Practice Makes Perfect(54)
They grabbed a table near the front of the coffee shop, by the windows. As Payton had quickly learned when she had mistakenly ordered a “grande,” the Fixx was one of those indie, we-piss-on-Starbucks kind of coffeehouses that catered to an eclectic mix from the multi-tattooed/ pierced grunge and Goth type to the scarf-and-turtleneck-wearing literati crowd. The kind of place her mother would love.
As she and Chase took their seats, Payton felt overdressed in the tailored suit and heels she had worn for court. She glanced around, wondering when exactly it was she had stopped fitting into places like this.
“You said you wanted to talk?” she prompted Chase, not trying to hurry him along, but . . . okay, fine, she was trying to hurry him along.
Chase nodded. “First, I want to start by saying that I understand now what’s going on. With you and J.D., I mean. I ran into him last night and we started talking and, well, I kind of put two and two together.”
Payton had no idea what Chase was talking about. Although she had picked up on one thing. “You talked to J. D. Jameson? You know him?”
“We went to law school together.”
Of course. Payton knew they had both gone to Harvard; she didn’t know why it hadn’t clicked that they would have been in the same class. She was interested to hear what J.D. had been like back in law school, particularly since for years she had viewed him pretty much as a one-dimensional character: the Villain, the Archrival, the Enemy. Doing so had made it easier for her to dismiss all the times he’d been such a jerk to her. But now . . . well, things had changed and she found herself wanting to know more about him, more personal things. For starters, she was very curious to know what “J.D.” stood for.
Payton sensed, however, that now was not the time to ask Chase for the behind-the-scenes tour. “So you ran into J.D. last night, and this two and two you put together is, what, exactly?”
“That he’s the one you’re competing against to make partner,” Chase said. “And now I totally get why you’ve been so stressed out these days. I wouldn’t want to go up against J.D., either.”
Payton sat back and crossed her legs defensively. “I’m not afraid to take on J.D. I think I have a pretty decent shot, you know.”
Chase was quick to assure her. “Of course you do, that came out wrong,” he said apologetically. “What I meant to say is that I know how stressful this must be for you, with the way J.D. is.”
“Meaning?”
“Well, honestly, I think he’s kind of an ass**le. He’s full of himself, stubborn, and most of all, extremely competitive. He’s one of those I-always-have-to-win, I-always-have-to-be-right types. I hate people like that.”
Payton laughed. “Well, then, we do need to talk. Because you just described me.”
Chase grinned affectionately. “You’re not like that.”
“Yes, I am, Chase. I’m exactly like that.”
Chase tried to dismiss this. “But it’s different with you—those qualities are admirable in a woman. That’s how you have to act in order to be successful, particularly in the legal profession.”
“That’s kind of sexist against men, isn’t it?” Payton glanced out the window. Wait—was that a pig she just saw go flying by?
Chase shifted uneasily in his chair. “Look—I think we’re getting off track here. All I’m trying to say is that, before, maybe, I thought you were getting a little too worked up about making partner, but now I understand why. I’m sure J.D. has taken the stakes up, like, ten notches.”
Well, yes. But then again, so had she. And on another note, Payton found it very interesting that Chase had thought she was getting “too worked up” about making partner. Who was he to decide the proper level of importance she should place on the advancement of her career?
And frankly, while she was thinking about it, she didn’t particularly like the way Chase talked about J.D. Sure, J.D. could definitely come off a little arrogant and perhaps overly confident at times, but he did have his moments. For instance, she begrudgingly had to give him credit for the fact that, after the deposition, he had come to her house to apologize in person. She knew that hadn’t been easy for him. And there were other things, little things, like at dinner with the Gibson’s reps, when he’d kept her company while the other men went off to smoke cigars. Or the way he’d come looking for her in the library after Ben had given them the news that only one of them would make partner. He only had been trying to be nice, she knew, yet in return she had been rude and defensive.
And then there was the thing he’d said to her the other night as he left her house. I would’ve done it for you in a heartbeat. Payton had gone over those words a hundred times in her head. She needed to be careful when it came to J.D.—she had to protect herself; she didn’t want to misread him, couldn’t afford to mistakenly attach too much significance to something he’d maybe meant only as a professional courtesy.
Payton realized that Chase was studying her, presumably waiting for her to say something similarly negative about J.D. But oddly, the person she had questionable feelings about as a result of this conversation was Chase. He had been very emphatic in wanting to talk to her, but so far she hadn’t heard anything that merited pulling her out of work and away from the hours of research she still had ahead of her that evening.