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‘Is it? You always manage to name the songs I’m playing at work when we’re on the phone.’
Jules’s cheeks heat. She readjusts her skirt, which got rucked up by her bag. There are goosebumps over her legs. ‘Well what about you? Who did you catch the synth-pop bug from?’ Thanks to Cat’s HR position and some unasked-for meddling, she knows he was also born in the 90s.
‘My piano tutor, oddly. She was obsessed and used to squeeze 80s pop into every lesson alongside the scales and arpeggios.’
‘You play piano? I’m learning so much about you.’
Jules double-takes as they drive past a ‘Welcome to Sydney’ sign. Has the time really passed so quickly? It’s like that one time they spent a half-hour on the phone at work after an IT solve that took three minutes.
Her phone buzzes. Seeing it’s a text from Samantha, she grins and unlocks her phone, hoping for the presentation notes so she can knock it over this afternoon and spend the rest of her free time during the conference focusing on steps one through three of her plan, and having more conversations like this with Cameron.
Jules opens the picture attachment and sighs.
‘Bad news?’ Cameron asks.
‘Not bad, just a bit of a letdown. Samantha—the woman I’m filling in for—said she’d started prepping the conference presentation, so I asked her to send me her notes.’
Since they’re stopped at a red light, Jules holds her phone up for Cameron. ‘Look.’
‘That’s a post-it note.’
‘Yeah. And not even one of the big ones.’
Jules pulls her phone back as the light turns green. ‘Oh, hang on. She’s typing something. Maybe there’s—Nope. She says sorry, she thought she had more and—Oh. Now there’s a picture of her newborn.’
‘Maybe you can put that in the presentation,’ Cameron suggests. ‘People love babies.’
‘I can picture it now. A whole audience cooing at once.’
Cameron laughs. Jules shivers. It’s getting to be a pattern.
‘You haven’t started your presentation yet?’ Cameron asks.
‘I only found out I was going to the conference on Friday.’
‘What?’
The car swerves for a second before Cameron gets it back under control. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I just … That’s the stuff of my nightmares. I mean, I’ve printed off multiple hardcopies of the timetable and my presentation already.’
‘Really?’ Jules says, a smile slowly blooming across her face. ‘But you always come across so calm on the phone. Like you can handle anything.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence. Very off base, but I appreciate it. I think all technology hates me. The radio being at full volume earlier was probably my fault. But I figure if I act calm when I have a tech emergency, maybe I’ll feel calm.’
‘Has that ever worked?’
‘Not really. But if you answer the phone when I call IT, it always helps.’
Jules doesn’t think her insides are ever going to return to a solid state at this rate.
Her phone buzzes again. ‘And … another picture of her baby. Well, there goes my chance for a conference fling. I’m going to be using all my free time to work on this presentation.’
Cameron clears his throat. ‘Conference fling?’
Shit. Jules’s eyes widen and she grips her phone tight to her chest. She’d gotten so comfortable during their conversation she stopped running every word through in her head first. Big mistake.
‘No. I didn’t—I was joking. My friends and I were chatting about the trip and they brought it up.’
The silence that follows is that awkward silence that calls attention to how awkward it is. Jules’s mouth opens to fill it, and the essence of Tori takes over her hands as she gesticulates to bat away the silence.
