life witnessing his mother's abuse, into a sociopath who hated his father. So how do we win this? Not based on evidence, but the emotions of the jury."

Lexi caught up to Connor as they all filed out of Keating's office. "Hey. Give me a ride?" she asked. She wanted to talk to him about Oliver. Lexi had replied to Connor's text quickly last night, but she hadn't had a chance to call him back. Asher made sure of that.

"Didn't you drive here?" Connor asked lightly.

"I came with Asher. It's okay, he won't mind," Lexi insisted. She followed Connor to his SUV before getting into the passenger side door. "Listen, I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you last night-"

"I got kicked out of my bed buddy's apartment, it's not the end of the world," Connor snapped angrily. When Lexi raised an eyebrow at him, he sighed. "It's not a big deal. I went home. Had a couple of drinks and I pitied myself. You were better off with your boyfriend, anyway."

"Can you not say the word boyfriend like that?"

"Like what?'

"Like it's repulsive," Lexi muttered. "I mean I get it, Oliver dumped you, but don't you think it was your own fault? I told you that your habit of sleeping with people to get information is going to backfire one day. I know you feel guilty. You admitted it to me when you were drunk."

Connor rolled his eyes. "I'm an emotional drunk. You know that. Don't exploit it."

"Are you going to try and fix things with Oliver?"

"I don't know. For now, I think I'll give him some space."

"You should do that."

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Lexi was sitting between Asher and Wes in the courtroom while Annalise Keating interviewed the jurors. Lexi watched intently, fidgeting in her seat every time a juror expressed their loyalty or discontent with the police force. Somehow, she found herself relating everything the jurors said back to her father.

"Would you stop that?" Asher whispered. Lexi was crossing and uncrossing her legs for the hundredth time. She shifted again and pulled the hem of her skirt down her thighs. She noticed Asher staring at her exposed legs.

"Sorry," she muttered. "I can't help it."

"Well, you're giving me a hard-on in the middle of a courtroom," he snapped. Lexi smirked as Asher subtly moved his left hand to rest on her leg. His fingers stroked her leg teasingly. Lexi found herself unable to concentrate as his hands gently moved higher and higher up her leg. She glanced at him and saw that he looked pleased with himself.

"You're making a scorecard?" Wes asked Laurel on Lexi's right. Lexi turned to see that Laurel had made little boxes in her notebook, one for each juror.

"We finally have client I don't hate," Laurel explained.

"Really? The guy who shot his Dad in the back?" muttered Asher, but Lexi shook her head frantically. The DA was trying to throw out the abuse claim. They all turned and watched as the DA claimed that Sharon could fabricate the abuse claim simply to save her son. She had never filed a report with the police and hence, the judge decided he could block both Ryan and Sharon from giving any testimony of the abuse.

"It's crazy," Lexi muttered as they exited the courtroom. Laurel looked distraught and had left alone. "I can't believe the judge did that, after we selected our jurors based on arguing abuse! Ryan's case is practically shot, now!"

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"In cases where emotion is currency, we have to cater our defence to the jury. Which means knowing the jury, learning to read reaction, body language," Bonnie explained as she handed out pictures of the jurors to them all. Lexi took hers silently. One was a young guy who looked to be in his late twenties, while another was a middle-aged woman with bobbed hair. "I'm assigning each of you, your own pet jurors to watch."

"Lumberjack?" Connor asked with a frown. He was holding up a picture. "I don't- I don't want this guy."

Asher grinned. "Oh, not your type? I'll take him if you give me sexy librarian!"

"How about the two hairy guys?" Bonnie snapped, handing Asher a picture. His smile dropped abruptly. "Enjoy."

"Can we track them outside of court too?" Laurel wanted to know. What was she so eager about? It seemed a bit over-the-top to follow the jurors around. Lexi frowned down at her pictures. She had better things to do than stalk these people around the city, for a case that was probably shot. She hadn't even had time to go visit her parents recently, and they lived a fifteen-minute drive away.

"Yes. But absolutely no contact. Jury tampering is illegal, don't get us thrown in jail," Bonnie replied.

Michaela was frowning down at her pictures too, and Lexi could see that she shared her incredulity. "This is all fun and everything, but what's our defence? We picked a jury based on arguing abuse," she complained. She didn't want to watch the jurors any more than Lexi did.

Wes piped up. "If Ryan was on drugs, we can argue diminished capacity!" His suggestions, as ever, were outrageously stupid and unhelpful. Lexi was tired and she was starting to feel resentful even towards the sweetest member of their group. She blinked a few times and shook her head. At least Wes was trying to help.

Annalise entered the room with them, having heard Wes' thoughtless idea. "So we can add drug addict to sociopathic cop killer? I don't think so. We need a Trojan horse to allow the abuse in. A back door."

Asher grinned again and Lexi knew that he was about to make a crude joke. She frowned as he gestured towards Connor. "Ooh. This guy knows how to use a back door," he chuckled, before grunting and making some sort of obscene movement with his pelvis. Connor simply raised an eyebrow and gave Lexi a long look, which seemed to read, This guy is your boyfriend? Really, Lexi? Lexi quickly stared back down at the faces of her jurors.

"It's Ryan's blog," Annalise said sharply. "If we could get one of the prosecution's witnesses to mention it on the stand then everything he ever wrote can be allowed into evidence. Stay up all night. Take notes. Know the blog inside and out before tomorrow."

"There are like 800 entries!" Michaela cried.

Annalise didn't even turn to look at her. 'Then you better start reading."

Lexi sighed and reached for her bag to get her laptop out. It was going to be another long, sleepless night. She looked around at the others while her computer booted. Only Connor and Michaela seemed as annoyed as she did. "When I signed up for this, I did not think I would be staying up all night reading a teenage boy's badly-written blog entries," Lexi murmured.

Asher nudged her with his elbow and winked. "Look on the bright side. You have me for eye candy, huh?"

"Shoot me," Lexi muttered.

"Come on, don't be like that," Asher whispered, putting an arm around her and pressing his lips to her neck. When she didn't respond, he kissed her there again, letting his teeth graze against her skin. Lexi shuddered, but Michaela's voice made her pull away from him.

"Oh my God. It's bad enough watching you flirt, but can you please keep it in your pants while the rest of us are around?" Michaela demanded irritably. "I don't want to be here anymore than you guys."

Laurel looked up from her laptop with a frown. "Why is everyone so unenthusiastic about this? What we're doing could keep Ryan from jail. Can we not complain about it so much?"

Lexi's mouth dropped open as Ryan's blog came up on her screen and she looked at how much he had written. "Damn this. Even if we split it all up, we all have to go through more than a hundred entries each. That will take all night. Still enthusiastic, Laurel?"

"Yes," Laurel muttered, although she didn't sound so sure anymore.

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Despite the complaining and groaning, spending all night reading Ryan's blog had proved to be useful. When his teacher had brought up a talent show on the stand, Laurel could connect it to Ryan's version on the blog, thus enabling Annalise Keating to use her Trojan horse. The abuse was in, and as a result, their case was back on track.

"What are you doing this weekend?" Asher asked Lexi through a mouthful of chips. They were all siting in Annalise's living room again. The police were painting an excellent picture of Ryan's dad actually being a good husband. Lexi was curled up in the sofa against Asher's side, a novel in her lap. Every now and then, she stole a potato chip from him. "Lexi…"

"Hm?" she asked. She looked up and saw Asher blinking at her. "Oh. This weekend? Not much, if the case is over by then. Which it should be. Why?"

Asher lowered his voice, leaning in closer so the others couldn't hear. "I was thinking we should go somewhere. You and me. Let's face it, this case is a cockblocker. I want to make up for all the missed sex this week."

Lexi smirked as Asher's hand slipped down from her shoulder and squeezed her ass. She bit her lip, but none of the others were looking. She glanced up at him seductively. "What do you have in mind, handsome?"

"My family's got a membership at this club," Asher whispered. "It's about a two-hour drive from here. What do you say? We could leave Saturday and be back early Monday morning. It'll be worth it, I promise."

"Okay," Lexi replied, leaning up to kiss him. He pressed his lips to hers quickly and then grinned, digging back into the bag of chips. Lexi turned her gaze back to her book. It was a few pages later when she heard Asher hold up a picture of one of the jurors and smirk.

"Does anyone else think that sexy librarian's a lesbian?" he asked aloud. "I mean, she just stares at Annalise's boobs all the time."

Connor glanced up from his phone. "They are great boobs," he agreed. Lexi rolled her eyes. Being gay didn't stop Connor from making crude remarks about women's bodies. If anything, he got away with it easier because he was gay and nobody could really accuse him of being a pervert.

"Can we all focus?" Laurel demanded. She and Wes were the only ones actually working on Ryan's case. She sounded frustrated. "Please?"

Asher set down the picture of sexy librarian and raised an eyebrow at Laurel. "Okay, look. Your emotional scorecard is cute and pointless, like a dumb blonde. They need to vote on evidence," he replied.

"Yeah, and my study group needs its outline by 8 am," Michaela added with a smile. She was tapping away on her laptop with an unnatural sense of pride. Maybe it was because she was getting away with doing schoolwork while Annalise thought they were working on the case. Lexi could understand the emotion. She turned back to her novel before Asher snatched it out of her hands.

"What are you reading, anyway? You keep hiding the cover from me and squirming," Asher muttered. He flipped the book over to the cover page and read it aloud. "The Flame of Passion. What the- shit, is this erotica?" he demanded. Lexi flushed as he flipped through it. "Oh my god, it is. Are you kidding me, woman? You have a gorgeous, warm blooded male sitting right next to you and you get off by reading this pile of shit instead?"

Laurel glanced up from her work again, still looking irritated. "Well, maybe if some people could reserve their sexual urges for the bedroom, we'd get more work done."

Lexi snatched the book back from Asher, trying to hide her embarrassment. "Don't look at me like that. I'm not the only one. Connor's totally sexting someone right now, I guarantee it."

Connor glanced up from his phone. "Would everyone just shut up? I've got about six guys on my jock right now, I need to focus."

"You're sexting six guys right now?" Asher demanded. He looked shocked. "What the- are there apps like that for straight people?" Lexi shot him a look and he shrugged defensively as if to say What? You read erotica. She rolled her eyes as Michaela turned to Connor.

"What happened to the hacker anyway?' Michaela asked. Lexi winced as she realized Michaela was bringing up Oliver. That was a low blow. Then again, Connor had screwed her fiancée. "Did he finally get sick of you using him?"

"Aw, you think that we're friends?" Connor asked, leaning back in his seat casually. Lexi could see his defences going up. "That we'll chat about our boy problems?"

"The only person with boy problems here is you," Michaela replied proudly.

"Are you sure Aiden doesn't have any?" Lexi piped up with a smirk. "Boy problems, that is."

Michaela rolled her eyes. "At least my fiancée doesn't leave me so unsatisfied that I have to resort to reading porn while he's sitting right beside me. I don't get it. You say it's not the money and it's clearly not the sex. So what is it with you two?"

It took Asher a few seconds to react. "Whoa, hey, wait, I satisfy her perfectly fine!" he cried defensively. He turned sharply to face Lexi. "Come on, Lexi, tell her!"

"This is just painful," Laurel muttered as she set her files down and walked out of the room quickly. Lexi rolled her eyes. What was Laurel's problem anyway? She'd started off thinking Michaela was the biggest bitch, but now Laurel was starting to get on Lexi's nerves too. She ignored Asher's insistent prodding and turned back to her book.

Connor's phone beeped. "Oh my god," he cried. He looked around at everyone with a smirk. "Lumberjack just messaged me."

"That's what you've been doing on your gay sex app?" Asher asked. He sounded almost disappointed.

Connor nodded. "I've been stalking him on humpr, waiting for him to out himself. And he finally bit."

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"Yeah, it was awful," Lexi muttered into the phone as she struggled to pull her jeans up with one hand. After Connor had exposed Lumberjack, the trial seemed to be going well. It wasn't until somebody apparently leaked the jurors information about jury nullification that the whole thing was declared a mistrial. The DA dropped most of the charges against Ryan and they all went home happy. Personally, Lexi suspected either Laurel or Wes- but she couldn't be sure so she kept her mouth shut. Whoever it was had given Ryan another chance at life.

"It's terrible," Lexi's father agreed over the phone. He sounded upset. "I called up Tom and he tells me he knew the man. Said he never suspected he could be abusing his family; he always seemed perfectly normal."

"I guess you never really know somebody," Lexi muttered, finally buttoning up her jeans. She stuck her phone between her ear and shoulder. "Pop, I'm getting another call. I'll be there in half an hour, okay? See you then."

Her father agreed and hung up, leaving Lexi to switch calls. She heard Asher's voice greet her over the phone and smiled. Michaela had caught him tearing up after the mistrial was declared, although he refused to admit it. Lexi thought it was adorably sweet.

"You coming over tonight?" he asked eagerly. "We can celebrate."

"Can't," Lexi replied. "I have dinner with my parents. I've been putting them off for days."

There was a long pause. "Can I come?"

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