Practice Makes Perfect(56)

Payton smiled in appreciation. “That’s very sweet of you to offer. But don’t worry about me—I’m fine. Go home and enjoy your evening with Nate.”

Laney hesitated. “Are you sure?”

Payton nodded emphatically. “Yes. Go. It’s nice to know at least one person is somehow managing to find the time to have sex while working here.”

She caught Laney’s look.

“Don’t worry, no one’s around to hear me anyway.”

Nineteen

“WHY DON’T YOU have the kid work on that?”

Hearing the familiar voice, Payton looked up from her reading. She had been facing the window, which she liked to do when working at night. The view of the other skyscrapers towering around her with their twinkling lights was spectacular. And somehow, it made her feel a little less lonely to see other lit offices.

She spun around in her chair and saw J.D. standing in the doorway.

“The ‘kid’ is in his office, slaving away on the fifteen other things I asked him to do,” she told him, assuming he was referring to Brandon. “So unfortunately, I’m stuck here.”

J.D. glanced at his watch. “You’re not going to the cocktail hour?”

Payton shook her head no. “Why aren’t you there?”

“I was on a conference call that ran late. But I’m heading upstairs now.”

J.D. paused, then shifted in the doorway.

“You’re not going to do the weird lingering thing again, are you?” Payton asked. “Because it’s starting to freak me out.”

“No, I’m not going to do the weird lingering thing again,” J.D. retorted, although Payton thought she detected the faint trace of a smile on his lips.

He stepped into her office and walked over to her desk. “What are you working on, anyway?”

“Just some research related to jury instructions,” Payton said, sighing. “The judge wants to hear oral argument first thing tomorrow, before he brings in the jury. I’m pretty comfortable with our position—I just want to make sure there aren’t any outlying cases that the plaintiff can cite.”

J.D. studied her. “Would you like some help?”

“From you?”

“Yes, Payton. From me.”

“But you’ll miss out on the cocktail reception. Don’t you need to go chat up Ben and the other litigation partners?” she asked.

“Not if you don’t,” he said.

Good point. Maybe J.D. really was trying to help. He seemed very big on the gestures these days, Payton thought. Or maybe he was just that confident in his chances of making partner. Her mind went back and forth, and part of her wanted to tell J.D. that she didn’t need his help, that he didn’t need to pay her back for the deposition. But the truth was, she could actually use the help, and the second truth was, she kind of wanted J.D. to stay—and not just because she didn’t want him to go to the cocktail reception and schmooze without her.

She nodded. “Okay.”

J.D. smiled. “Okay.”

He took a seat in one of the chairs in front of her desk. “Why don’t I start with this pile here?” He pointed to the stack of cases closest to him.

“Sure.” Payton began to explain. “I had Brandon pull all the relevant decisions from both the Seventh Circuit and Northern District of Illinois, plus he found a couple of cases from the Central District, those would obviously only be persuasive authority—”

“I’m not a first year, Payton. Just tell me what the issues are.”

“Look, just because I accepted your offer of help doesn’t mean this still isn’t my case.”

“I had a feeling I was going to regret this . . .”

“Well, then, you’re certainly free to leave at any time . . .”

“And deny you the pleasure of your power trip? I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Et cetera.

HMM.

He was wearing his hair a bit longer these days.

Payton snuck another look.

J.D. leaned back in his chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he read through the next case in his pile. His head tipped slightly downward as he read, and Payton could see that the back of his brown hair just nearly brushed up against the starched blue collar of his shirt. Definitely a good one-eighth inch or so longer than he usually wore it. Not that she paid attention to these things.

She had moved and now sat in the chair next to J.D. It was easier for them to work like this—this way, she didn’t have to keep leaning across her desk whenever he wanted to point out something he had come across in one of the cases he was reviewing. And that was her story and she was sticking to it.

The stacks of cases on her desk had been whittled down to nearly nothing. It was a good thing she’d flown through her pile when she and J.D. had first begun working together, because her pace had slowed drastically over the course of the past half hour. Over the last fifteen minutes in particular she had become, some might say, a tad distracted. She’d strangely found herself having thoughts that some might call a bit . . . racy.

It was the stupid tie again, Payton thought. She had been innocently minding her own business, reading, when J.D. had casually reached up to loosen his tie and she had thought, hmm . . . he really should just take the damn thing off, no one else was in the office anyway. Then, hmm . . . speaking of no one else being in the office, she wondered what J.D. would do if—hypothetically speaking—she reached over and loosened the tie for him . . . And then, hell, if she was already going that far—still hypothetically of course—she supposed she should also undo those top buttons of his shirt, they looked a little constricting, too, and, oops, in that case she might as well just throw in the towel and move right on down to the button on his pa—