Excerpt from "Practice Makes Perfect" by Julie James

Payton grabbed a pen and a legal pad, stuffed them in the file folder she carried, and headed out her office door. Irma’s desk was right outside her office, and she turned to let her secretary know she was leaving. In doing so, she nearly ran right into someone coming down the hallway from the other direction.

“Oh, sorry!” Payton exclaimed, scooting aside to avoid a collision. She looked up apologetically and—

—saw J.D.

Her expression changed to one of annoyance. She sighed. She had been having such a nice day until now.

Then Payton realized: oops— they had an audience. With a glance in Irma’s direction, she quickly adopted her most charmingly fake smile.

“Well, hello, J.D. How have you been?”

J.D. also cast an eye in the direction of the secretaries working nearby. As well practiced in this ruse as Payton, he matched her amiable expression with one of his own.

“My, how nice of you to ask, Payton,” he gushed ever so warmly as he gazed down at her. “I’m well, thank you. And yourself?”

As always, Payton found herself annoyed by how damn tall J.D. was. She hated being in a position of— literally— having to look up to him. She had no doubt that J.D., on the other hand, quite enjoyed this.

“Fine, thank you,” Payton told him. “I’m heading to Ben’s office.” She managed to maintain her pleasant grin.

J.D.’s eyes narrowed slightly at Payton’s reply, but he too kept up the charade. “What a nice surprise— I’m headed to Ben’s office myself,” he said as if this was the best thing he’d heard all morning. Then he gestured gallantly to Payton— after you.

With an agreeable nod, she turned and headed down the back hallway to Ben’s corner office. J.D. strode easily alongside her; Payton had to take two steps for every one of his to keep up. Not that she let him see that.

After walking together in silence for a few moments, J.D. glanced around for witnesses. Seeing they were safely out of earshot, he folded his arms across his chest with what Payton had come to think of as the trademark J.D. Air Of Superiority.

“So I saw your name in the Chicago Lawyer,” he led in.

Payton smiled, knowing he surely had a thing or two to say about that. She was pleased he’d seen the article the magazine had run in this month’s edition. She had been tempted to send him a copy in yesterday’s inter-office mail, but thought it would be better if he discovered it on his own.

“40 To Watch Under 40,” she said, referencing the article’s title and proud of her inclusion in its distinction.

“40 Women To Watch Under 40,” J.D. emphasized. “Tell me, Payton— is there a reason your gender finds it necessary to be so separatist? Afraid of a little competition from the opposite sex, perhaps?”

Payton tried not to laugh as she tossed her hair back over her shoulders. Hardly. “If my gender hesitates to compete with yours, J.D., it’s only because we’re afraid to lower ourselves to your level,” she replied sweetly.

They arrived at the doorway to Ben’s office. J.D. leaned against the door casually and folded his arms across his chest. After eight years, Payton recognized this gesture well— it meant he was about to begin another one of his condescending little lectures. She gave it 95% odds that he’d begin with one of his pompously rhetorical questions that he had absolutely no intention of letting her answer.

“Let me ask you this...” he began.

Bingo.

“...how do you think it would go over if the magazine ran an article called “40 Men To Watch Under 40?” He wagged a finger in her face, answering for her. “You and your little feminista friends would call that discrimination. But then isn’t that, per se, discrimination? Shouldn’t we men be entitled to our lists too?”

J.D. held the door open for her and gestured for her to enter. As she passed by him, Payton noted that Ben wasn’t in his office yet, so she took a seat in front of his desk. As J.D. sat in the chair next to her, she turned to him, coolly unperturbed.

“I find it very interesting when a man, a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School, sitting next to me in an Armani suit, has the nerve to claim that he is somehow the victim of discrimination.”

J.D. opened his mouth to jump in, but Payton cut him off with a finger. Index, not middle. She was a lady after all.

“Notwithstanding that fact,” she continued, “I submit that you men do have your so-called ‘lists.’ Several at this firm, in fact. They’re called the Executive Committee, the Management Committee, the Compensation Committee, the firm’s golfing club, the intramural basketball team—“

“You want to be on the basketball team?” J.D. interrupted, his blue eyes crinkling in amusement at this.

“It’s illustrative,” Payton said, sitting back in her chair defensively.

“What’s illustrative?”

Payton sat upright at the sound of the voice. She glanced over as Ben Gould, head litigation partner, strode confidently into his office and took a seat at his desk. He fixed Payton with a curious gaze of his dark, probing eyes. She shifted in her chair, trying not to feel as though she was under interrogation.

J.D. answered Ben before Payton had a chance. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Payton and I were just discussing the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ledder v. Arkansas, and how the opinion is illustrative of the Court’s continuing reluctance to embroil itself in state’s rights.”

Payton glanced at J.D. out of the corner of her eye. Smart-ass.

Although admittedly, that wasn’t too shabby a bit of quick thinking.

The jerk.

Ben laughed at them as he quickly glanced at the messages his secretary had left on his desk. “You two— you never stop.”

Payton fought the urge to snicker. He really had no idea.