Practice Makes Perfect(31)

He was baiting her, she knew it. She considered letting it go. She could turn around and walk out of his office without another word. In two weeks, one way or the other, she would never have to deal with him again.

J.D. mistook Payton’s pause for hesitation.

“In that case,” he said, nodding at the suit jacket she still held, “I’ll expect you to get that dry-cleaned at a decent place. Just make sure you have it back to me before they boot your ass out of here.” Dismissing her, he turned back to his work.

Payton sighed. Oh, well. She had tried.

“No problem, J.D.,” she said good-humoredly. “And while I’m at it, how about your second spare suit? Does that need to be dry-cleaned, too?”

J.D. looked up from his computer, confused. “I don’t have a second spare suit.”

“Oh. That’s a shame.” And with that, Payton tore the lid off the Starbucks cup and promptly dumped the remaining coffee all over the suit he had so neatly laid out over the chair.

J.D.’s mouth dropped open. He slowly peered up at her. “Oh. No. You. Didn’t.”

Payton looked down at the suit. Holy shit, she had, she really had.

She covered her mouth to mask her own look of shock. Whoops. But it was too late to turn back now.

“You can bill me for the dry cleaning, J.D. And, um, for the cup of coffee, too.” With that, she delicately set the now-empty coffee cup on his desk.

Then did a quick about-face à la Road Runner and got the hell outta there.

Payton hurried across the hallway, flying by J.D.’s secretary’s desk, then Irma’s. She had just reached the doorway to her office when she heard J.D. shout her name.

“Payton!”

Stopping in her doorway, she turned around.

J.D. stood in his doorway with what had to be just about the most furious look she had ever seen on any human being’s face.

They faced off across the hall, like two Old West gun-slingers readying for a draw. Payton could practically see the tumbleweeds blowing by.

With a sly look, she glanced over at Irma and Kathy, who sat at their desks curiously watching her and J.D. Then she turned back to him with her eyebrow raised.

“Yes, J.D.?” she drawled coyly. All these years they had fought in secret . . . she knew he wasn’t going to blow their cover now.

J.D. looked around, aware that his shout had garnered much interest from others around the office. He paused, then gave Payton a curt nod.

“I just wanted to wish you good luck in court this afternoon.”

Payton smiled from the sanctity of her office. “Thanks, J.D., that’s so sweet. And good luck to you as well.” With an exaggerated nod of her own, a slight curtsy, she turned and headed into her office.

Payton shut the door behind her. She leaned against it, the smile remaining on her face. In some senses, she thought, it really was a shame J.D. had to go.

She would almost miss this stuff.

WITH EACH STRIDE, every step he took as he walked the three blocks to the courthouse, J.D. grew more and more furious.

He had been cutting it close as it was; he’d run later than he had meant to, going through his oral argument one last time in the conference room, wanting it to be perfect.

And now, perfect was definitely out of the question.

He could throttle her.

Maybe, he told himself, the stain wasn’t as bad as it had been the last time he looked. Maybe some of the coffee had evaporated on the walk to the courthouse. He glanced down hopefully.

Fuck—it looked even worse than he remembered.

Wearing his spare suit had been out of the question, Payton had effectively seen to that by pouring more than half of a venti coffee all over it. Seeing how he didn’t have time to go home and change, or even buy another suit, he was therefore stuck wearing the one she’d “accidentally” first spilled coffee on—a conservative dark gray suit that unfortunately wasn’t nearly dark enough.

He looked like an idiot.

He could only hope that the lighting in the courtroom would be dim, and that the judge, who sat fifteen feet away from the podium he’d be arguing at, would somehow not notice the grapefruit-sized mocha splotch plastered across the left side of his chest.

J.D. arrived at the Dirksen Federal Building and hurried inside. He had to take his coat off to get through security, and was momentarily tempted to leave it off for his oral argument, but decided in the end that appearing jacketless in court was not only disrespectful, but also far more likely to attract negative attention from the judge.

The elevator was packed during J.D.’s ride up to the twenty-third floor. He waited until the last minute to slip his jacket back on, doing so right before he walked into the courtroom. He immediately headed to the front and took a seat in the galley while he waited for his case to be called.

J.D. had never before felt self-conscious about his appearance in court (or ever really, come to think of it) and he hated feeling that way now. He had an image to uphold, after all: he was a corporate defense attorney—he got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend multimillion-dollar corporations. His clients expected, and paid for, perfection. They did not pay to have their uber-important opposition to class certification motions argued by some jackass who looked like he’d spilled his Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Coolatta all over himself while driving in from the suburbs in his Ford Taurus.