He glanced away toward the city lights, his usual playfulness shifted into something yet to be defined, his eyes rising to meet hers… “Juniper, when I first met you… you know… I don’t know… a city like this…” His head shaking unknowingly. “A woman as beautiful as you is always serving with someone…”

“What? No - Daniel, why would you even think that?” She stood abruptly, her silk pants flowing with the movement as she gestured in disbelief. Her fingers found a loose thread on her top, twisting it absently. “I mean, if anything, I probably scared everyone away being all…” she gestured vaguely at herself with a modest chuckle that didn’t quite land, “…intense about work and cases and justice and whatever.”

They both shifted unconsciously, the space between them simmering with a high-energy tension, teetering on the edge of collapsing into a tangled fold… like something just waiting to twist, tangle, and finally settle into the kind of knot that only makes things more stable.

She found herself a step closer to the couch, while he’d angled toward her, both feeling subject to the inevitability of their differences in potential. The city lights raining down shadows across his features as he searched for too many words at once.