Entering the conference room, Juniper noticed two men already seated at the glass table encircled by plush emerald green chairs. One was unmistakably James Kenery… the senior partner… tall and imposing in his tailored Italian suit, his posture exuding authority. Beside him sat someone she didn’t recognize.

Sandy blond hair. Clean-shaven. The kind of baby face that would probably get him carded well into his thirties, yet there was something serious in the set of his shoulders, the way his fingers rested precisely parallel on the table’s surface. His English cut suit was crisp, perfectly pressed. Everything about him seems… contained.

“Good morning,” James greeted them, his voice resonant. “Juniper, Sophia, I’d like you to meet Daniel Sorrin, our new associate attorney.”

Daniel stood up - taller than I expected - offering a polite nod. “Pleasure to meet you both,” he said softly, his voice lower than she’d anticipated, not quite meeting their eyes. His gaze seemed to hover somewhere around her shoulder.

“Welcome to the team,” Sophia replied warmly, shaking his hand.

Juniper extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Daniel.”

She’d expected a perfunctory handshake. Instead, his palm was warm against hers, his grip firm but brief - professional, nothing more - yet she found herself oddly aware of the exact moment he let go, her fingers curling slightly as if to hold onto something that wasn’t there.

“Likewise,” he murmured, already turning back to his seat.

Why am I noticing his handshake? She busied herself with her folder, straightening papers that didn’t need straightening, ignoring the answer that whispered at the edge of her thoughts.

“Daniel comes to us with extensive experience in constitutional law,” James continued, but his words seemed to come from farther away than they should. She forced herself to focus on James’s face, not on the way Daniel had settled back into his chair with that same precise stillness, or how his pen was now aligned exactly perpendicular to his legal pad.

Focus. This is work. Just work.