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Chloe: Actually, got uni stuff all day then musical stuff in the evening. Tomorrow? Friday? Let me know.
Carrie: Did you think about what I said last night? I was serious.
Cameron’s frowning by the time he’s read them all. He’s been getting texts like this every day since they had lunch together. Scratch that, since his phone call with them on Saturday, even though they promised to table it over the weekend. Ignoring the texts has not dissuaded his sisters in the slightest.
‘Everything good?’
Cameron lifts his gaze to Jules. She’s staring at him with a furrowed brow.
‘Yeah. It’s good. My sisters are—’ His phone starts buzzing in his hand. ‘Calling me. Apparently.’
‘Do they make a habit of calling you at breakfast?’ Jules asks, as Cameron stares at Carrie’s face on his phone. He has no plans to answer.
‘Uh, no. I think it’s because I’ve been avoiding their texts.’
‘Why?’
Because they’re hounding me about asking you out and wondering if we’ve started dating.
The call times out and he switches his phone to airplane mode. He’ll take it off when he leaves Jules’s room.
He returns his attention to Jules. ‘Because they’re meddling.’
Jules laughs, expression clearing. ‘I know that feeling. Can’t give them the satisfaction of an immediate reply. My brother used to be so bad at it.’
‘Used to. How’d you get him to stop?’
‘I didn’t do anything. He had a kid and our conversation topics changed.’
‘You’re an aunt?’
Jules’s smile could give the sun a run for its money. ‘Yep. Got a little nephew down in Tasmania. Another on the way, actually.’ She pulls out her phone while she speaks and taps at the screen, before placing it on the table and spinning it to face him. ‘That’s me and my brother and his wife, Cecelia. And little Toby.’
She gestures to the people on the screen as she names them. Cameron leans over the table to have a closer look, brushing a section of Jules’s hair behind her ear so it’s not tickling his cheek. She blinks at him and bites her lower lip. No fair. He wanted to do that.
Not even risking a kiss in case he gets carried away, he looks back at the phone. Jules’s brother—Finn, if he’s remembered correctly—looks like a male version of Jules. Same hair and eyes, but taller and hairier. Cecelia’s beautiful, with curves and wavy blonde hair and a smile made for the cameras. Her wheelchair is bright blue and matches her glasses. In her lap is a brown-haired boy with a cheeky smile and plump cheeks. Jules has her arm around Cecelia’s shoulders and she’s tickling Toby.
‘Beautiful,’ Cameron breathes, eyes stuck on Jules’s disarming smile, the pure joy on her face.
‘Pardon?’
He clears his throat, looking up at the real deal. The beauty is magnified in person. It sends a rush of heat along his spine and his words get caught in his throat a moment as he stares into Jules’s blue eyes. His mind conjures a fantasy picture like the one on Jules’s phone, of him and her and a little girl sitting on his shoulders.
Shit. Where’d that come from?
He swallows roughly, blinking to clear the image. ‘It’s—They’re, uh, a beautiful family.’
‘Thanks.’
Jules smiles down at the picture. There’s a wistfulness in her eyes that has him asking, ‘Do you miss not having them around? Your family?’
‘Yeah,’ she sighs, swiping along to another similar photo, this one with two older people who must be her parents. ‘I really do. We were very close. I mean, we still are, obviously, but phone calls and video chats aren’t really the same.’
She swipes back to the original photo and chews her lower lip. He wants to reach across and smooth his thumb over it so she’ll stop.
‘And sometimes I worry,’ she says, so quietly he almost misses it.
‘About what?’
