Page 33 of Alive At Night

Cameron winced, and I hated the guilt that washed over his expression. How I helped put it there.

Poor Cameron was a people pleaser. Well, to an extent. In meetings, he was assertive and confident with the perspective he brought to the table, even if it differed from others. But as soon as we’d revert to small talk, he softened into a different version of himself. It was easy to see how his family background might have influenced him into that—an actress for a mom and an artist for a sister while his late father was in the military.

Cameron sighed, lingering in the doorway, and I gave him a wave to let him know I’d see him at our meeting. Once he left, I got to work, ignoring Julian while he ignored me.

At one point, that might have been easy, but today, something wasn’t sitting right. I felt oddlybad. Our deal was hanging over my head, too. We’d made plans to stay late tonight to look at Julian’s case, and now I was dreading it.

I shook my head and put my earbuds in, needing to think about anything or anyone but Julian Briggs. At least until I had to.

I could do that…right?

* * *

I sawthe pizza box waiting for me on Tyler’s desk as soon as I walked into the reception lobby. When I grabbed it, Tyler paused what he was doing to glance my way, curiosity woven into his expression.

“Working late tonight,” I said simply and turned around before he could ask any questions that I couldn’t—or didn’t want to—answer.

Julian didn’t move a muscle when I slid through our office door. Unsurprisingly, my presence meant nothing to him. I put the pizza on his desk, followed by paper plates and napkins I’d grabbed from the commons area.

“I ordered pizza.”

It was an obvious statement, but it was the first thing I’d dared to say to Julian since we bickered this morning. He didn’t like that I got things for Cameron—that much was obvious. Was it because I never got anything for him? I doubted that was the case, but something still churned in my gut, similar to the guilt that flashed across Cameron’s face earlier.

Not knowing how else to fix it, I bought pizza. For Julian.

When he didn’t respond, I nudged the box closer to him. “It’s pepperoni and pineapple. You still like that, right?”

That captured his attention. He turned his head slowly and examined the pizza box, probably wondering if I’d poisoned the damn thing.

I cleared my throat. “I assumed you still wanted to stay and look at that case tonight.”

After drawing out the moment in his own personal brand of dramatics, he spoke.

“You remember what kind of pizza I like?”

“Saturday pizza nights at your house were a staple of my childhood, Julian.” Was it surprising that he forgot I was there for those? Not even a little bit. “How could I forget the way you domineered the weekly ordering process?”

Julian hesitantly opened the box, frowning.

“You didn’t have to buy dinner,” he muttered, ignoring my critical comment. Typical. “How much was it?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Julian shot me a glare while snapping his computer shut. I was sure it had to do with the sudden unbalance of what he perceived wasfairin our deal, but he took a slice of pizza anyway.

“Are you going to eat, too?” he asked after swallowing the first bite and licking his lips. “You always get food and drinks for other people but never yourself.”

It took me a minute to find any words. Considering how much time Julian spent actively ignoring me, his words struck me as surprising. No, more than that. Shocking.

“I’ll eat.”

I didn’t want to argue about it, nor did I want Julian to go down a sudden rabbit hole that involved dissecting my relationship with food. So to prove it to him, I grabbed a slice of pizza and dropped into my desk chair. I kicked my feet up in a hopefully casual attempt to brush past his comment, and Julian’s gaze flicked over to me before immediately training on the ceiling instead.

“What?” I asked, ragged exasperation filling the word. What the hell was his problemnow?

Julian coughed, managed to swallow a bit of pizza, and then cleared his throat. All without looking at me.

Drama king.

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