“You’re cute,” I say. “Thank you.”
“You’re cute,” he replies. “Thank you.” He leans forward and places a kiss on my lips, casually, like he does that all the time. I have to bite back a grin.
“Can we take a picture and send it to Katherine?” I ask. “She gave me a hard time while you were getting drinks last night. Says I need to make more time for you, make more of an effort.”
Hunter chuckles. “Sure.” I hold up my phone and shift a little closer to him. I lean into him and say, “Smile!”
He does, but at the last second, turns and presses a kiss to my cheek.
I laugh and bring up the picture. It looks so cute. I’m beaming and Hunter looks moody and brooding and ... kinda into me.
I send it to Katherine with a note saying we’re having lunch, then I turn my phone to silent. I know she’s going to blow it up, and I don’t want to get into it with her. I just want to enjoy this moment.
“It’s so weird that we work in buildings next door to each other,” he says.
“So weird,” I agree.
“Did you always want to move to New York?” he asks.
I think back. “I’m not sure. I just knew I had to get out of Boston. I wanted to go somewhere that people didn’t know me.”
He narrows his eyes slightly. “You wanted to reinvent yourself?”
“I guess. I love my sister, and she’s my best friend and she’s amazing. But I just wanted to go somewhere where I could be me rather than Katherine’s fuckup of a sister.”
He pulls back. “What? How are you a fuckup?”
“You should have seen me in high school.” I grin at him, but he doesn’t smile back.
“How were you a fuckup? Did you have a drug problem? Did you get into trouble with the police? Did you skip school a lot?”
“No! I never skipped school, and I’ve never done drugs in my life.”
“Oh, so you spent time in the clink?” He knows full well I haven’t been to prison.
I burst out laughing. “Of course not.”
“Then how were you such a fuckup, Lucy Jones?”
I groan. “You know. Next to Katherine, most people are fuckups. I was a little disorganized. My grades weren’t as good as hers. I wasn’t as popular. Didn’t have any boyfriends in high school.”
“That was high school. This is New York. You just got told by a partner that you have a lot of potential and they want you to consider law school. You don’t sound like much of a fuckup to me.”
I’ve done some research on the possibility of law school. It all seems so intimidating. The LSAT, then years and years of study if I even get in somewhere. Then the New York bar, which is meant to be close to impossible. I shrug. “It’s probably just something they say to fulfill a quota or something. They don’t expect me to actually go through with it.”
He takes my chin and turns my head so I’m facing him. “You know that’s bullshit, right? People don’t waste their time blowing smoke. Sounds to me like you might be afraid of law school.”
He releases me, and I prod at my sandwich. “Yeah, well, maybe I am a little. Super smart people go to law school.”
“Right,” he says.
“So that’s a lot of pressure, trying to keep up with people like that.”
“Maybeyou’repeople like that. Ever think about that?”
The fact is, I’ve never thought of myself as someone who would go to law school. Not since college. I pushed those ideas to the back of my mind and got on with life as a paralegal.
“And anyway,” Hunter continues, “you have to apply. It’s not like they let anyone in. Take the LSAT so you’ll know. If you’re not going to keep up, you won’t get a place.”
