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‘So what did happen?’
‘She, uh, gave me a compliment and I freaked out and ran.’
‘You ran away from a compliment?’
He drops his hands between his legs and looks out at the treadmills, the belt on his abandoned one still cycling around. ‘She said she liked my personality more than my body.’
Matteo lets out a low whistle. ‘So kinda made you question your whole attitude towards the fling, then.’
‘And it made me want to tell her about Braden. I don’t tell people that. I hate how it makes me look. And yes, I am aware now that’s unhealthy.’ Cameron pushes his hands through his hair. ‘Point is, I ran and I felt awful. Everything was weird inside me because I thought I’d screwed things up with Jules. I knew the only way to make it right was to apologise and explain. So I did.’
Matteo whistles slowly through his teeth. ‘You told her the Braden stuff.’
‘Uh, a little.’
Matteo raises his eyebrows at that and the fist grinds Cameron’s insides some more. ‘But other stuff. Personal stuff. She kind of had to force it out of me, though, to be honest. I’ve been, uh, keeping a lot of shit inside recently. But then after, she smiled at me and my insides all slotted back into place. So, it was worth it. I’d do it again for that smile.’
Matteo grins, elbowing Cameron. ‘You’re a romantic. That was poetry.’
‘Shut up.’
‘So you’re actually admitting your feelings are there?’ Matteo inches closer to him on the bench.
‘The possibility has always been there.’ He wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to avoid seeing her at work if there wasn’t.
‘And now?’
Cameron’s got a summer storm inside his chest, pushing warmth every which way. Jules is upstairs in his bed waiting for him, and damn if it doesn’t put a smile on his face. ‘It’s not a possibility, is it? It’s reality.’
Matteo slides right up to him and wraps his long arms round Cameron.
‘Urgh. Matteo. Dude. You’re covered in sweat.’
‘So are you, mate. I don’t care. You confessed to feelings and I gotta support that.’
‘Wish the support stank less.’ But he braces his arms around Matteo’s torso anyway.
‘So you two are gonna start dating now?’ Matteo cuts straight to it when he finally releases Cameron from the sweaty purgatory of his hug.
‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. Jules wanted a fling. I have no idea if she’d be keen on a relationship with me.’
Shit. He hadn’t thought that far ahead until now.
His gut lurches. He was so comforted this whole time knowing they were on the same page. Now he’s flipped to the next chapter without knowing if she wants to follow.
Anxiety becomes a dryness in his throat, tempered marginally by a warm hopeful breeze in his chest.
‘I can’t think about it right now, anyway. About any of it.’ He stands and grabs his stuff abandoned at the treadmill, shutting the machine off. ‘I’ve got my presentation. I don’t need more unrelated stuff crowding my head.’
‘As long as you’re not going to run from your emotions. Or from making a decision,’ Matteo says, hopping back onto his treadmill and starting it up.
Cameron’s not running. He’s delaying, making the 100-metre sprint into a marathon, or a hurdle race. The first hurdle being his presentation. Then figuring out if Jules wants more, then dealing with Braden, then whatever else pops up, like that niggling question in the back of his mind around whether he made a mistake leaving Sydney and what that would mean for him and Jules.
Chapter 24
Jules wakes to the sound of a shower running. She jerks up in bed, heart rabbiting away in her chest, before it sinks in. She’s in Cameron’s room, in Cameron’s bed.
Her body tingles all over and she flops back onto the bed and rolls over to smash her face into the pillows. They smell like Cameron. Like the man she spent the night with. The one she likes enough that she’s going to tell him the truth today about how she feels.
