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He holds her gaze for an electric three seconds before simply saying, ‘Me too.’
Jules breathes out slowly, hearing something else in his tone besides polite congeniality. Imagining something else in his tone. She’s gotten so good at conjuring it in her mind these last few months that her fantasy is bleeding into reality. That’s what she gets for fantasising regularly about his voice.
Her phone vibrates in her hand, and she glances at the screen to see new messages from Tori in the group chat.
‘So,’ Cameron says. ‘I’ll pick you up from here on Monday, or is your place better?’
Jules nearly drops her phone, then fumbles so badly to catch it she does drop it, along with the folder of conference documents. The excursion to pick them up brings her face where it ought not to be at work – crotch level. Then Cameron drops down to help her and it’s even worse because his face is right there.
She shoves the papers back into the folder, accepting some from Cameron, and quickly rights herself.
‘Your place or here?’ he repeats.
Jules’s cheeks heat. She’s imagined Cameron asking that in any number of scenarios. The real thing has her sweating in a less fun way. ‘For?’
‘The conference. The company hired a car for the two of us to drive to Sydney.’
Jules nods slowly. ‘Right. The two of us.’ Alone. In a small space together. For hours.
Jules’s insides goop all over the place. It’s tempting to say her house for no other reason than he’d be at her house. But also, then he’d see her place and she’s not sure that’s wise considering Tori and Cat also live there and would turn the simple event into an Event complete with spying at the windows and maybe wolf-whistling.
Away from Patricia’s office, she can smell him for the first time, which sounds strange, but when you’ve been fantasising about a voice and suddenly the other senses get to come out and play, they go overboard. He smells like coffee and something floral. Jasmine? Rose? She’s never been good with plant stuff. The house plants in her share house aren’t alive because of her. Maybe if she shuffles closer, she can pick what it is.
‘Jules?’
Her body trembles hearing her name in his mouth unfiltered through a phone line. ‘Here would be great.’
‘I’ll meet you in the foyer at 7 am Monday then.’
‘Okay,’ Jules says faintly, so busy gaping like a codfish at the early departure time she misses the chance to check out his ass when he steps into the lift ahead of her.
Chapter 2
Jules is barely through the front door when Tori marches up and blocks her way. Her long curly brown hair is in two buns on her head. She’s been cooking.
Holding her phone aloft, Tori dramatically recites, ‘…“False alarm. Actually potentially good news. I’ll explain at home. Need your help please.” What kind of bullshit message is that?’ Tori throws her hands skyward.
Jules doesn’t believe in stereotyping, but Tori sure does have the Italian proclivity for exaggerated hand gestures down pat.
‘My apologies for being so inconsiderate,’ Jules says with a faux-British accent.
Tori snorts. ‘Accepted. But can I at least get a hint before Cat gets home? I was stuck in boring planning meetings all day and I’m dying for a distraction.’
‘Nope.’
‘Urgh. Fine. Cat threatened to change the Netflix password if we start without her anyway.’ Tori saunters off down the corridor, curvy hips swinging back and forth in her short skirt. ‘But I’ve made homemade pizza so you better have a story to match that effort!’
‘It matches. Trust me,’ Jules tells Tori’s back before following her down the foyer into the living room. Tori branches off for the kitchen and Jules heads down the back corridor and into her bedroom.
She dumps her bag on her messy desk and unearths the conference folder. Now she’s not being distracted by Cameron and his caramel eyes, she can actually take in what the pages say. She’s only been to the Australasian Publishers Conference once, after her promotion to senior IT officer years ago. She was like a kid let loose in a lolly store. She’d crammed in so many talks, filled dozens of pages with notes and came back to the office with several ideas for improving the company’s image archive and metadata systems. Inspiration had fuelled her and she worked long hours because she’d wanted to, not because she was doing two people’s jobs at once, like now. Could attending the conference again reinspire her?
Though part of her is ready to move on from Infinity Press. A small part. The bigger part makes her shoulders hunch whenever she thinks about it. A risk-taker she is not, and Infinity is a comfortable and secure job, the place she met her two best friends—though only Cat still works with her—and close to where she lives. A patch of boredom isn’t enough to push her out, as lengthy as it’s becoming.
She sits in her desk chair and flicks through the disordered pages. Four nights in a hotel near Sydney Harbour. Arrival on Monday, with a welcome speech followed by drinks. Then three days of talks and a trade-stall day on Friday, which she’s not involved in.
Jules grabs a pen from her desk and scans the list of talks, circling ones of interest to her. She finds the session bearing Samantha’s name. ‘From Computer to Consumer: E-Commerce Technology from the Readers’ Perspective’.
Jules taps a finger on the paper. Sounds straightforward, and thankfully her talk is on Wednesday, so she has time to cobble something together. She knows from experience the IT talks are less popular than publisher or editor talks, or even marketing, but she’s fine with public speaking. Plus, considering she worked alongside Samantha on revamping their website she could wing it and be fine. Not that she will, but it’s an option.
