#Since you didn't specify I went with the 1980s

[avictimofthejazz]

@templetonpeckcangetit​

Glancing at his calendar to confirm he did have an appointment with a potential client at nine, Murphy Michaels next looked at his watch. Yep…even with it running a bit slow, it was definitely a few minutes after nine. Knowing how his luck had been running the last two years or so, he would not be surprised if this…Sarah Livingston just blew this appointment off or had already hired one of his competitors and just forgot to cancel her meeting with him.   Murphy wished he could say his life had only been on a downhill slide since he left Los Angles last year but the truth was, the slide started earlier than that. He could not even blame that charlatan Steele…even though it was hard to ignore that Steele waltzed onto the scene and in a matter of months managed to steal, intentionally or otherwise, Murphy’s position in the company he practically helped Laura Holt build, large portions of his job, and the woman he loved. Hell, sometimes the man even leeched off Murphy’s fashion sense and the two ended up looking uncomfortably similar. Murphy tried to swallow his pride and stick it out as long as he could but, finally, even his long-burning fuse fizzled out and he could not take it any longer. Parting with Laura as amiably as he could, he insisted that he wanted to strike out in a new city because he had grown tired of LA. The truth was, he was tired of Remington Steele, both the agency and the man playing the role of Laura’s imaginary boss. That…the creation of that ruse right there was the moment his downward slide started. He never should have helped Laura create that fictitious boss of hers or played along with the deception. Only…Laura had been so passionate about succeeding as a private investigator and so frustrated that no one wanted to deal with her personally, simply because of her gender that, when she hatched this scheme, who was he to say ‘no’? The whole thing made him uncomfortable and he knew if anyone found out, they could both kiss their careers good-bye. Still, Murphy went along with her plan out of love for her. And this was where love got him….working alone in a crummy run-down office, competing with a dozen other small-timers for the same lousy cases. The problem with breaking from the Remington Steele agency, with how famous it had become due to some very high-profile cases falling in their laps, was that he could not explain why he had broken away without explaining who and what Remington Steele actually was, which would likely implicate him in potential fraud and doing business under false fronts. Therefore, people always wondered why he quit what they assumed to be a lucrative position and, when he had no real answer, they made their own conclusions. Few of these were flatting for Murph or good for convincing people to hire him.

Grabbing his coffee cup, he finished the last mouthful of lukewarm liquid inside and stood up from his suspiciously empty desk. He had no secretary right now—she quit two weeks ago to  become a beautician—so he was trying to work in his office and keep an eye on the front room as well. Reaching the door dividing the two spaces, he shoved it open and scanned the sparse waiting area, “Mrs. Livingstone?”