“Accurate, though.”
I smile at him over my coffee cup. “You need a haircut, by the way.”
He reaches back, gathers his hair into a short, uneven tail. “Yeah, reckon you’re right. Getting a bit out of control.”
He lets it fall again.
“Seeing as the appointment usually ends with my cock inside you, I’m available whenever you can fit me in.”
“I will cut it tomorrow,” I say, pressing my lips together. “And you will behave.”
“I will absolutely not behave.”
“Tomorrow,” I repeat, which settles nothing.
He finishes the toast, looking satisfied. “What time are your girls coming over?”
“Twelve.”
“Right.” He nods. “I’ll get out of your hair and give you some space. Call Lachie about that beer.” A small pause. “You’ll be all right?”
I meet his eyes. “I’ll be all right.”
Zoe and Paige arrive together.I hear them before I see them, their voices carrying up the path, and I open the door.
For a second, we just stand there.
Then Zoe lets out this small sound—half-laugh, half-something else—and they’re both on me, arms tight around me, holding on.
We pull back and really look at each other.
“Look at you,” Paige says.
“You’re actuallyunfair,” Zoe adds at the same time. “Like—this is offensive. You’re stunning.”
“I’m not.”
I glance between my besties, both of them put together in a way I’m not. Hair done, makeup on, clothes that actually fit. I haven’t even bought proper clothes yet, let alone figured out how to do any of this to myself.
“You are, babe. You’re so bloody skinny and tanned. I hate you a little bit.” She says it like she means the opposite, and I laugh, stepping aside to let them in.
The tan comes from fourteen years under a Pacific sun with no real shade. The rest of it—being thinner than I should be—that’s from long stretches where food wasn’t guaranteed. Thinner again after I lost my boy. I still haven’t come back from that.
There’s nothing here to envy.
Zoe is holding a baby, and it catches me off guard. I didn’t know she was a mother.
“This is Theo. He’s eight months.”
“He’s a beautiful little thing,” I say.
“Trust me, he knows it,” she says, leaning down to press a kiss to his cheek. “Don’t you?”
He’s content on her hip, round-faced and calm, taking everything in with a serious little expression.
Zoe smooths a hand over his back, the gesture absent and automatic. Motherhood fits her so naturally it looks effortless.
“Come on in. We have a lot of catching up to do.”
