Sneak peek of Because of Her
Read on for a sneak peek of Because of Her
CASSIDY
A rriving home, I slam the door behind me as hard as I can and dump my bag so it lands on the floor with a thud. Following suit, I sink to the ground and bang my head against the wall behind me.
“Argh.” I moan, as loud as possible, banging my head again for dramatic effect.
When my flatmate Amira doesn’t call out with sympathy, I kick off my shoes, allowing them to clunk into the wall on the other side of the hallway. I wince, thinking about the damage I might have caused. To the shoes, not the wall. They’re nothing fancy, but they are my favourite pair of boots and with the winter season coming, I can’t afford to replace them.
“Aaargh.” I try again, with more force this time. I’m mopey, and I know it. But if there is one person I can act like a spoiled brat around, it’s Amira. I really, really, wanted my date with Mike to go well. There had been so much promise, and it feels like a kick straight to the kidney for it to have gone so bad.
“I’m not coming down there for you to bitch about your date, you can come here,” Amira calls out from our open plan kitchen-slash-dining-slash-living area.
I crawl my way along the hallway then reach up to pull myself onto the couch.
“That bad?” Amira asks as she sits down next to me and pulls my feet into her lap.
She’s still in her pyjamas, her own legs wrapped underneath the oversized sleep tee. Her long brown hair is tied into a braid that rests over her shoulder, and although her eyes are always dark, there’s a shadow about them today. She’d been out to dinner with her parents last night, coming home late. She was still asleep when I left this morning, but I know how draining conversations with her father were for her.
“Did I tell you I turned down a job for this date?” I sigh.
As a florist who specialises in weddings, Saturdays are a valuable trade. Especially now, as the wedding season nears its end. It was insane, and a little concerning, that I had today off in the first place to be able to make plans. And when a last-minute opportunity came up to help another florist, saying no had been a difficult decision. I had really thought things with Mike would go well, and after my string of bad dating luck since returning to Melbourne, I couldn’t turn down the one guy I actually thought had potential.
“Why were you so keen on him anyway?”
I pause, because in truth, I don’t really know the answer. Sure, we got along well enough while we were chatting online, but we didn’t share a heap of interests or have the same life goal. There was nothing special about Mike besides his stance on children.
I wanted it to go well like I want anything to go well. I want someone to call after a stressful day, I want someone to snuggle up to on cold winter nights. But most of all I want someone to buy me flowers for a change. It feels ridiculous to be so hung up on wanting to find love, and I’m pretty sure that the reason I can’t find it is because of how hard I’m looking.
Every terrible date makes me wonder a little more about what I did to deserve ending up here. What I did to deserve the heartache, and the gut wrenching break up that followed.
Things had been going well with Blake for years. After meeting and dating at university, we moved interstate so he could follow his dream of being a national journalist. My career was flexible, so it made sense. As our relationship progressed and the hard questions became more important, we realised that our lives no longer aligned as well as we had hoped. It’s not that I never wanted children. I always had a picture in my head of how my life would go, and eventually the idea of being a parent forced its way out of that image. Blake told me that he wished he could say the same, but he couldn’t.
Despite his career ambitions and all the goals he was smashing in the journalism world, he couldn’t picture his future without ‘fathering an heir’. He had said it with a mountain of seriousness, but I couldn’t help cringing at his self-righteousness.
It broke both our hearts when we realised our paths were ultimately separating. But it tore mine in two learning that after all we had been through, he valued me no more than my ability to be a mother.
Two years later, I still often wonder how he is doing. If he found someone who could give him what I couldn’t. And with every failed fling and shitty date, I wonder how different my life could be if I hadn’t been dealt these cards.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I just feel like I should have moved on by now. Otherwise, what was the point?”
“Well for starters you wouldn’t have met me.” She laughs, leaning down to squeeze me in a hug.
“I just don’t understand why I attract all the crazies.” I sigh.
Amira quiets her laugh.
Before Mike, there was Brad. He had seemed nice until I discovered that not only did he want children one day, he wanted a whole tribe of them. That joke, about having a soccer team, he said it without a hint of sarcasm.
There was also Justin, who had a wife on the side. And Trevor, who openly told me he was gay but was trying to hide it from his very old-fashioned grandmother. It’s ok though, he had said, she will die soon and then he’ll be free to live how he wants. The list of terrible flings and dates went on and on.
“Maybe you’re trying to fill a hole that doesn’t need filling.”
I give a short, dry laugh and nudge her rib cage. “What if I really do want my hole filled?”
Amira shakes her head with an eyeroll. “I was talking about the hole in your heart you filthy whore.”
Pulling a pillow from behind me, I throw it at her face. I don’t have a hole in my heart, I just want someone to turn to after a long day. I want someone to choose me over everything, and everyone. Forever, not just for now.
Amira and I met not long after I moved back to the city. I had returned to my parents’ place, but pretty quickly knew I needed a place of my own. Only, that’s not exactly affordable on a florist’s income, so I started looking for a housemate.
Amira was a cousin of a friend of a friend, whose old housemate had just moved out. So, I moved in. Our apartment is a small two-bedroom unit, close enough to the city to be trendy, without being so close that we live in a high rise with rent as high as the rooftop courtyard.
Just over a year ago, we got permission to paint the hospital white walls a more homey shade of eggshell grey, and together we have started adding colour to the decor. My grandma’s pink hand-knit blanket drapes the back of the couch, and the bird paintings we did at a ‘Paint ‘n’ Sip’ class take pride of place on the wall behind it. The small round dining table is surrounded by four different chairs, each its own vibrant colour. My favourite is the royal blue upholstered dining chair. Amira prefers the traditional style wooden one that she painted red.
“Maybe it’s time I stopped actively trying to find a man,” I admit, more to myself than to Amira, but I know she hears me when I feel her head nod.
“Just swear off men like I have?”
I snuggle into her shoulder, whispering “deal”, even though I’m not so sure. Amira flitters between swearing off men and cosying up to her latest fling weekly, so I know better than to take her seriously.
We hug for a while, and I soak up Amira’s warm energy. I swear it flows through the woman like the honey of her skin. When I’m feeling a little better about my miserable start to the day, I stand up and walk to the balcony. I don’t know how many pleasant days we have left before winter hits, and I plan to soak in every ounce of sun I can.
I slide open the door, expecting to hear the sounds of a busy inner suburban street. Instead, the steady beeps of a truck reversing flood the apartment.
“I think our new neighbour is moving in,” I announce, stepping out and hoping to catch sight of the person, or people, we are bound to cross paths with countless times from here on out.
Amira joins me on the balcony, but I shove her back inside.
“Don’t make it obvious,” I hiss. “Go make tea or something so it looks like we’re just two women enjoying the midday sun.”
She laughs at me, but walks over to the kitchen and flicks the jug on. While she grabs our favourite mugs from the drying rack next to the sink, I lean slightly over the rusted railing to see if I can spot the new resident of apartment 32.
The unit across from ours has been empty for a few months now. We suspect the owners were trying to charge too much rent, because despite hundreds of people walking through during the openings, no one came to stay. Until now. The big “FOR RENT” sign in front of the block had been taken down last weekend.
Amira comes out with two mugs of her perfectly brewed coffee. I grab one from her as she leans on the railing with me.
“See anyone yet?”
Before I can answer her, the driver’s door to the rental truck opens and a man with dark scruffy hair steps out. It’s not until he is standing on the footpath that I realise just how ridiculously tall he is, and I wonder if he would have to stoop to avoid the low ceilings in the communal hallways of our building. He calls out to someone in the car in front, and soon a whole family is on the sidewalk. Two young kids start to play on the retaining wall, while five adults gather and, I assume, form a plan.
“Mum, Dad, grown-up kids, grandkids?” I look to Amira.
“Or is one of them an in-law? They all have really dark hair except that guy.”
She raises a finger off her bright green mug to point. We’re too far away for it to identify who she is talking about, but I can tell she is referring to the man wrangling the children off the retaining wall. His dark auburn hair stands out in the sea of dark chocolate browns.
I laugh, “I wonder who’s moving in.”
Together, we watch as the tall one opens the rear door of the vehicle and starts lowering the tailgate. His shirt is tight against his broad shoulders and muscular back. A sleeve of tattoos spirals around his right arm. His hair has a slight wave to it, sitting messily on the nape of his neck. A glimpse of the side of his face reveals a short beard, long enough to be on purpose, but trimmed and tidy in a way his hair isn’t. I can’t explain why, but there is something oddly familiar about him.
“I feel like a creep,” I whisper, turning to walk back inside.
Amira follows. “We can find out who has moved in later, but if it’s that guy with the tatt I call dibs.”
“What happened to you swearing off men?”
She cocks her eyebrow at me. “Like you weren’t checking him out too.”
She’s right, but it’s more than his muscular frame that has me intrigued. Maybe it’s something about the dragon tail wrapping around his forearm. Or how the thought of him having to stoop in the hallway feels oddly familiar, bringing back memories of hiding in the storage room during my teenage job as a supermarket cashier. Whatever it is, I’m determined to work out why I can’t shake the nervous tingles spreading from my fingers.
Because of Her
Cassidy
I always want what I can’t have:
My business to succeed through winter.
Someone to kiss me goodnight without the pressure to settle down and start a family.
And now, my old high school flame.
When Callum moves in across the hall, he is just as handsome and flirtatious as I remember.
Years ago, I thought we were perfect together. But our worlds now are far too different. Mostly because of the other girl in his life. His daughter.
Callum
This is not the life I planned:
A broken marriage.
A bitter custody battle.
And an undeniable attraction to the woman I shouldn’t want.
Cassidy is a ghost from my past. A reminder of the old me. The one who was carefree and thought the best of people, instead of the worst.
And I can’t shake the feeling that our lives have been thrown back together for a reason.
I just need to convince her that we’ll work this time.
Because of Her is a steamy romance about friendship, love and accepting the unexpected. A standalone story, it is the first full length novel in Bookstagrammer Devon May’s Because of Love series.
Because of Her is available now.