Page 21 of Cocky Counsel

“What?!” Gabi exclaimed. “Jackson isn’t even here.”

Lucy’s face fell as she looked around and realized that Gabi was right.

“My bad,” she giggled and took another bite of her bagel. “Habit,” she shrugged in explanation.

I laughed and shook my head, enjoying the playful banter between them. Even though they were thirty-two and thirty-five, they still fought with each other like they did when they were teenagers.

“So how weird is it to work with him after you guys fucked?” Gabi asked, her eyes darting over to Lucy who rolled her eyes in response to the foul language.

“Honestly, I thought it would be a lot weirder than it has been, but I’ve only had to work with him two days last week since I was out sick the rest of the week. But we didn’t talk about what happened between us, he just wanted to move on and act as if nothing had ever happened.”

Their faces fell slightly, their disappointment as evident as mine was from the tone of my voice when I said it.

“It’s more confusing than anything,” I admitted.

“Why’s that?” Lucy asked.

“Because it’s like we try to be professional with each other and forget about what happened, but there’s this chemistry there that seems to force us together no matter how hard we try to stay apart.”

“That doesn’t sound like a terrible thing,” Gabi joked.

“Well, it’s not. Except we can’t keep having sex and then act like nothing happened. It’s getting a little complicated to know how I’m supposed to act around him when we have sex at work.”

“You had sex at work?!” they both shrieked at the same time, their eyes wide with surprise.

“On Tuesday, right before I left for the day.” I pursed my lips together and scrunched my nose.

“And you haven’t seen him since?” Lucy asked.

“Obviously,” Gabi snorted. “She’s been out sick, remember?”

“Yeah… about that,” I said slowly, their eyes glued to me. “Turns out that I wasn’t all that delirious and that he really did come over on Wednesday and spent the day here, taking care of me.”

“He what?” Gabi asked in disbelief.

“And then he stayed the night.”

Their eyes got even wider.

“But he slept on the couch,” I added quickly, making sure they didn’t get any ideas of us having sex while I was drunk with a fever. That was just gross.

“That’s crazy,” Gabi said, filling the silence that had fallen around us. “You better be careful,” she warned, and I knew that she was talking about what happened with my ex, Jeremy.

“This isn’t anything like what happened with Jeremy,” I rushed to assure her. She stayed silent and watched me. “I swear, the only similarity is that they both happen to be lawyers.” I threw my hands up.

“You fell in love with Jeremy and didn’t see that you deserved so much better. You let him use you…” Gabi said softly.

“I know,” I snapped, suddenly feeling irritated with the conversation. “There’s nothing to worry about because Ethan and I aren’t dating, and I’ve grown a lot since Jeremy and I broke up. I’ve learned how to be on my own and I’m doing just fine by myself.”

An awkward silence spread between us.

“Why don’t we talk about Lucy?” I suggested, hoping that we could end this conversation before it got everyone pissed off at each other.

I sat in silence as Lucy and Gabi talked, filling me in on the details of what happened and what Lucy wanted to do. I made notes of the things that I needed to look into for her and promised to help her find the best family law lawyer in Manhattan.

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