Page 2 of Alive At Night

I’d seen theJuon the cup and assumed—wrongly— that it was the beginning of a hastily scribbledJulian.

Juniper snatched the cup out of my hand, and I conceded.

“That’s probably going to give you gut rot,” I grumbled. “In fact, I hope it does.”

“Oh, Julian.” Her glossy lips spread wide with a smug grin. “Don’t be one of those pretentious black-coffee drinkers. It isn’t a cute look.”

“Neither is you holding up the coffee line.”

Juniper pursed her lips as she assessed me, and she did such a thorough job that I annoyingly felt a bit of heat on the back of my neck.

“You might be wearing a suit, Julian, but you haven’t changed. Have you?”

Princess Peach here had always loved to imply things about me, and this time, it was that I was unpolished. That beneath my spotless dress slacks, I was unprofessional. Not that she’d ever gotten into my pants. Never would, either. Juniper thought I was better suited for getting rough on the football field or sliding beneath a car in a mechanic shop than in the Financial District in Boston.

But did I give a damn what Juniper St. James thought she knew about me? Absolutely fuckin’ not.

I returned her look, dropping a slow perusal over her black dress, which was cinched with a perfect bow around her waist. All perfect, pretty, and over-the-top, as usual.

“Seems like you haven’t changed, either,” I drawled.

Infuriatingly, Juniper only shrugged before bouncing away. I watched her with a scowl until a yelp directed my attention to my right, where a woman spilled her fresh cup of coffee across the tiled floor.

Wasted black coffee.

I spotted my cup—my actual cup—and handed it over to her.

“Here, have mine.”

The cafe likely would have replaced her drink, but I was going to need something a lot stronger than coffee to recover from running into Juniper St. James when I least expected to.

* * *

Acquiringmy new position as an associate attorney at Gardner Law was admittedly easy, and that was only because of one thing. Well, person.

Cameron Bryant was one year ahead of me in law school. He’d had an in at Gardner Law through his advisor and landed a job by the time he woke up hungover after graduation. I remembered thinking he was a lucky little shit because everyone knew that the legal job market was a total wash at the moment, but now here I was.Alsoa lucky little shit. Neither of us expected to find jobs just a few minutes from where we’d studied our asses off for three years, but here we were.

The world of practicing law was entirely different from the world of practicing touchdown passes. Playing Division I football as an undergrad and being captain taught me that success hinged on perseverance, grit, and sweat. And while all of that had been important in law school, connections were the name of the game in this world. Work ethic only took you so far, and the people you knew took you the rest of the way.

So I supposed you could say I owed Cameron Bryant a round of drinks. Or two.

All the shits I gave about running into a certain brunette in my new neighborhood vanished as I refocused. My sister told me that Juniper had moved to Boston after she finished law school in New York, so it made sense to find her in the Financial District on a Monday morning; practicing law in the city had always been her goal. Andshenever hit any roadblocks.Shehadn’t needed to take a year off before law school to help back home.Shedidn’t have five sisters to worry about putting through college.

Of course Juniper would be here.

And so what if we were living in the same city again?

I’d survived it before, and I’d survive it again.

Gardner Law was housed in Dewey Square, and though I’d pick a landscape over a cityscape any day, there was a certain satisfaction in seeing the sun bounce off shiny windows on the high-rise as I walked into it. An overly enthusiastic man named Tyler met me at the front desk before walking me through a set of glass double doors and into a large space divided into smaller work areas. There was a set of doors on the far wall, and Tyler brought me to the furthest one. Which, as a pleasant surprise, had my name on it.

But it also had another name.

And that was a hell of a lot less pleasant to see.

I choked down a surge of temper before logic quickly did its work to reassure me. Because there was absolutely no way. No goddamn way.

“Cameron put you up to this, didn’t he?” I forced a laugh, pointing to the names on the office door.

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