Page 64 of The Fire We Make

He sighed. “There’s still a lot to be done until I can call it a night. Why are you still here?”

Joy shrugged. “I was in a groove and wasn’t ready to leave yet.”

He tilted his head. “You spend a lot of your Friday nights at the office?”

“Didn’t have anything better to do. Do you spend a lot of your Friday nights at the office?”

Ace chuckled. “I’ve spent my Friday nights working for a long time.”

“Gotta pay the cost to be the boss, right?”

Ace gave a solemn smile. “Exactly,” he nodded.

Joy stood, trying to escape Ace’s eyes and walked over to the floor to ceiling window behind his desk. She looked out at the Downtown Brooklyn skyline and the bustling city below them.

“New York is a beautiful city,” she mused aloud.

She heard Ace’s chair shift and felt his body heat as he came to stand beside her. “You think so?”

“Mhm. It’s loud and chaotic but I love it.”

“Yeah. Chaos on the outside quiets the one inside.”

Joy dragged her gaze to Ace. He’d stolen the words straight out of her mouth.

He was already looking at her and that same sensation that she felt the night they met, the one that made her feel like she was in the presence of someone familiar, had returned. He looked at her like he saw her and for a moment she wished that he did. That she could show him the real her and still want her.

A weighted silence hung between them and Joy got the overwhelming desire to bolt. Their eye contact was just that but it felt intimate and bare and she needed to escape.

“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to—“ Joy began as she backed away but Ace cut her off.

“Stay,” he said in that demanding tone she’d overheard on the phone. “You don’t have to go. I was about to order dinner. Join me. We can have a working dinner,” he softened.

Joy wanted to decline but she wasn’t ready to go back to being alone just yet and the desperation in his expression told her that he wasn’t either.

“Sure,” she smiled. “Let me go grab my things.”

A little over an hour later, they sat side by side on Ace’s couch with Chinese takeout spread out on the coffee table in front of them. Joy leaned across one arm of the seat and Ace leaned against the other, facing each other. With a few drinks between the two of them accompanying their meal, they were both feeling loose.

“Wait so what did you do?” Joy cackled, listening intently to the story Ace was telling about one of his celebrity clients who shot her cheating husband.

“Fuck you mean? I left. I’m a defense attorney not a marriage counselor. Sent that invoice as soon as I got in the car too.”

“I know that’s right. Love makes folks do some crazy shit.”

“So I’ve heard.”

Joy watched the liquid in her glass move as she swirled it around. “You’ve never been in love?” she asked without looking up.

“Nah,” Ace answered around a mouthful of orange chicken.

“Never?”

“Nope. Have you?”

“Nah,” Joy shook her head. “I’m not really focused on that right now.”

“What are you focused on?”