Page 120 of Alive At Night

A bit of wariness entered Julian’s gaze at the mention of Cameron, but he nodded. “Okay. You don’t need to tell him they’re from me, you know. That’s not the point.”

“I know.” I shrugged. “But I think he’ll get a kick out of it.”

Julian rolled his eyes but didn’t argue.

* * *

Later that day,there were two emails in my inbox that caught my attention. I had to blink twice to make sure I wasn’t seeing things because the first one was from Greg Kennedy. How he’d gotten my work email, I had no idea. But it was a congratulations on my new job, which was a little strange considering I was already a few months into working here and Greg and I didn’t have that kind of relationship.

I deleted the email and moved to the one I was more interested in—the one from Julian.

Because Julian and I had spent most of our time at Gardner working on different cases, we didn’t often exchange emails. For the most part, that lack of interaction had been a saving grace. But now things were different.

I glanced over my shoulder to find Julian typing away on something else and wondered what the hell this was.

I barely got to the end of the first sentence of the email before I pushed all my snacks away so I could fully concentrate.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject:Draft for HR - Please Review

Juniper,

I’ve drafted this email for human resources. Please let me know if you find it satisfactory or if you would like me to make any changes. It will remain a draft until you want me to send it. If you ever want me to send it.

Yours, Julian

With my heart in my throat, I read the rest of his email, which detailed how Julian and I shared a relationship that we wished to disclose to HR. It was short and to the point, but it made my pulse race.

I spun around in my chair to face him. “Julian…”

I struggled to find the words. His movements were slow as his gaze met mine, simmering with something that made my insides melt.

“There’s no pressure, Juniper,” he said softly. “We don’t need to send it. I just wanted you to see that I’d prepared it. That I’m so fucking serious about this.”

He misinterpreted my speechlessness as concern, but before I could correct him, Julian switched the topic, pulling out a stack of papers from beneath his briefcase.

“We also need to talk about how we want to move forward with Grayson. After the information I’ve shared with him, he’s interested in pursuing the case. And that means officially approaching Gardner Law about representing him. He wants us, specifically, to do it.”

Oh, look. Another thing I didn’t know how to respond to. Today seemed to be full of those.

“He’s a celebrity,” I said, saying the first words that came to mind. “It’ll be high-profile. They’re going to want one of the partners to represent him. Not…us.”

Meaning not two associate attorneys fresh out of law school.

“They definitely will,” Julian agreed. “But Grayson tends to get what he wants, so we should get our shit together just in case.”

A bit of panic rose in my throat as I thought of just how much shit we needed toget togetherif we were going to do that. “Tonight, maybe?”

Julian and I hadn’t looked at Grayson’s case in a few weeks because we’d been, well, avoiding each other.

“Sure. How about we work at my place?” he asked casually. “I’ll cook us dinner.”

“You can cook?”

“Moderately.” He chuckled. “I know what you like. I’m sure I can whip up something.”

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