of superegos, if we could get back to the subject of Payton—”
“Please—you’d just love for your id to be all over that superego.”
J.D. paused. He wouldn’t have put it that way, but come to think of it . . .
“Help me out here,” he said to Tyler. “Give me your honest opinion. Do you think it would be totally crazy if I—”
“No fucking way!”
The shout, resonating through the bar, came from behind Tyler. Recognizing the voice as that of their friend Trey, J.D. glanced over and saw him shaking hands with some other guy—whose back was to them—whom Trey was obviously excited to see. Momentarily tabling his conversation with Tyler, J.D. watched as Trey gestured in his direction. The mystery guy turned around.
Surprised to see a face he hadn’t seen since law school, J.D. stood up, grinning, as the man walked over.
“Chase Bellamy . . .” J.D. said, extending his hand in greeting. “What are you doing here?”
Chase slapped him on the shoulder. “J. D. Jameson. It’s good to see you.” He pointed to Trey, explaining. “I ran into Trey the other day when I was coming out of court. He told me about this place and said I should stop by tonight.” He looked J.D. over. “I haven’t seen you since graduation. You wished me luck and said something sarcastic about saving the world.”
J.D. grinned. Say something sarcastic? Who, him? While he and Chase hadn’t hung out regularly in law school, he liked the guy well enough. He could sum up Chase Bellamy in one word: harmless. A bit of a liberal do-gooder, and maybe too agreeably passive in J.D.’s mind, but harmless. He remembered a strident debate he and Chase had once gotten into in their Constitutional Law class, over the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. What he recalled most distinctly about that debate was that Chase had given up far too easily.
“So the last I heard, you were in D.C. working on a campaign,” J.D. said. “Are you living in Chicago now?”
Chase nodded. “I just moved here a few months ago—I’m doing pro bono work with the Chicago Legal Clinic.”
J.D. smiled. Of course he was. He introduced Tyler, who had been in the law school class below them. The three of them quickly fell into talk about work.
“So what about you? Where did you end up?” Chase asked.
“Ripley and Davis,” J.D. told him.
A look of recognition crossed Chase’s face. J.D. assumed this to be an acknowledgment of the prestige of his firm, until Chase remarked, “Oh, I know someone else who works there. Are you in corporate or litigation?”
“Litigation.”
“Then you probably know her—Payton Kendall?”
“Sure, I know Payton.” J.D. grinned. Funny. Small world. “How do you know her?” he asked. Strange, he hadn’t meant for his tone to sound so proprietary.
Now Chase grinned. “Actually . . . we’re dating.”
J.D. probably would’ve been less stunned if Chase had hauled off and punched him straight in the gut. He cocked his head. “Wait—Payton Kendall?” As if there were just too many Paytons floating around the litigation group to keep track of.
“Yes, Payton Kendall.” Chase looked him over curiously. “You seem a bit surprised.”
It didn’t matter, J.D. told himself. Really. He was fine with it.
He shook off Chase’s question. “No, not at all. Why would I be surprised? You and Payton have a lot in common. Good. Yes. That’s great. Tyler, did you hear that? Chase here is dating Payton Kendall. You know Payton, don’t you?”
Tyler gave J.D. a look that said he quickly needed to shut up.
Too late. Chase seemed to suspect something. “Wait a second . . . I just realized what’s going on here. You’re the competition.”
“The competition?” J.D. asked loudly. “Why, whatever do you mean?” Christ, now he sounded like he was doing bad dinner theater. He needed to pull his shit together.
“Payton didn’t mention any names, but she told me there was stiff competition in her bid to make partner,” Chase said.
J.D. blinked. Oh . . . competition for the partnership. Of course.
“You’re in the same class as her,” Chase continued. “It’s you she’s talking about, isn’t it?”
A few weeks ago, J.D. would’ve been pleased to hear Payton describe him as “stiff competition.” But now he had thought things were different.
But why was Chase asking him about this, anyway? This was his personal business with Payton. No one else’s.
“Payton and I are both up for partner this year, yes,” was all J.D. said.
But then he wondered just how much Chase knew about recent events. He