No Strings Attached (The Pink Bean Series Book 1) (21 page)

“I’ve met someone as well,” she blurted out.

Darren set his glass down. “That’s great.”

Was he really happy for her? Micky was so glad Darren had already met Lisa and had been the first to go through this ordeal of telling the ex-spouse about the new person in his life. But she shouldn’t focus on that. She should concentrate on getting the words out. Her heart was full of them, so why was it so hard for them to spill from her mouth?

“Who’s the lucky fella?” Darren asked.

Micky could tell his smile wasn’t entirely genuine, but he was doing his best. Darren always did his best.

“It’s not…” Micky expelled a sigh. “It’s not a fella, Darren. Her name is Robin.” Being able to say Robin’s name emboldened her slightly, but not enough to look her ex-husband in the eye.

When Darren didn’t say anything, she had to look away from her hands, otherwise she’d never know what his first reaction had been. He sat there staring, his strong jaw slackened, as though frozen in time just before he was about to say something.

“She works at Goodwin Stark, just like Lisa,” Micky said, just to fill the dreadful silence hanging between them.

“You know—” Darren had apparently found the power of speech again. “—I have to say, Micky, this doesn’t entirely come as a surprise to me.”

“I know you quizzed Amber about my, er, sexuality”—why was that such a hard word to say?—“when things were going south between us. She told me a little while ago.”

“Because I didn’t know what the hell was going on with you, with us. I know our marriage could have been better at the time, and I was willing to take most of the blame, because you always did all the hard work at home and I was away so much. When you first told me you wanted a divorce, I truly thought we could fix it, but I had to run through all the options first. That’s why I approached Amber.” He narrowed his eyes a little. “So I
was
right.”

“No, I mean, yes. I’ve only just recently come to grips with it myself, but I guess, if I’m truly being honest, it was part of the reason why I wanted the divorce.” Micky owed Darren as much honesty as she could muster.

“When did you know?” If this information was riling him at all, Darren did an excellent job of hiding it. Perhaps because a year had passed since their divorce, Micky felt more like she was talking to an old friend rather than to her ex-husband.

“I can’t pinpoint it exactly. All I can say is that, on some subconscious level, I’ve known I’ve been attracted to women for a very long time, but I buried that knowledge so far in the back of my mind, I was successfully able to brush it off as a quirk, as a frivolity, as something unimportant to the life I was leading.”

“In a way, I’m glad you’re only telling me now. I’m not sure how I would have taken it if you’d given it as the sole reason for our divorce.” Darren twirled his fork between his fingers, although, Micky suspected, neither one of them would be eating anymore.

“I was in this strange, almost fugue state, of knowing and not wanting to know at the same time. It was just so hard to admit it to myself because it didn’t mesh with who I was. A wife. A mother. Being those two things defined me for eighteen years. They were all I had. I couldn’t possibly imagine pulling the rug from underneath the core of my being just because of what I forced myself to think of as a mere frivolity.”

“But you did, though. We’re divorced. You telling me you no longer wanted to be married to me was quite the rug-pulling. For all of us.”

“I know, but what was I supposed to do? Stay and become increasingly unhappy? Because I wasn’t happy in that life anymore. I needed to do something, despite the children only being in their teens, and our, to the outside world, perfect life. I knew the identity I had clung to for the past two decades of my life, all my life really, would need to be shattered before I could… I don’t know, find my true self. God, I’m beginning to sound like Amber.”

“Speaking of Amber. She’s your best friend. She’s godmother to
both
our children, and she has always been out and proud. Didn’t that… give you a nudge?”

“It’s not as simple as that. I loved
you
, Darren. Twenty years ago, I fell madly in love with you. That was never something I could push to the side so easily. How could I possibly be attracted to women when I was married to you? When we had two beautiful children. It took a long time for that to make sense in my head, for me to allow myself to even think that this could happen to me, that this could happen to anyone.”

“That time I went to see Amber to ask her if you were into women, I didn’t really think you were. I was just running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to salvage what was left of our marriage.” Darren gave a little smile. “Yet, for some reason, this just doesn’t come as a huge surprise.”

“It hardly surprised Amber either.” The coil in Micky’s stomach was starting to unfurl a bit, though her heart was still hammering away. “But, er, well, now that I’m seeing someone, I have to tell Liv and Chris.”

Darren rubbed his fingers over his brow, then nodded. “Yes, they have a right to know.”

Micky could kiss Darren for how extremely understanding he was being about this. For not asking her whether she was sure, or if it wasn’t just a phase, and most importantly, for not lamenting his own manhood because his ex-wife was dating another woman. He still was the man she’d fallen for so many years ago. A man with a thoroughly good heart. Though, she guessed, it probably helped that he was in the throes of falling in love himself. It softened him. She remembered the way he had glanced at Lisa at Gigi’s.

“You don’t think it’s too soon?” Micky voiced her own doubts. At times, she thought it was, but sometimes she thought she would just burst—that the news would just explode out of her—if she didn’t share it with her children, who lived in her house, who ate the food she prepared for them, who relied on her for so many things, despite the fact that they were teenagers and believed they needed their mother less and less. She couldn’t keep it from them for much longer.

“That’s really not for me to judge, Micky.” Darren started looking at his watch—a habit that used to annoy the hell out of Micky, because it made her feel as though Darren always had somewhere more important to be than in the company of his family.

“Thank you for taking this so well.” Micky was starting to find her confidence again. Not counting Amber, because she’d already known, this was her first official coming out, and it was going so much smoother than she had anticipated. Darren wasn’t the type to dramatically storm out of a room, on the contrary, but still, this was the sort of news Micky had no idea how anyone would react to. She’d been afraid of reacting herself for so long, she didn’t dare imagine other people’s reactions.

“How else am I going to take it?” Darren visibly relaxed and fixed his gaze on Micky instead of his watch. “I want you to be happy, Micky. Why else did we go through the hardship of a divorce? If you’re happy, Liv and Chris will be happy. Well, at least as happy as sulky teenagers can be.” He chuckled at the moodiness of their children. “This may sound very strange coming from your ex-husband, but I think we can look past that now, in light of what you just told me.” His eyes lit up. “I know what it feels like to fall in love again. Lisa is just… well, she’s amazing; I’d be a fool to not want the same thing to happen to the mother of my children.”

“Christ, you really have it bad, don’t you?” Micky shot him an easy smile. Maybe this coming-out business would bring her and Darren closer again.

“You’ve met her. Wouldn’t you?”

Micky burst out into a giggle. “The kids seem to like her.”

Darren glanced at his watch again. “I’m really sorry, but I have a meeting with my boss in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay.”
Some things never change
. But she was used to talking to Darren on the clock. “I was thinking about telling them and Mom next weekend. A big lesbian coming-out weekend. They might get so upset they’ll want to come stay at yours.”

“I’m sure they won’t, but I’ll be there. Whatever you need.” He started to get up.

Micky was so touched by his words of encouragement, that she promptly rose and gave him a hug.

✶ ✶ ✶

“It couldn’t have gone any better,” Micky said. She’d had the entire afternoon to digest her conversation with Darren and was now sitting at Robin’s dining table, eating a dish Robin had prepared for her.

“Nothing fancy,” she’d said, “I just want to make you a home-cooked meal on a momentous day like this.”

Micky’s appetite had flared after as good as skipping lunch. Why had she wanted to come out to Darren over lunch, anyway? She wouldn’t make that mistake twice. By the time she was done coming out, she’d be an expert at it. She recognized ricotta and chili peppers in Robin’s pasta dish. It was delicious.

She was also still riding the wave of elation that had descended upon her on the way home from lunch. She had been so happy with how the conversation had gone, that she was easily able to bury her skepticism—why wasn’t he more upset? More worried about the children? More questioning?—underneath the sheer joy of feeling the most herself she had in a good long while. After coming home, she’d been so flooded with burst after burst of sky-rocketing self-esteem, that she’d found herself unable to stay indoors and gone for a long, meandering walk around the neighborhood, picking up fresh flowers, even drinking a green juice along the way without having Amber to spur her on. Until Robin, who had promised to knock off work early for the occasion, got home and she watched her lover make dinner.

Lover.
Micky had started reading a lesbian fiction novel the other day, and the two women who were falling in love referred to each other that way.

Robin stared at her, a big smile on her face. “That’s really great, honey.”

Honey.
The term of endearment touched Micky disproportionally. Perhaps because her new lesbian lover had just cooked her dinner. After the supreme boost of self-confidence that coming out to Darren had delivered, Micky’s emotions were all over the place. She was happier than she’d been in a long time, but that didn’t stop her from realizing that her children’s happiness was also at stake. She couldn’t be completely happy until she’d told them
and
they had reacted in a good way.

“It really is, but I can’t relax until Chris and Liv know. So many more steps to take on this road to…” Micky didn’t know what to say. She didn’t want to sound too overbearing, because Robin might have come back for her that night and set this whole process in motion, but it was mid-April now, the leaves on the trees outside were already starting to turn, which left them with only seven and a half months together. What seemed like an eternity before, because of so many mitigating factors and unspoken feelings and insecurities, now seemed like a cruelly short stretch of time.

“That might be so, Micky, but you’re taking the steps, and you’re taking them swiftly and confidently, and I’m so proud of you.”

“Goodwin Stark’s Diversity Manager’s lover can hardly be a closet case now, can she?”

Robin pulled her lips into a smile. “Lover? Really?”

“What would you call me?” Micky put down her fork.

“Anything but that. Girlfriend, I guess.”

“I’m forty-four years old. Can I really be someone’s girlfriend?”

“My woman-friend then,” Robin said. “Or my vixen. Or better, my insatiable vixen.” Robin wiggled her eyebrows up and down.

“Oh, stop it. I’m trying to have a serious conversation,” Micky jokingly berated Robin. “
Lover
.”

“Well, then, lover, you’d better live up to your name later.” Robin winked at her.

Micky just stared at her blankly.

“Did I freak you out with the prospect of having the entire weekend together to have the most earth-shattering sex?” Robin asked.

“No.” A frisson of suspended lust crept up Micky’s spine. “It’s just that on this day of speaking truths and all that—and I know what I’m about to say is way too premature and silly, but today of all days, it’s only apt that I refuse to hold back my true feelings.” Dramatically, Micky brought a hand to her chest. “We have this weekend because the kids are at Darren’s. There are seven and a half months left in the year, so roughly thirty weekends which, divided by two, gives us fifteen more weekend like this together.”

“Will you be counting the orgasms next?” Robin tensed, her neck straightening and that little groove between her eyebrows deepening.

“I’m sorry, but I would be lying if I sat here and claimed I don’t have a problem with this, with us and the time we have left together, being finite. And I know I’m moving too fast, I’m truly well aware of it, but I feel I have so much life to catch up on that it seems to be the only way to go for me. I’ll be introducing you to my children soon, and whatever will I say to them? Meet Robin, my short-term lover?” As soon as she was done pouring out her heart, a wave of anguish traveled through Micky. She knew this was the opposite of what Robin wanted. Robin had told her this was exactly the sort of drama she wanted to avoid. But damn it, Robin had been the one to come knocking on
her
door, steeped in the knowledge that Micky would never turn her away. Grand gestures followed by obliterating climaxes were all well and good, but what would Micky end up with ultimately? She didn’t need the broken heart that saying good-bye to Robin would cause.

“Hey.” Robin’s hand traveled the width of the table, then reached for Micky’s. “Things have changed for me too. I know I said all those things to you, and they were true for me at the time, but I do also distinctly remember saying that I had never met anyone for whom I wanted to stay and alter the course of my life. And, oh yes, it’s still early days and way too soon to start talking about this in other than vague terms, but I’m unattached, Micky. The biggest reason for me wanting to move back home at the end of the year is to plant roots, to not have to up-end my life every time my job takes me elsewhere, but nothing is set in stone, and who knows, maybe by then I will have planted some roots here?”

“Wow.” Micky couldn’t remember a lot of times in her life when she’d been rendered speechless—only when, bone-tired after labor, her children had been carefully deposited in the cradle of her arms—but this was definitely one of them.