No Strings Attached(61)

“I didn’t say attracted, Micky, I said interested.” Amber’s facial expression was dead serious.

Micky laughed and shook her head. “Just don’t use our friendship as an excuse because what you really are, is afraid to put yourself out there.”

“I’m not. But there are other things to consider. Did you hear what Sheryl said? She’s a grandmother.”

“Well, you’re a godmother.”

Amber quirked up her eyebrows. “Not the same at all.”

“I know, I just fear you’re trying to think this to death before anything has even happened.”

“That’s just how I am. Let’s not forget how much time I gave you after your divorce, my dearest friend. You don’t think I had to bite my tongue many a time?”

“Er, many a time you didn’t.”

“Then I at least held off saying what I really wanted to say, while you know that’s not my style at all. I was just being a good, considerate, patient friend.” Amber let some sand slip through her fingers. “Besides, you’ve been sleeping with Robin for a few weeks now and you still haven’t told me.”

“Told you what?” Micky looked at Amber’s hands instead of at her face.

“Remember that talk we had a while back about the spectrum?”

“I do.” Micky dug her fingertips into the sand.

“And how since then you’ve fallen in love with a woman?”

“Well, yes, which you know all about, so what’s left to tell?” Did Amber really need her to say the word?

“I think it would help you a lot to say it out loud. You’ll be telling your children soon, Micky. You might as well practice on me.”

“You want me to say that I’m a lesbian? That word is really so important to you?” Micky’s fingers cramped up in the sand.

“That particular word is of no importance to me whatsoever. It’s not about the word. It’s about you saying it out loud and, finally, after all these years, admitting it to yourself, and to me.”

Micky cleared her throat, looked her best friend in the eye, and said, “I’m in love with a woman. I like women. I guess that makes me a lesbian.”

Amber smiled. “Oh, Micky. It’s not about what label you stick on yourself or how you identify, it’s about you finally just saying it out loud.” Amber reached for Micky’s hands. “I’ve seen you struggle with this for such a long time. With all the duties you think you had in regard to everyone. Everyone but yourself. How you pushed aside your own happiness so your family could be happy.” She fell silent for a second. “This is an important moment. It really is.”

“Maybe it is.” It wasn’t a hugely cathartic moment, but significant nonetheless. Because what Amber had just said was true, Micky had never admitted it to anyone else, until now. She’d barely admitted it to herself. She looked past Amber’s shoulder and saw her mother and the children approach. “But here comes the family.” She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath.

Amber let go of her hands but kept looking at her. “When are you going to tell them?”





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE





Micky met Darren at the same restaurant he’d told her about Lisa. They didn’t sit at the same table, but aside from that, the day could be a reenactment of that very lunchtime conversation—except for one big difference, of course. She would have preferred a more private setting, but privacy wasn’t something they had between them anymore.

No matter how deeply she breathed, Micky couldn’t get her heartbeat to slow down. It had become a nervous drum inside of her, an insane pitter-patter, reminding her how far out of her comfort zone she was stepping. Because this was Darren. The man who had slept next to her, carefree, safely wrapped up in a cocoon of marital security, for eighteen years.

“Darren will be the easiest one to tell,” Amber had assured her. “You don’t see him all that often and what he thinks about it doesn’t really matter that much in the end.” This was true on some level, but as Micky sat across from him, weighing the words in her head—and already having them sound so wrong before they even came out—the intimacy they had shared also made him the hardest person to tell.

“What’s going on, Micky?” he asked. “Am I going to need a glass of wine for this?” He held up his glass of sparkling water.

They’d dispensed with the small talk already. They’d discussed the kids’ wellbeing. Micky had picked a week when they were with their father to tell him because she would need to see Robin afterward. She would need the time and space to have all these feelings that were wreaking havoc on her common sense re-affirmed.