Free Moments of Julian by Keary Taylor Page A

turkey club and an orange
juice. And she’ll have…”
    I didn’t expect Julian to combine our
orders so it takes me off guard when he turns to me. “Uh, I’ll have
the tuna salad and a water.”
    “ That all for you?” the
worker asks and Julian pays him. Another employee hands me a tray
with our order.
    “ Where you want to sit?” I
ask him.
    He’s already crossing the hall toward
where there is a table looking out over the runway. I set the tray
down and Julian parks our bags next to the chairs.
    I’m hungry enough and Julian already
knows I’m no real lady, so I take a bite before either of us gets
the chance to say anything. Julian smiles and unscrews the lid of
his juice.
    “ My brother is the king of
OJ,” I say, nodding my head toward his drink. “He goes through a
gallon almost every other day.”
    “ And the mystery of Sage
McCain becomes slightly less shrouded,” Julian says before taking a
bite of his own sandwich. “She has a brother.”
    I realize my mistake in never
revealing anything personal, but at the moment I am not too
concerned. “Three of them, actually.”
    “ You’re lucky,” Julian
says.
    “ You don’t have any
siblings I take it?” I ask as I unscrew the lid of my
water.
    Julian shakes his head. This would be
another of those moments to share personal information. But neither
of us goes there for the moment.
    “ So, this trip is for
business,” Julian says. “You’re an important employee with her very
own assistant. Must be a big deal.” He takes another huge bite of
his sandwich and then folds his arms on the table.
    “ It is actually,” I reply,
my heart skipping a beat in nervousness at thinking about it again.
“If I can close this deal it will be worth millions extra for my
company.”
    “ Millions doesn’t seem
like a whole lot to a company like Digit,” he
scrutinizes.
    “ A month,” I clarify with
a smile.
    Julian does look impressed and his
eyebrows rise before he downs more of his orange juice.
    “ This will be the biggest
international deal we’ve done, as of yet, if I can close this,” I
say as I swallow more of my sandwich.
    “ So your boss is going to
be very unhappy with you if you don’t close it.”
    “ I hadn’t even considered
it a possibility,” I say with a coy smile.
    Julian smiles too, his head cocked to
one side just slightly. “I love your confidence, Sage.
It’s…refreshing.”
    “ Thank you. It’s
refreshing to meet a man who appreciates it.”
    “ Hmm,” he mumbles, his
lips forming into a thin line. “Shall we make our way to the
gate?”
    “ That’s probably wise,” I
say as I wad up the wrapper to my sandwich and let it roll onto the
tray. I keep the rest of my water, tucking it into my briefcase,
and toss the rest into the trash. Taking up our bags again, Julian
leads me toward gate B12.
    They load the plane within the next
few minutes and Julian and I hand our tickets to the attendant for
them to be scanned. We make our way down the ramp and into the
plane.
    I glance down at my ticket for my seat
number and slide into it. Julian stashes our bags above head and
looks down at his ticket. With a smile, he looks back down at
me.
    “ This is your seat, isn’t
it?” I ask, indicating the seat next to me.
    “ Well, how about that?” he
says as he lowers himself into it.
    “ You did this on purpose,
didn’t you?” I accuse him, even though I’m fighting a
smile.
    “ Actually,” he says,
leaning toward me. “I was on standby for both these flights. I
booked them so last minute the airline wasn’t sure they’d be able
to get me on. This is pure luck.”
    Some guys are difficult to tell when
they are joking and when they are telling the truth. Despite
Julian’s teasing nature, I am sure he’s telling me the
truth.
    The attendants finish loading the
plane and for fifteen minutes it is chaotic and noisy and the air
grows stuffy and filled with too many people smells. Julian leans
slightly toward me to avoid