No Strings Attached(2)

“You live with two teenagers. No boss can be worse than that. Besides, Kristin is a pussycat.” Amber let her gaze slide to the counter where Kristin was chatting to a customer. “Remember that time I hit on her because she was always alone in here and I read it all wrong and I assumed she was single?”

Micky nodded. “How could I forget when you remind me every few months?”

“She let me down so gently. It was the easiest rejection I ever experienced. She even offered me a free cup of tea, which I didn’t accept, of course.”

Micky had heard the story of Amber’s failed crush on Kristin many a time since The Pink Bean had opened two years ago. Since then, they’d met Kristin’s wife Sheryl, a professor at the University of Sydney, and Amber had successfully gotten over her crush.

“What will my kids think of their mother working at a coffee shop called The Pink Bean?” No matter what she did, Micky’s hormonal teenagers would disapprove noisily for an instant, then retreat back into the silence they wrapped themselves in with their oversized headphones on their heads and their blinking screens in front of their eyes.

“They won’t mind, and it doesn’t matter.” Amber fixed her gaze on Micky’s, as though wanting to say something with her intense stare.

“What?” Micky asked.

“You’ve let it slip that you might be open to… exploring more. This is a great place to start.”

Micky’s eyes grew wide. “What on earth—”

“Don’t play innocent with me now. I’m your best friend. Have been for a very long time. I’ve seen your gaze wander. Besides, you’ve told me in no uncertain terms.”

Micky felt herself flush. This didn’t stop Amber from pushing further.

“On a day like today especially, on the first anniversary of your divorce, I think you should take action. Not just symbolic action. Real action. Make a change. Take a step forward.”

At least Amber was letting go of the innuendo. “I’ll sleep on it, I promise.”

Amber nodded, then slanted her torso over the small table. “I know it wasn’t the actual reason for the divorce, because there’s never only one reason, but I know you’re curious. It’s time to put yourself out there.”

Only Amber could say something like that and have the most endearing, non-smug look on her face as she leaned back.

“When will you put yourself out there again?” Micky countered.

“I have,” Amber was quick to say, then scrunched her lips together. “You know I have, I just haven’t met the right woman yet.”

“Maybe you’re frequenting the wrong places and hanging out with the wrong kind of people.” Micky was still a little unsettled by what Amber had just implied.

“You mean The Pink Bean and you?” Amber narrowed her eyes. “Never.”

Micky looked around the cozy coffeehouse just round the corner from her new home—from her new life. She’d been living in the Darlinghurst area for only a few months, and had chosen this quickly gentrifying neighborhood at Amber’s insistence. Amber claimed Micky couldn’t hide herself away in the suburbs of Mosman anymore, not even if it meant that Olivia and Christopher would have much smaller bedrooms to sulk in.

Kristin gave her a quick wave from behind the counter. Micky tried to imagine herself behind it.

Should she take the leap?





CHAPTER TWO





When she’d gone hunting for a new pad, Micky had fallen in love with the second house the real estate agent had shown her. Her children, not so much. The biggest trade-off when they had swapped Mosman for Darlinghurst had, in the end, not been the size of the bedrooms but the fact the new house only had one bathroom they all had to share. On school days, Micky had no problem letting Olivia and Christopher take their showers first, the latter never spending more than five minutes in there anyway, while she made them breakfast and attempted—mostly in vain—to get them to eat it.

“I’ll have an apple on the bus” was Olivia’s standard reply, while Christopher would eat one forkful of the scrambled eggs she’d made, mumbling, “Mmm, good, Mom,” just to placate her, after which he probably wolfed down a Snickers bar. Micky found the wrappers everywhere.

Today, though, Micky needed to be at The Pink Bean at seven thirty—“Just to observe on your first morning shift,” Kristin had assured her—and she was impatiently waiting for Olivia to exit the bathroom. This reinforced the thought that this whole thing was an awful idea in the first place. She was forty-four years old. She’d been married to Darren Steele for a whopping eighteen of those—she’d given him her prime. What was she doing starting work at a coffee shop where, at least once a week, an LGBT activity took place?