Practice Makes Perfect

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—

“So how long have you been seeing Chase?”

The question—from J.D.—abruptly yanked Payton back into reality.

“Hmm? What?” Flustered, she covered by gesturing to the case she held. “Sorry. Reading. The law and all. Damn, that’s good stuff.” She fanned herself. “I’m sorry, you asked me something?”

J.D. shifted in his chair. “I was just asking how long you’ve been seeing Chase. He said you two were dating. I ran into him last night,” he explained.

“Yes, he mentioned that when I saw him earlier today.”

Payton could’ve sworn she saw J.D.’s eyes flash at this.

“You two are serious, then?” he asked.

Payton hesitated. Did she care what J.D. thought about her and Chase? Surprisingly, she thought she might.

“We’ve been seeing each other for a few weeks,” she said.

Tiptoe, tiptoe.

J.D. nodded. “You two seem to have a lot in common.” He waited to see where she would pick up with that.

Tiptoe, tiptoe.

“We would seem to, yes.”

Silence. Once again, they were at a standstill.

Then Payton thought, What the hell? and decided to go for broke.

“Why are you here, J.D.?”

“I work here, remember? See, right over there is my office and—”

Payton put her hand on top of his. “Don’t. Let’s just skip over the sarcastic part for once.”

J.D. glanced down at her hand, then up to meet her gaze. “What is it you really want to know, Payton?”

She asked him the question she had been asking herself for the past few days. “Why are you being so nice to me now?”

J.D. leaned forward in his chair. He gazed directly into her eyes, and Payton suddenly found herself wondering why it had taken him eight years to look at her that way.

“Because you’re letting me,” he said softly.

And in that moment, Payton knew.

The Perfect Chase was doomed.

And not because of a maraschino cherry. The Perfect Chase had been doomed from the very start and the reason—and, in fact, Payton was beginning to suspect, the reason pretty much all of her relationships over the past eight years had been doomed from the very start—was sitting in the chair right across from her, staring her in the eyes.

Realizing that, Payton had only one thing to say. “Oh . . . no,” she gasped.

Except she hadn’t exactly meant to say it out loud.

J.D. cocked his head. “Interesting response.”

Payton couldn’t tell if he was amused or angry. She opened her mouth to explain, but was interrupted by a knock at her door.

Brandon strolled into her office, oblivious to everything. “So I found a couple more cases you might want to take a look at—oh, hey, J.D.—I didn’t realize you were here.”

Payton and J.D. bolted up from their chairs at the same time.

“Actually, I was just leaving,” J.D. said hurriedly. “Payton, I don’t think you need my help anymore; the two of you should be able to finish off the rest of those cases. It was good seeing you again, Brendan.”

“It’s Brandon.”

“Of course.”

Payton watched as J.D. left her office and strode across the hall to his own.

“I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” Brandon said.

“No, not at all,” Payton assured him. That’s all she needed right now, to be the target of tawdry office gossip. That kind of stuff could kill a career. “J.D. was just helping me get through some of this research.” She took a seat at her desk. “So, what did you find?”

Brandon sat down in one of the chairs in front of her desk. And as he began to explain—as eager junior associates always did—the big break in the trial he believed he had just discovered, Payton paid vigorous attention. In between stolen glances across the hall, that is. She wondered what J.D. was thinking, if this was going to be another one of those moments between them that neither of them acknowledged, or if he was angry even, thinking she meant something by the “oh . . . no” that she didn’t actually mean, or maybe she did mean it, she didn’t know anymore; her mind was a mess of a thousand dangling thoughts and she couldn’t seem to grasp any of them except for the fact that she knew she should be focusing on her trial and—

Next to her, on her computer screen, the alert box suddenly popped up, indicating she had just received a new email message. Still nodding as she listened to Brandon, Payton clicked her mouse and saw she had a message from J.D. Nothing in the subject line, so she clicked again and read:

I’d like to drive you home tonight.

Without breaking stride, Payton simultaneously asked Brandon a follow-up question regarding his research and fired off a quick reply to J.D.’s email.

Twenty minutes.

“WELL, AT LEAST now I can say that I’ve ridden in the infamous Bentley.”

As they walked along the sidewalk, approaching her two-flat, Payton saw J.D. grin and check his watch.

“What? What was that?” she asked.

“I’ve been timing how long it would take you to make a comment about the car. I’m actually surprised you made it the whole ride here without saying anything.”

“I’m hardly that predictable,” Payton said, starting to fling her hair back over her shoulders, but catching herself.

J.D. noticed and laughed. “Yes, really, you are. In eight years, I don’t think I’ve ever known you to refrain from commenting on anything.”

They had reached her front door. Payton turned around to face J.D. “That’s not true.”

“It’s not, huh?” He raised an eyebrow.

Payton looked him over. “I didn’t comment on the fact that you parked your car down the street instead of dropping me off out front. Because if I did comment on that, I would’ve said that you appear to think you’re coming inside.”

J.D. took a step closer and peered down at her. “And if that thought had occurred to me, would I have been wrong?”

“Hmm . . . no comment.” Payton unlocked the front door, and J.D. held it open for her.

“Maybe I’m just making sure you get inside safely,” he said as they walked up the stairs to her apartment. “Call me old-fashioned.” Then he sprang ahead of Payton, walking backward up the steps and facing her. “Or wait—is it uptight, pony-owning, trickle-down-economics-loving, Scotch-on-the-rocks-drinking, my-wife-better-take-my-last-name sexist jerk? Somehow, I always get those two mixed up.”

They had reached the door to Payton’s apartment.

“I don’t know . . .” she said, “remind me—was that before or after you called me a stubborn, button-pushing, Prius-driving, chip-on-your-shoulder-holding, ‘stay-at-home-mom’-is-the-eighth-dirty-word-thinking feminazi?”

She unlocked the door and stepped into her apartment. She tossed her briefcase and purse onto the living room couch.

J.D. followed her inside, shutting the door behind them. He grinned hearing his words thrown back at him. “After, definitely after. That’s how it’s been since the beginning—you fire the first shot, and I merely react.”

He said it lightly, teasingly, but Payton caught something in his choice of words.

“What do you mean, that’s how it’s been since the beginning?”

She saw a momentary flicker in J.D.’s eyes, as if he realized he’d said more than he’d meant to. He waved her question off.

“Never mind. Forget I said that. It’s not important.”

Payton was curious. But she backed off, sensing that pressing the issue would only lead to an argument. And the two of them had had enough of those to last a lifetime.

“So . . .” she said, trailing off. She leaned against the wall of built-in bookshelves, facing J.D., who stood across the room from her.

“So . . .” he replied. He looked her over, as if waiting for her to do or say something first. Which was fine because, actually, there was something she did want to say. She cleared her throat.

“You know, J.D.—for the record—I actually don’t think you’re sexist.” She saw him cock his head at this sudden admission, so she explained. “I just thought, you know, that was a bad thing for me to say. In a few days we won’t be working together anymore and I didn’t want that left hanging between us.”

J.D. slowly began crossing the room toward her. “In that case, as long as we’re clearing up the record, feminazi was probably a little harsh.”

“A little? You think?”

“A lot harsh.” J.D. moved closer to her, then closer still. Payton felt her heart begin to race.

“And, actually, I don’t think you’re uptight,” she said, still managing to appear cool and collected on the outside at least. “Obstinate and smug perhaps, but not uptight.”

“Thank you,” J.D. said, with a nod of acknowledgment. He stood before her now, so that she was trapped between him and the bookshelves.

“Also for the record,” Payton said in a lower voice, “I don’t drive a Prius.”

J.D. gazed down at her, his eyes dark and intense. “For the record, I’ve never owned a pony.”

“That’s a shame,” Payton told him in a whisper. “I was thinking it must be kind of nice to own a pony.” She felt J.D.’s hand at the back of her neck.

“You’re going to stop talking now,” he said, pulling her to him. “Because I’ve already waited long enough to do this.”

Then his mouth came down on hers, and finally, after eight years, J. D. Jameson kissed her.

Payton’s lips parted eagerly, teasing him as her tongue lightly swept over his. J.D.’s hand moved to her waist and pulled her closer as his mouth searched hers, deepening the kiss. She pressed her body instinctively against his and he instantly reacted, pushing her back against the shelves. With his arms on either side of her, holding her there, his lips trailed a path along her neck.

“Tell me you’ve wanted this,” he said huskily in her ear, and Payton thought her entire body might have just melted. She arched back as his mouth made its way to her collarbone.

“Yes,” she whispered thickly, about the only thing she was capable of saying right then. J.D. kissed her again, more demanding this time. Suddenly they both were impatient; Payton pushed at his jacket, needing it off, and J.D.’s hands grasped her hips and pulled her with him as they stumbled out of the living room and into the kitchen. They hit the counter, and J.D. shoved the bar stools out of the way and flung her up onto it.

Perched on top of the counter, Payton pulled back to look down at J.D. Her breath was ragged. “I like this—you’re not towering over me for once, trying to intimidate me.”

“I doubt there’s anything that intimidates you,” J.D. teased. “Not even being naked in court, apparently.”

“I’m beginning to remember why I don’t like you,” Payton said. But then her breath caught as he pinned her hands behind her back with one of his and stepped between her legs.

J.D.’s eyes sparkled wickedly. “Good—now call me an ‘asshole’ and give me that look like you want to throw something at me—that’s my favorite part.”

Payton laughed, but J.D.’s mouth came down on hers and all joking fell by the wayside. She felt his hands move to her shirt, yanking at the buttons as she simultaneously reached up and tugged at his tie, loosening the knot. There was a rush to their movements, as if each of them was afraid the other would change his or her mind, and Payton was just beginning to have vague musings in the back of her mind about how far this might go, and whether her kitchen counter was the best venue for however far this might go, when—

Her phone rang.

“Ignore it,” J.D. said, his hands moving to the front hook of her bra, and for once Payton wholeheartedly agreed with him.

The ring—coming from the phone in her living room—was easy enough to ignore, but then the answering machine clicked on and Payton’s voice echoed throughout the apartment, sorry, can’t answer the phone, blah, blah.

“Ever hear of voice mail?” J.D. asked as his fingers teasingly trailed along the lacy edge of her bra and Payton tried to muster the wits to think of something sassy to say back when a second male voice called out to her.

“Payton—it’s Chase.”

It was a true marvel of technology, Payton noted, the way the clarity of her answering machine made it seem as though the guy she was dating was standing right there in the kitchen with her and the guy she had straddled between her legs.

“I just wanted to call to say good night and make sure you got home okay,” Chase continued on the machine. “I know you have a long evening ahead of you, and with everything we talked about earlier I forgot to wish you good luck with your trial. I know how much you have riding on this, so try to get some sleep. And just remember what I said about J.D. Watch your back—the guy will do anything to win.”

Payton heard the beep, signaling the end of Chase’s message. J.D. pulled back to see her reaction.

“And here I was worried that he might say something that would make this awkward,” she said. “Thank god we dodged that bullet.”

J.D. ignored her sarcasm. “He calls you to say good night? How serious are you two?” he demanded to know.

Payton pushed past him, slid down from the counter, and began buttoning up her shirt. “That’s the part of his message you have a problem with? That he called me to say good night?”

“Oh, am I supposed to respond to the accusations your boyfriend made against me? Fine—here’s my response: he’s fucking full of shit.”

Payton nodded as she smoothed down her skirt. “Perhaps not your most eloquent response, but I’ll give you points for directness.”

With a confused look, J.D. watched as she pulled herself together. “Wait—what’s going on here? You’re not actually buying into what Chase said, are you?”

“No.” Not really, she almost added, but stopped herself.

Should she be suspicious of J.D.? Until Chase had left his message, the possibility hadn’t even occurred to Payton that J.D. might have some hidden agenda that night. True, she was due in court very early tomorrow morning, but so what? What was she supposed to think, that this was all some elaborate seduction scheme to get into her apartment, and—what?—set her alarm clock back an hour so that she’d miss her motion call? Now that was a ridiculous thought.

Wasn’t it?

Come to think of it . . . the guy had snuck into her office, then sliced off and re-glued her heel so that she’d fall and embarrass herself in court. But they were past that now. Weren’t they?

“Well, it’s obvious that Chase’s message changed something,” J.D. said.

Payton finished buttoning her shirt and turned around. “This is all just so complicated.”

“Because of Chase?”

“Because of lots of things,” Payton said. “Because I need to be in court early tomorrow morning. Because of our history. Because of the fact that I should be focusing on work right now, and because, ironically, you are the reason I should be focusing on work right now.” She paused. “I’d just like to be alone to think things through.”

J.D. nodded, and Payton could see he was angry.

“Fine,” he said tersely. He walked over, picked his jacket up off the floor, and headed to the front door.

As confused as she was, Payton hated for them to end the evening on such a bad note. “J.D., wait,” she called after him.

He turned around in the doorway. “This is the second time you’ve thrown me out of your apartment. If you change your mind about things, you know where you can find me.”

And with that, he was gone.

Payton stood there for a moment after he left. Then she picked up her briefcase and headed off to her bedroom.

An hour later, she fell asleep with her work piled around her and alone.