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‘No. I—’ He pulls his hands from the pockets of his tan slacks. ‘Can we talk? Please?’
Tori leans in close to Jules, but keeps her voice loud enough for Cameron to hear when she says, ‘You don’t have to go with him.’
‘We’re in the middle of a round,’ Cat tells Cameron, a rare note of steel in her voice.
‘I can help,’ he offers immediately. ‘Jules said you could do with another muso.’
He’s replying to Cat, but he’s looking right at Jules with a plea in his eyes. She bites her lip, chest warming.
Tori kicks a chair towards him with her foot, and he grabs for it, sitting at the edge of their group with his gaze still fixed on Jules.
His focus barely leaves her as the MC asks the next question, even as he debates with his co-worker Zoe about the answer. His steady attention has those mythical butterflies once again proving they’re not a myth by appearing in her chest.
Tori was right to say she doesn’t have to talk to him, but she wants to. Already, that ache is softening at the edges. And they left things so abruptly at the conference. She doesn’t want that to be their last interaction, even if they can’t go back to what they had. Did he believe she saw him as more than a body? She never found out.
‘Let’s go,’ she tells him before the MC asks the next question.
‘Thank you.’
Tori points a warning finger at him as he stands, but neither she nor Cat try to interfere.
Cameron lets her lead them through the packed floor. His hand lands on her lower back and tingles spread out, fierce, hitting her heart and making it pump even faster.
‘Are those your sisters at the bar?’ Jules asks, spotting a head of pink and purple–streaked blonde hair as they walk past.
‘Yeah. They drove down from Sydney this afternoon.’
Both notice her and wave. She returns the gesture. ‘Why?’
‘To be meddling sisters.’
The words are prickly but the tone is pure love.
Outside, they walk down the street away from the pub until they reach a nature strip. The cool air pebbles Jules’s skin and she wraps her arms around herself.
She stops and turns to Cameron. His hair is glossy and his jaw, which is clenched tight, is stubbled. Her thighs tingle with remembered sensation. She presses her legs together and notices he’s not wearing socks. ‘Are you okay, Cameron? You look a little … dishevelled.’
‘Am I okay? You’re asking if I’m—’ Cameron slides a hand through his hair. ‘Jules. Are you okay?’
She tucks her hair behind her ear and shrugs. ‘I’m fine’ is on the tip of her tongue, but they promised each other honesty. She’s not sure if it still means anything to him, but she wants to stay true to it.
‘I’ve been better,’ she says.
‘If any of that is because—’ Cameron cuts off with a scoff, jerking his head side to side. ‘Of course some of it’s because of me. I’m sorry, Jules.’
She rubs her palm up and down her bare arms. ‘Yeah. The, uh … The conference didn’t end the way I wanted.’
Tension brackets Cameron’s mouth. His head drops to his chest and he exhales roughly. ‘I fucked things up.’
Jules blinks. It’s not what she was expecting. She isn’t sure what she was expecting. Something less definitive and without the raw emotion, probably. Whatever he thinks he’s ‘fucked up’ sounds like it’s killing him.
‘What did you fuck up?’ she asks.
‘Us.’
He lifts his head and the emotion in his eyes wallops her in the stomach. Regret. Shame. Desperation.
Because of how things ended? But. She swallows. ‘I thought there wasn’t an us?’
