About that Night Read Online Free PDF Page A

the door.
    “Your first time?” I stepped through.
    “Something like that.” He gestured to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. “What do you think?”
    My eyes widened at the sight of so many twinkling lights. “Impressive.”
    It wasn’t until I was right up against the glass that I saw just how truly impressive the view actually was. From our vantage point, it felt like we could see the entire city below us.
    “Alright, you win.” I happily admitted defeat. “The view is better. But at least at my place we were able to have drinks.”
    “Who said we can’t have drinks here?” From the depths of a bookcase, Luke retrieved a bottle of liquor. He explained, “Expensive scotch from a wealthy client.”
    Two crystal glasses followed and it wasn’t long before we were seated in comfortable chairs in front of the window, sipping and chatting the night away. It was strange how easy it was to be with Luke. We floated smoothly from one topic to another, and in the rare moments of silence, it wasn’t strained or awkward.
    “What kind of law do you actually practice?” I asked. Holly had said that his appearance in our court room had been a fluke. Judging by the swanking office space, Luke’s firm was successful at whatever law it specialized in.
    “Corporate law mostly. But I pick up a lot of random cases as well. It can get boring focusing on the same thing every day. I like to dabble in different areas whenever possible.”
    “Like family law?” I asked. Luke’s answer had surprised me. He didn’t sound like a man that was happy with his chosen profession.
    “My buddy asked me to help out with his divorce. His wife’s family has a lot of money and my friend is a high school math teacher. He couldn’t afford to spend a lot of money on a lawyer. Besides,” he shrugged, “us divorced guys have to stick together.”
    He said it so casually that I almost didn’t process the seriousness of what he had just confessed. “Divorced?”
    “Did I fail to mention that earlier?” he asked with a guilty grimace. “Been a divorcé for just shy of a year now.”
    “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I wanted to know more details, but I wasn’t sure I had the right to ask. We had only known each other for a few hours, after all.
    “That’s a loaded question.” He eyed his nearly empty scotch glass. “I’ve spent a lot of nights in the last year drinking from this glass and thinking about that very question and I’m still not sure I can answer it. The only thing I do know is that I don’t regret my decision.”
    “So it was your decision?” I don’t know why, but that mattered to me.
    He forced a pained smile and reached for the half-empty bottle of scotch. “It’s a long story. Can I offer you a refill?”
    “Always.” I held out my glass while he poured an inch of liquid into it.
    “Her name was Lauren and we met a couple years ago through mutual friends,” Luke explained, pouring himself two inches of scotch. “This may be surprising, but I’m a bit of a hopeless romantic. We were only together six months when I proposed.”
    ‘That’s quick,” I said quietly.
    He nodded. “Quick and stupid. I barely knew anything about her. Then a few months later, we had this ridiculously extravagant wedding, per her insistence. Two months after that, I found out she was cheating on me with three other guys.”
    “Whoa.” My eyes widened. “That’s terrible.”
    “I got what I deserved,” he said with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “I think I was just so caught up in the idea of being in love with her that I never gave myself time to actually fall in love with her. It’s no wonder that I ended up disappointed.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling a tightness in my chest when I saw the pain in his eyes. “You’re a decent guy. You didn’t deserve to be treated like that.”
    Luke stared at me thoughtfully. “We all have our scars.”
    He was doing more than just turning my own phrase