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‘What if you tell him you want more than sex?’ Cat suggests. ‘If he says yes, you’ll have your answer.’
Jules shudders, pinpricks digging all over her back. ‘After we’ve hooked up? No way. I’ll seem like some desperate person who’s fallen in love with him because of his powerful sexual energy and massive penis.’
‘Woah. Have you?’ Tori’s eyes widen and she grins gleefully. ‘Is it?’
‘His penis isn’t magical, so no. And I’m not commenting on its size.’
Tori leans back against the pillows, nodding. ‘It’s huge. Knew it. With a voice like that.’
‘There’s no correlation between depth of voice and penis size, which doesn’t matter anyway,’ Cat directs to Tori, before pointing to the screen and saying. ‘And you read too much workplace erotica.’
‘I do not. Just because you prefer fantasy settings, doesn’t—Wait. I’m getting derailed.’
She pushes herself to sitting again, glancing in the direction of Cameron’s room as she does, then lowering her voice and leaning close to her phone so her face takes up the entire screen. ‘I can’t tell him I want more. You remember what happened with Todd? What if that happens again? I’d prefer just sex with Cameron than no Cameron at all.’
Her friends fall silent, possibly remembering, as she is, the wreck she was after Todd broke up with her. She’d bought him a ring and planned a speech and while she didn’t get down on one knee there was a romantic dinner. She opened her heart to him and instead of a ‘yes, I’ll marry you’ she got ‘we should break up’.
Then the ants came marching in and settled somewhere inside her, ready to stomp their scratchy little feet whenever she thinks about jumping into the dating pool again. Or taking an emotional risk. Like telling Cameron how she feels.
Cat clears her throat. ‘That situation is a little different.’
The ants disagree.
Jules shakes her shoulders but the feeling lingers, so she pushes past the topic instead. ‘Ignoring the huge actually-impossible-to-ignore issue that I’m apparently having a fling with a man I want to see if I want a proper relationship with, what am I meant to do this morning? Look him in the eye and ignore what happened last night? Do I bring it up? Say thank you?’
‘Woah. Slow down,’ Tori says with a lifted palm, thankfully going along with the abrupt topic change. ‘You’re way overthinking this.’
Jules fists her hand into her tangled hair. First Cameron, then Tori have told her that. Probably because it’s true. ‘I know. But you know I don’t have experience to draw on in this situation.’
‘Just act normal,’ Tori says.
Jules rolls her eyes. ‘Proper advice only, please.’
‘Fine. Take your cues from him,’ Tori says. ‘Say good morning, see how he reacts, then continue from there.’
‘Okay. Okay.’ Jules bobs her head up and down. ‘I can do that. But what if I start getting awkward. What if I look at him and, like, picture his O-face or something.’
‘Then he’ll read it on your face and whisk you away to a closet somewhere.’
‘Tori!’
‘Hey. You’ll be fine,’ Cat says. ‘You’re great at conversation. You do it all the time at work with people I know you’d rather ignore or yell at or stick pins into a voodoo doll of. Yet you get through all of those with aplomb. It’s one of the reasons you’re covering Samantha’s maternity leave.’
Jules nods, taking a deep breath.
‘So you can handle interacting with Cameron in a calm, regular way. The conference starts properly today, anyway,’ Cat says. ‘It may not be such a big issue. You’ll be seeing him far less than you would have yesterday.’
‘Cat’s right,’ Tori agrees. ‘And bringing it back to seriousness for a second, this isn’t the end of any romantic prospects for you. If you think it’s too soon to ask him for more, fine, but I think it’s definitely still on the table. In the meantime, think of your situation as serendipity.’
‘How?’
‘You were saying it’s been a while for you, and now the guy you’re crushing on, who you’ve been having sexual fantasies about, has offered to have sex with you, not just once, but for an entire week. Why’re you trying to find a downside to this?’ Tori grabs the phone off Cat so she can stab her finger to the screen. ‘Lady, grab this opportunity. Get some. Get filthy. Have fun. Be spontaneous in a safe, structured way and use those post-orgasm pillow talk moments to get a little closer to him.’
‘That’s … That’s actually a fantastic point,’ Jules says. Much better than straight-up telling him how she feels.
‘I agree,’ Cat says, reclaiming her phone. ‘Nice pillow talk idea, Tor.’
‘Thank you.’ Tori dips her head, arms extended out in a seated bow.
