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Cameron knocks their knuckles together. ‘I’m sorry for icing you out.’
‘You should be. My friendship is a gift.’
‘Sorry for not cherishing it.’ He says it with an eyeroll but the meaning is sincere.
In all the hubbub of his sisters trying to convince him to ask Jules out the other day, they’d made some points he didn’t disagree with. There are times when he’s so sick of doubting himself and his relationships, and not only the romantic ones. So sick of faltering in situations he used to not think twice about. It’s like a cold he can’t shake, that cough that lingers weeks past when it should have gone away.
‘I’m being serious,’ he tells Matteo. ‘I shouldn’t have gone radio silent on you.’
‘Look, mate,’ Matteo says, bracing his forearms on the table and staring at Cameron. ‘I’m a bit hurt, not gonna lie, but I know you’ve had stuff going on. You moved to a new town, new digs, new people, new work and all that.’
Listed like that, they sound like weak excuses. Cameron sighs. ‘But I shouldn’t have stopped texting.’
‘Damn straight.’ Matteo straightens in the chair and grabs a menu. ‘Okay. Dragging you portion of the catch-up is over. Let’s pick up where we left off, alright? No awkward finding our feet again. We’re not lovers reunited after a war.’
‘Sure.’ Cameron smiles, stomach settling as he relaxes into his chair at Matteo’s easy acceptance of his apology.
Joking around with Matteo, it loosens something in his gut he didn’t realise had been wound so tight since moving out of Sydney. Same way being with Jules does.
‘Great. So as your best friend, it befalls me to ask …’ Matteo’s eyes scan over the menu. It’s a shock when he asks, ‘What’s going on with you and the brunette?’
Cameron’s eyes widen. ‘You weren’t kidding about jumping in, huh?’
‘You know I don’t lie.’
It’s true. He never does, which means offending people, including Cameron, more than a few times, but at the end of the day, Cameron appreciates the bluntness. Knowing where he stands with Matteo, and knowing he’ll never play pretend or run rings around him with petty games. And he’s never mean about it. Always very clear that he’s speaking from his own experiences.
‘So. Julianne?’ Matteo prompts again after they’ve ordered coffees.
‘Jules. We’re …’ He has a moment of wanting to keep Jules to himself, but Matteo with relationships is like Carrie with lies. He knows.
‘We’re hooking up.’ It doesn’t feel adequate to assign Jules to a ‘hook up’, but it’s what they agreed to and what he needs to keep her as to stop her from distracting him from work.
‘Urgh. That is my least favourite relationship phrase. It’s so vague. What does that mean in this situation? Expand.’
‘Sex.’
‘Mate. Mate.’ Matteo shakes his head. ‘I said expand and you gave me even less words.’
Cameron fiddles with the cutlery a server dropped off. ‘You want the full story?’
‘Look at my face.’ Matteo leans across the table and frames his face with his hands. His dark brown eyes are wide. ‘I want the full story.’
The full story starts months ago, when Cameron called up the IT line at work and a woman answered and their conversation slipped beyond work, despite Cameron’s rule not to get close to anyone at Infinity. But they were in different departments and had never met so the slip didn’t seem crucial. Then it kept happening and he found himself calling for even the simplest IT problems. The number of ‘have you tried turning it off and on again’ conversations was, frankly, embarrassing, but worth it to get to the part of the calls that happened after, where she’d guess the music he was listening to at his desk and they’d talk for ten, fifteen, once even thirty minutes about music. One time, he caught himself smiling and humming to himself in the bathroom after a call. That was when he knew he was heading into the danger zone. The danger in this case being falling for a co-worker.
He doesn’t tell Matteo any of that, but it’s not like he has anyone else to talk to about this. His sisters want him to actually date Jules, and he doesn’t want to be talking to them about his sex life anyway. It’s weird enough when Chloe drops hints about hers, and the time he discovered Carrie’s vibrator collection was scarring.
Matteo’s energy is so open and he’s looking at Cameron with a ridiculous wide-eyed gaze and a little pout on his lips. If this is what it will take to atone for his months of silence, so be it.
Cameron inhales deeply then lets it out. ‘Right. Well, we drove up together and she let slip she was interested in a conference fling.’
‘Damn, that woman is forward.’
Cameron shakes his head, remembering the rambling and facepalming that happened after. ‘I don’t think she meant to say it at all. She wasn’t propositioning me. She actually made it pretty clear she wasn’t.’
Matteo sucks a breath in through his teeth. ‘Ouch.’
‘At the time, sure.’ Because even though Cameron was busy ignoring any mushy feelings for Jules, it still hurt to hear he wasn’t even being considered. ‘But then we had sex last night.’
