Page 5 of Love Is…?

Dylan nodded. “And you get twenty interviews. Immersive. You’ll need to negotiate the timing. I’d go for twelve weeks, personally.”

“Culturemagazine,” Jayde breathed, reading the subject line again.

“Yep.”

“Who are the subjects?”

“Ooh, now that I don’t know. I’ve just downloaded all the info in my brain like a late 90s USB.”

Jayde chuckled. “Are you going for this?”

Dylan shook his head very softly.

“So, you’re giving it to me?”

“I’m notgivingit to you. You’re thirty and experienced and should know better than to ask that question,” Dylan said, picking up his coffee and taking a long sip. “You’ll have to apply, pitch, blah blah. I’m not going for it because…” He paused and Jayde leant forward into the gap in the sentence. “You’re looking at the new chief editor of theMelbourne Herald Weekendmagazine.”

Jayde gasped. “Dylan, that’s amazing!” She quickly replaced her coffee and stood so she could reach around and hug him. “I’m so happy for you!”

“I’m actually quite impressed with myself.” He brushed at his shoulders, and Jayde laughed.

“I’mquite impressed with you.”

Then Dylan pointed at her, and frowned. “You sure you want to go for this?”

“Yes. Why would?—”

“Now hear me out.” He sipped from his coffee, allowing the silence to grow. Jayde sighed, and Dylan grinned over the top of his tiny glass cup. “Okay. Let’s say you get this. How are you going to handle the topic knowing how sceptical you are about it?”

“Love?”

“Yes, Jayde. Romantic love to be exact.” Dylan raised a bushy eyebrow. “Love is wonderful. There. That’s your first Love Is…”

“Love is a unicorn, Dylan. It’s for other people. I cherish all women with nights of pleasure but a love for one? Nope.” Jayde peered grumpily into her coffee.

“You don’t believe in unicorns?”

Jayde looked up and took in Dylan’s coy expression which was completely at odds with his physical appearance. Then he frowned again.

“So how are you going to write it? You can’t take in baggage from your mum and dad. Not for something as important as this.”

Ignoring the fizz that vibrated in her stomach because Dylan’s question made it sound very much like she’d scored the contract already, Jayde rolled her lips together.

“Like you said. I’m experienced and I do know better so I’ll write it like any topic I don’t know anything about. From a distance.”

Dylan shook his head. “It’s just as well you’re a bloody good writer.” Then he hummed softly ‘From A Distance’.

She growled. “And it’s just as well I like you.”

Dylan coughed a laugh across the top of his cup.

Her brain buzzed noisily with Dylan’s good news and the chance that she might just break into the international long-form journalism arena.

The thingabout unexpected emails from unexpected senders is that brains don’t quite register their importance and automatically send them to trash. A week after coffee withDylan, Jayde’s finger hovered over the little rubbish bin icon sitting just above one of those unexpected emails.

Then her brain finally engaged. The email was a reply fromCulture. She opened it and read the contents. Then reread them. Then reread each word as if they weren’t connected to the next, just to make sure they were actual words.

“Yessss,” she hissed, and punched the air. Jayde Ferguson, essayist forCulturemagazine. God, that sounded good.

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