Page 77 of See You Again
How long had there been silence while they waited for him to give his report. He cleared his throat. “We completed voir dire today. The district attorney exhausted her objections early, so I’m confident that the jury we’ve selected will be favorable. But I don’t think that will be an issue. I fully expect, after the first day of testimony tomorrow, they will offer a plea. They rushed to trial, and between the mishandling of forensics and the police failure to follow up on other leads, their case is primarily circumstantial.”
He looked around the room at the other attorneys who made up the firm. “As we all know, juries today want hard forensics and DNA to convict.”
“Thank god for television,” one attorney joked.
James frowned, but he didn’t disagree. He didn’t like winning on things like that, but in this case, the detectives on the case had dropped the ball in several places. “I’m hoping to have a deal to present to my client by Wednesday night.”
Freeing up his calendar to see Cami. Where had that thought come from?
“Great.” Luke clapped and then rubbed his hands together. “Good work team.”
James could feel his brother’s eyes on him as Luke followed him back to his office. Luke closed the door behind him.
“What’s going on with you? I’ve never known you to be this distracted.”
James dropped his files and legal pad on the desk. “How was I distracted? My report was thorough.”
“After almost a full minute.” Luke narrowed his eyes at James’s desk. He strode forward and picked up the yellow legal pad, holding it up in front of James. “Blank. Not a single note from the debriefs. No lists. What the fuck?”
“I’m not sure what you’re upset about?” James drawled. “Am I supposed to be keeping the minutes of the meetings? I thought that was Jared’s job.”
Luke’s mouth opened and closed, and James’s lips twitched at his brother’s consternation. Luke’s brows snapped together. “Are you laughing at me?”
“Yes, I thought that was obvious.”
Luke dropped the pad on the desk and cocked his head. A slow smile grew on his face. “It’s her, isn’t it?”
James stiffened. “It’s who?”
“Don’t play dumb. You were daydreaming about Cami. I can’t think of the last time you smiled in the office.”
James fiddled with the files on his desk, tapping the legal pad until it was even with the other files. He wanted to make a clever retort, but the fact was… That was exactly what he’d been doing. Ever since he’d left her Friday night, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.
In the meeting, when he should have been listening to the status of the firm’s current cases, he was daydreaming about silky skin, and the way Cami’s chocolate eyes turned molten when he kissed her, and the little sound she made when she wanted more.
“Like you don’t talk about Dahlia ad nauseum.” As a comeback, it wasn’t great.
“I don’t deny it. I also admit that I’m completely, totally, obsessed with the woman.” His hands fell from his hips, his posture relaxing, and his expression changed. “Are you in love with her?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” James scowled. “We just started dating.”
“You were in love with her before. In college.”
“Don’t you have work to do?”
“I don’t, actually.” Luke arched a brow. “Which you’d know if you’d been paying attention in the meeting. It’s not a dirty word, you know.”
James ground his molars together.
“Dahlia said her new podcast is really good. Her latest episode is out tomorrow.”
“I know.”
He and Cami had exchanged a few texts over the last few days. James knew she was swamped, trying to get through the videos the detective on the case had sent over to pull some good sound clips. Normally her podcast only posted once a week, but she had so much from her interviews, she wanted to put out a bonus this week as well.
“She’s very busy.”
Luke rolled his eyes. “It’s three words. It won’t take long.”