Epilogue
Kai
Nine months later
I have been leaning against the wall for almost fifteen minutes, ankles crossed and arms folded over my chest, watching attorneys and clerks move around me with folders tucked beneath their arms while I wait for Julia to finish being congratulated.
I could have stayed inside. I stepped out because she deserves this part without me hovering over her shoulder.
Today has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the woman I watched spend months convincing herself she was too busy, too old, too far removed from school and too comfortable in the job she already had to sit for the goddamn bar.
Daniel deserves most of the credit for pushing her to take it.
I deserve considerably less, although I did spend an impressive number of evenings at our kitchen table being informed that the Multistate Bar Examination was developed by sadists and constitutional law should be illegal.
She passed on the first try. Of course she did.
The notification came on an ordinary Thursday morning while I was making coffee and she was sitting at the kitchen island in one of my T-shirts, refreshing the results page with the intensity of someone attempting to detonate a bomb remotely.
When the screen finally changed, she stared at it long enough that I assumed something had gone wrong.
Then she whispered, “Holy shit.”
I barely had time to ask before she launched herself off the stool and into me hard enough to spill coffee down my wrist. She cried.
Then laughed because she was crying. Then started kissing me which ultimately led to me fucking her senseless on the kitchen counter.
Only after that did she call Daniel to tell him about passing the bar, who screamed loudly enough through the phone that I heard him from across the kitchen.
Tessa was next and changed that approximately forty seconds later by somehow screaming louder.
Julia’s mother cried. Nanna told her she knew she would pass and then asked whether that meant Julia could finally get her parking tickets dismissed.
For the record, Julia does not have parking tickets.
Nanna remains unconcerned with factual limitations when a joke presents itself.
That was five months ago. Today is the first time Julia has walked into a courtroom as lead counsel and walked back out having won.
Not assisting or organizing exhibits for somebody else.
Not quietly handing Daniel the argument he later presents as though he had discovered it himself — something he freely admits happened often enough before she finally took the bar.
Hers. I saw the exact moment she realized the judge was ruling for her client.
She didn’t smile immediately. That would have been too easy.
Instead, she went completely still at the counsel table while the judge finished explaining the order, her fingers resting over the legal pad in front of her as though she didn’t trust herself to move until every word was on the record.
The woman beside her started crying first. Julia turned toward her, and whatever professional composure she had been holding fractured just enough for me to see the relief on her face.
The protection order was granted. The husband’s contact restrictions remained in place, including third-party communication, and the temporary custody provisions Julia had argued for became part of the longer order while the family case moved forward.
It wasn’t the kind of victory that made anybody celebrate what had brought them into the courtroom.
Julia understood that better than most. Still, when she looked over her shoulder and found me sitting in the last row, a multitude of emotions passed across her face that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.
Pride. Relief. Disbelief. And that look she gives me when she forgets anybody else exists. That one is my favorite.
I stayed long enough to see Daniel grab her around the shoulders the second court adjourned, then slipped into the hallway before she could come looking for me. Her colleagues deserve their moment with her. Her client certainly does.
I have already had mine. I had it when she stood in our bedroom this morning wearing navy trousers, a cream blouse and the expression of a woman trying very hard not to throw up, while I tied my watch and pretended not to notice she had reapplied her lipstick three times.
“You’re staring,” she said through the mirror.
“I’m admiring.”
“You’re making me nervous.”
“You’ve been nervous since five-thirty.”
“I was not nervous at five-thirty.”
“You put salt in your coffee.”
She had stared at me. Then at the mug. Then back at me. I “I was aware of that.”
“Of course.”
She dumped the coffee down the sink while muttering something about me being deeply unsupportive, and five minutes later I had her sitting on the edge of the bed between my knees while I rubbed my hands over her thighs and reminded her that she had been doing most of this job for years before anyone gave her permission to put attorney after her name.
That was all I said. She didn’t need a speech.
She needed me to look her in the eye and tell her she was ready because she fucking was.
A burst of laughter reaches me through the courtroom doors, followed by Daniel’s unmistakable voice, and my mouth curves before I can stop it.
I check my watch. Another minute passes before the doors finally open.
Two attorneys come out first, followed by a clerk carrying a stack of files.
One of Julia’s senior partners appears behind them talking to Michael, and both men give me a brief nod when they see me.
Still a fucking asshole.
Then Daniel comes through backward because apparently doors are merely suggestions when he is mid-conversation.
“You are buying drinks,” he tells whoever is still inside. “I don’t care that this happened during business hours. There are laws protecting me from working sober after emotional events.”
“You just invented that law.” Her voice reaches me before she does.
Everything in me responds to it and then Julia finally steps into the hallway.
She is holding a folder against her chest, her hair slightly mussed from running her hands through it all morning, and there is still enough adrenaline in her expression that her eyes look brighter than usual. She sees me, stops and smiles.
Fuck.
There are still moments when I look at her and feel the same violent pull I did the first day she walked into my office, except now I don’t have to bury it beneath a suit and professional distance or turn it into something uglier because I am too much of a coward to ask for what I want properly.
Now I get to want her openly and it is a privilege I have no intention of forgetting.
Daniel looks between us and sighs theatrically. “There it is.”
Julia doesn’t take her eyes off me. “What?”
“That face you make when your scary boyfriend is nearby.”
“I don’t make a face. And he is not scary.”
“You absolutely make a face. And he is scary.”
Michael passes behind him, patting Julia once on the shoulder. “You were excellent in there.”
I inhale at the same time the voice in my head chimes in again — dickwad.
“Thank you.” Julia smiles but her eyes are still on me and I celebrate that small victors.
“We’ll see you Monday. Do not open your laptop this weekend.”
Daniel points at him. “See? Leadership.”
Then he turns back to Julia and lowers his voice loudly enough for everyone within thirty feet to hear. “Go have sex with your terrifying man. You earned it.”
Julia closes her eyes. “Daniel.”
“What? I’m supportive.” He laughs and walks away, followed by her version of an evil eye that, in all honestly, just makes her fucking adorable. I do hold the right to be biased but also I know that I’m not.
Julia watches them leave and mutters, “One day I’m going to kill him.”
“No, you’re not.”
Her gaze snaps back to me. “You have been waiting nine months to become the voice of reason in that sentence, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
She comes toward me, and the closer she gets, the less successful I am at keeping the grin off my face.
“Well?” she asks.
I uncross my ankles and push away from the wall. “Well what?”
Her mouth falls open. “Are you serious?”
“I’m waiting for the question.”
“Kai.”
I let her suffer for another second before taking the folder from her arms and setting it on the windowsill beside us.
Then I put both hands on her face and kiss her.
Not politely or courthouse appropriately.
Enough that somebody walking behind us clears their throat while Julia curls her fingers into the front of my shirt and kisses me back with a small sound against my mouth that makes every plan I had for the next hour suddenly cancelled.
When I pull away, she is smiling.
“That,” she says softly, “was the correct answer.”
“You were fucking incredible.”
Her smile widens. “I won.”
“You did.”
“I actually won.”
I laugh because she looks almost offended by the fact. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m allowed to be surprised. That man’s attorney spent forty minutes acting like I had invented domestic violence to inconvenience his client.”
“And then you dismantled every argument he made.”
Her eyes narrow affectionately. “Were you taking notes?”
“I pay attention when my woman is terrifying men professionally.”
The words make something warm move across her face.
Even after all this time, my woman still does that to her.
I like it far more than I should. She steps into me and wraps both arms around my waist, pressing her cheek against my chest while the courthouse carries on around us.
I hold her. There was a time when touching Julia required darkness, stolen moments and a mask.
Now she gets to be mine in public and that difference matters every single day.
“I’m proud of you,” I murmur against her hair.
Her grip tightens. “I know.”