Chapter Forty Five

It had been a crazy day. Alex her boss had welcomed her back, asking how she was feeling after her bereavement. Aaron had more than covered for her, and she couldn't be more grateful for that. For the last ten days she'd not thought of work, and it hadn't been until just before the weekend that she'd even thought about her colleagues. She'd emailed Alex to say she was coming back, and had mentally prepared a story to explain why she disappeared so dramatically. She was almost wrong footed when Alex asked about her elderly Aunt.

When she finally got back to her own office, Taylor jumped up with a screech, "oh my GOD! I am so glad that you are back, girlfriend...there is FAR too much testosterone in this place."

Julia reciprocated the rather dramatic hug, then when it finally ended, smiled at her colleague, "sorry to abandon you."

She shook her head, "Not at all. I was so sad to hear about your aunt. You must've been close?"

It was easy to tell white lies here, than to explain anything else. So she pasted on what she hoped was a sad smile and shrugged, "she was elderly, but it's always a shock. So how has the exhibition been? Did you rearrange my Q and A sessions?"

They chatted for an hour, sorting through the diary, as the rest of the team arrived slowly.

Mid morning she checked her flight tracker app, Aaron's flight was due to land at around lunchtime, and she saw it was on schedule. She'd text him at lunch time, let him know she was thinking of him. After spending a few hours catching up with all that she missed, she was almost surprised when Taylor leaned into her office.

"Lunch? I'm buying...there's this deeeee-licious deli that's opened two blocks away. You'll come?"

Nodding she reached for her bag, she needed to keep her mind active...plus she wanted to know what had happened between Taylor and the rather quiet Jerome, when she'd walked out ten days earlier, they were going out, to talk. She had a lot to catch up on.

The sun was shining as they cut across a couple of intersections to a small deli with the word Sandy's emblazoned across the top, of the doorway. There were only a couple of tables inside and each was taken. Taylor shrugged, assuring Julia that they could take their food to the park, or one of the benches across the street.

It was the greatest sandwich she'd had in weeks. Hunger dictated that they chose the nearest bench to tuck into their lunch and for a few moments, they both almost inhaled their food. She'd chosen a Mexican chicken sandwich with extra jalapeños and guacamole.

She needed several napkins to mop up the deluge, but it was worth it. When half was demolished, she sat back and sipped at her diet coke as she turned to Taylor. "So...Jerome?"

Taylor blushed, "I was hoping you'd forgot."

Julia grimaced, "that bad? I thought you were going out for coffee."

"We did...but I don't know what happened. He kissed me again, it was amazing...but he hasn't said much thing. He's not avoiding me, but he's not said anything else."

"So what's your plan B?" Julia was hardly one to advise on relationships, but she of all people knew that sometimes life needed a kick up the arse.

"Nothing. I mean I've given him several chances..."

Julia shook her head, "he was DEAD jealous of you at that dinner a couple of weeks back. You need to start flirting more, push him into a corner."

She shrugged, "but that might make work difficult, it's not perfect, but it works."

Julia could see both points, but knew that she couldn't interfere. "We'll keep chipping away at him, I promise."

Back at the office, she sent Aaron a message.

Hope you're there safely. Stay safe, kind of getting used to having you around.

As messages went it was innocuous, but for her, it was all but an expression of love...not that she loved him, but it was her accepting whatever they had going on, he'd know that.

Then she called her Doctor to arrange a review, she was in her Brooklyn office Wednesday, and so she arranged to call there after work.

Job done, she focussed on her afternoon, almost catching up by the time she left.

She'd been home an hour when her phone rang, almost sprinting to retrieve it, she sighed with a tinge of disappointment to see an incoming video call from Abi.

They hadn't spoken since the previous week, and she wanted to speak to her best friend more than anything, but then she worried about how much to tell her. She was having not sex, but intimacy with her fiancé's brother. She should come clean, but then she'd have to explain that it was therapy, that he was helping her out, that she didn't know what the long term implications were.

It wasn't an easy situation and it sounded rather sordid to her own ears. So as she connected the call, she pasted on a relaxed smile and blew a kiss to her friend.

They chatted for an hour, and there was a lot to catch up on, everything but the weekend really. Firstly, the counselling, how much better she was feeling, with a large hint of wedding hell from her friend. Within a few minutes they were back to their relaxed and familiar level of chat.

For most of the evening as she walked the dogs, made dinner, she waited for her phone to ring, or buzz. But as she turned off the lights, curled up in Aaron's bed, surrounded by the smell that was quintessentially him, she tried to ignore the fact that he hadn't messaged her...at all.

Waking early, Julia decided to go for a jog with the dogs. She wasn't a great runner and the dogs had little legs, so everyone was a winner, and when she came home grunting and moaning, a dog under each arm for the last half a mile, she felt like she'd done something.

When she'd showered, she emerged to see Cliffy fast asleep somehow squeezed into one of her running shoes. It was both funny, and a great reason to contact Aaron again. She wasn't going to beg him, she wasn't going to chase him, but a neutral funny pic about one of his babies was both appropriate...and a reminder that she existed.

So she sent it.

Three schools were attending seminars in the museum that day, and before she had chance to speak it was home time.

"Beer?" She looked up to see Jerome leaning around the door. "There's a new bar just off Broadway. We're going for a couple."

Sitting back she realised two things, one that she was exhausted, and secondly that she hadn't had a reply from Aaron. That caused almost physical pain, it took a few seconds to reply to a text. Going home made sense for her fatigue, but the fact that it was to an empty house caused her to feel an almost panic.

So she pasted on that smile, the one she'd hidden behind for so many years. "Sounds amazing. Just keep me a minute to get my stuff together."

Twenty minutes later she was sat in a booth with her work friends eating wings and drinking ice cold beer. In that environment it was easy to forget, switch off to the turmoil in her mind, and focus instead on the stand-off between Taylor and Jerome. After just one drink, and a rather obvious avoidance by Jerome, Taylor bolted. And Julia felt for her.

A few minutes later, one of the other guys headed to the bar to refill their beers, so she turned to him.

"What's the score?"

He blushed as he looked at her, and she knew that he knew exactly what she was talking about. When he merely opened and closed his mouth like a guppy, she rolled her eyes.

"You're breaking that girl's heart. Not man enough to tell her how you feel?"

His eyes widened, surprised at her outburst, hell SHE was surprised at her out burst. It wasn't her place to get involved, but nothing had changed in the last couple of weeks, and they had a job to do, they had to sort this out. Plus, when things were confusing for her, it was far easier to focus on someone else's life.

Reaching for her almost empty glass, she drained it, then looked back at him, "man up, tell her either way. Don't keep her dangling."

"I'm not..." He started to reply, but his words were lost in the furore of one of the men coming back with a tray filled with beer.

She drank hers talking to Jim, one of the older men who provided maintenance support for their wing of the museum, he'd had to repair a huge leak when she'd been off, and he took pride in telling her just how good a job he did.

After that drink, she decided to leave, she was the last woman standing, not that it was an issue, but she had to get home to the dogs.

As she waited for a cab outside, suddenly too tired to think about the various connections and metro stops her journey contained, Jerome rushed out of the bar, almost catapulting into her.

"Sorry, I just wanted to explain..."

She smiled, "look it's nothing to do with me, I was wrong to speak out, I don't need to hear anything, just speak to Taylor, or let her go."

"She's not the type I go out with...I don't know how my friends and family will be."

She looked at him quizzically, and he added, "she's white, upper-class...everything my family and friends despise. I don't want her to...I don't know, be upset by that."

She grimaced, this wasn't a conversation she wanted to have, and now she KNEW she shouldn't have interfered. But his reasoning, his excuses were poor. "Taylor's hardly your typical posh girl, and you need to give her more credit. She can deal with that, and it is the twenty first century, you might be surprised by how it all plays out. Unless it's you that has the real issue? I mean surely your friends and family want to see the person they love happy?" When he grimaced, she added, "you're talking about dating, not a life time of marriage...it might not work out, you may not have to introduce her to your people. Jut decide what YOU want, for YOU."

As she spoke the words a taxi responded to her raised arm and pulled up at the kerb, planting a kiss on his cheek, she disappeared into the cab.

Carrie had walked the dogs at lunchtime, but they were still ecstatic to see her when she opened the door to their room. A quick change into some shorts and a t-shirt and she headed straight back out with them. There were a few parks nearby, but she did like heading down to the walkway, that gave what most people agreed was the best view of the city. The park that ran up to Brooklyn Bridge.

The dogs yapped at her heels until she got to the park, then she let them off and they scurried off in different directions, sniffing, peeing and yapping. She walked, her eyes on them both until she spotted an empty bench. Lowering herself onto it, she could see both animals, but also was able to check her phone. She hated that she cared, that the empty screen devoid of as much as a message affected her. But it did. Tears welled in her eyes, and she dropped her head to hide them from the crowds that gathered at the park.

The irony of her her earlier words to Jerome came back to haunt her, because for the first time in her life, she KNEW what she wanted. And it was the man who hadn't responded to her messages for almost two days.