He nodded. “So you’ve been thinking…what? Find another firm?”
“No. I’m thinking about opening my own practice. Here.”
His eyes widened and a smile spread across his face.
“Nothing big,” I said quickly, already defending against an objection he hadn’t made. “Just me. A paralegal, maybe. A receptionist eventually. I’d keep my services affordable. Sliding scale, payment plans. People around here deserve somebody who sees more than billable hours.”
I braced for it.Have you ever run a business? What’s your five-year projection? That’s not sustainable.
“Good,” Julian said.
I blinked. “Good?”
“This town needs it. Needs you.” He smiled at me. “You’d be a force.”
A nervous laugh got out of me. “That’s it? No market analysis? No devil’s advocate on overhead?”
“Why would I argue you out of something you already know?” His brow went up. “You’ve practiced law for years. You know your worth. Why keep letting other firms take a cut?”
I hadn’t realized how braced I’d been for doubt dressed up as concern. Theberealisticadvice that I was used to hearing from the people in my life. Because that was the rhythm I knew. Float a dream, watch a man pick it apart for my own good until I learned to stop floating them. Malik never saidgood.Malik saidbe realistic,and meantbe smaller.Julian had saidgoodlike it was obvious, and now he was already three steps ahead of me.
“There’s space in the old Perryman building,” he said, already pastwhetherand ontohow.“Been empty two years, but the bones are good. Walk to the courthouse, visible from Main, ground floor for clients who can’t do stairs.”
I stared at him. “How do you know all that about a building?”
“I’m an investor, Alyssa. I know most of the viable commercial real estate in this town.” He said it like it was nothing.
Nobody had ever gottenaheadof one of the things I wanted before. They only ever got in front of it to block the light, and now he was talking square footage and sightlines to the courthouse, already building the thing bigger than I’d let myself build it.
Which meant I had to slow him down, because he was thinking like Julian, and I’d been thinking like a woman counting what was actually in her savings account.
“Okay, but you’re going way bigger than me,” I said, half a laugh in it. “I’m not trying to buy a building, Julian. I’ve been saving enough to lease a space. I just need one office, a room for me, a second for a paralegal, conference room, reception area. Then I can grow from there.” I held his eyes. “Does that make sense?”
To his credit, instead of arguing me up into something bigger, he offered: “I understand. Then let me connect you back with Cheryl. She’s got eyes on every listing in the county before it hits the market. Let her pull what’s out there that fits your requirements.”
“Thank you, Julian,” I said slowly, “I really appreciate that.”
julian
I’d thoughtthe car was the war to be won. We fought, and she kept the car. That should’ve settled it.
What I hadn’t understood yet was that the real battle with Alyssa didn’t just get fought over big things. It got fought over groceries she didn’t call for me to carry. It was fought over the bandage around her finger, from slicing it trying to put together furniture herself, instead of calling me down to do it.
It was fought over a mixing bowl.
I was at her kitchen table one night working long division with Micah when I heard wood drag across the floor behind me. I turned around and she was up on a dining chair, on her toes, one arm stretched for a bowl on the top shelf.
“What are you doing?”
“I’ve got it.”
“I’m six-three. You’re five-eight flat-footed, standing on furniture three feet from me.” I was already up. “You couldn’t say,Julian, hand me the bowl?”
“You’re already helping Micah with his homework,” she replied like it closed the matter. “I wasn’t going to bother you.”
And there it was, the whole machine laid out in one sentence. She was keeping a ledger. I was already doing one thing for her kid, so the window for asking me anything else had shut. She’d rather stand on furniture on her tiptoes than spend a “favor” she’d decided she’d already used up.
I lifted her off the chair, set her down, slid it out of the way with my foot, took the bowl off the shelf without rising up on anything, and handed it to her.
