“Are you saying I can’t keep a woman? You? Who brushed me off only to come rushing back to me because I’m so irresistible.” Micky found Robin’s hands and braided her fingers through hers.
“You are, you know. Irresistible. Maybe it’s because you’re Italian. I’ve always had a thing for the darker-haired, more exotic chicks.”
“Oh yeah?” Micky couldn’t stop gazing into Robin’s bright blue eyes. “How many chicks are we talking about here, now that we’re on the subject?”
Robin laughed heartily, making Micky’s head shudder in her lap. “More than you’ve had, that’s for sure.”
“Seriously.” Micky brought their joined hands to her belly and kept them there.
“You really want to know how many women I’ve been with? Because I would have to sit down and count. I’ve been at this lesbian thing for a while.”
“Next you’ll tell me you’ll need a calculator.”
“I just might.” Robin keeled forward and kissed Micky on the forehead. “But hey, those spectacular orgasms you’ve been having are only the result of my vast experience.”
“Oh, please, Robin. Your orgasms don’t seem any less spectacular than mine, and I’m a beginner. Your argument doesn’t hold up. You’ve been slutting it up for years, you might as well admit it.”
“And you best be careful what you say.” Robin’s interlaced fingers suddenly grabbed down hard, squashing Micky’s hand in a painful but not unpleasant grip. “Or I’ll have to punish you.”
Micky was still looking up at Robin, whose features had gone a bit more serious, though her eyes still sparkled. “I’d like to see you try.”
Robin scrunched her lips together. “You asked for it.” She let go of Micky’s hand, pulled up Micky’s top, and started tickling her mercilessly, her fingers running over Micky’s skin, making it impossible for her to remain still.
Somehow, Robin ended up on top of her. Micky’s blouse had ridden all the way up and her abs hurt from giggling uncontrollably.
Fuck, I’m happy, she thought. I’m so incredibly happy. She didn’t say anything, just pulled Robin close to her and kissed her for a long time, until darkness started falling outside—autumn really was creeping closer—and she had to hurry home before the kids got back from the movie they were seeing with Amber.
“Shall I go with you?” Robin asked, after Micky had meticulously smoothed down her clothes and finger-combed her hair back into shape.
Micky didn’t know if Robin was joking. “Not just yet,” she said. “Maybe in two weeks, after they’ve had a week at their dad’s and more time to come to terms with it.”
Robin got up from the sofa and walked over to Micky. “If they’re anything like their mother, they’ll be head-over-heels with me in no time.” She kissed Micky on the cheek so sweetly, that Micky didn’t want to leave anymore.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Micky had made it clear to Christopher and Olivia that she was there for them if they had any questions, but after the weekend, they had quickly reverted to their habit of spending most of their home time in their bedrooms. When Olivia wasn’t around, Chris continued to assure her that he had no issues with what Micky had told him, while Olivia appeared to still be stuck in a let’s-pretend-that-conversation-never-happened phase.
Micky thought it best not to force either one to talk about it and give them—and especially Liv—the time they needed to adjust to this new, other side of their mother. But it was only the next Wednesday morning when she went into their rooms before heading to work the way she always did, to make sure they were awake and had all their stuff packed before going to their dad’s for the next week, that she realized how much tension had been hanging in the air in the house.
Since the divorce, Micky had always dreaded Wednesdays because they were change-over day, but this particular Wednesday, for the very first time, she felt an odd kind of relief at having the house to herself for a week. Because, it hit her, she had been walking on eggshells, and she had been feeling guilty for changing her children’s view about their mother once again. Micky had already upended their lives once and ruptured the stable home environment they’d always enjoyed. Now, once more, she was asking them to accept more change, while all they wanted, she guessed, after finding their feet again in a new neighborhood and at a new school, was for everything to stay the same, at least for a little while.
But Micky didn’t believe in the sort of motherhood that sacrificed everything for the children. She’d divorced Darren to “find her truth,” as Amber would call it, to “walk her own path” and she would never have done that if she didn’t truly believe that, in the end, her children could only benefit from seeing their mother at her happiest. Now especially, after having told them about Robin, she had to hold on to that. Because no matter how much the news had upped the level of tension in the house and brought up another subject her son and daughter disagreed on, for Micky, a sense of relief was starting to set in.