Chapter 16 #2
Kim’s heart slams against her ribs. Has Danika just asked her out? On a date? She swallows hard as she replays her words.
Danika huffs a high-pitched laugh. “Oh, I’m sorry.
I just realised how that sounded. No wonder you’re looking at me so strangely.
I didn’t mean for us to go on a date together.
I meant maybe we should go out together and see who we might meet.
Be each other’s wing woman. Go somewhere we might not want to go by ourselves. ”
Kim trickles a breath out. The disappointment is layering in her stomach. “Right. I see what you mean. Sure, we could do that. Do you have somewhere in mind?”
Danika lifts a shoulder. “Maybe just a pub? One with music or a trivia night or something? Mirza and I babysit for each other. I’m sure she’d take Bella too, if you’re comfortable with that. Bella knows her daughter Sylvie from soccer camp.”
“That would be great. If Bella’s okay with it.”
“I’ll check with Mirza; you check with Bella.”
Kim sips her wine. “Will you be looking to meet someone?” A hook-up maybe, but she doesn’t want to ask that.
Danika’s lips twitch. “No. Not looking. Just a baby step in getting out there again.” She pauses.
“I think meeting you, the whole…situation…has shown me I was holding on to an ideal picture in my mind. And that picture wasn’t right.
The dream family shattered, so why should I hold myself back out of some misplaced loyalty to someone so”—she seems to pick her words—“disrespectful to me. Chris took away my autonomy. Yours too. He didn’t give me the choice of whether, when he found you, I could choose to leave him.
Or choose to accept. Or choose an open relationship.
And he didn’t give you those choices either. ”
Her words echo in Kim’s head. She’s right.
She’s so perfectly right. But there’s another possibility Danika didn’t say: a throuple.
But Danika is straight, so that likely isn’t something that’s foremost in her mind.
And to be honest, when Kim was so in love with Chris, she wouldn’t have wanted that either.
“So now,” Danika continues, “I’m choosing to let myself choose.
Be open to what life brings. If that means a fireman, hose or not, that’s good.
If I choose to remain single, that’s fantastic.
If I choose a series of hook-ups… Well, it never was my thing, but now.
Who knows? But I’m not there yet. I may never be.
” She looks Kim full in the face, as if assessing the impact of her words.
Kim breathes slowly, keeping what she hopes is a supportive smile.
She has no problem with hook-ups, no problem with consensual sex of any kind.
She had a threesome once. At uni, a darkened room after a party.
There’d been three of them in her mate’s king bed and, well…
Kim remembers the evening as a hazy dream.
An extremely pleasant and erotic dream. It wasn’t repeated, and that was fine. No problem. No awkwardness.
“What about you?” Danika asks. “Will you be looking?”
“I don’t know,” Kim says honestly. “But maybe. It will be the first time if I do. I’ll just go with the flow and see what happens.” Although, the sort of suburban venue she imagines Danika will suggest might limit both their options.
The door bursts open, and Cami and Bella tumble in. Both are pink from running around in the heat.
“You both look like you need a long drink of water.” Danika shifts into mum-mode, pouring two glasses from the tap, adding ice.
“Maybe ice cream?” Cami asks in the sort of voice that shows she expects a negative answer.
“Not until after lunch,” Danika says.
Kim hides a smile. Exactly what she would have said.
“When’s lunch?” Bella asks.
Kim shoots Danika a guilty look. They’ve been talking and have done nothing about food.
“Ten minutes,” Danika says. “Cami, why don’t you show Bella the letter you got from the Matildas?”
“Yes, please!” Bella’s eyes grow huge.
The girls scamper off down the hall to Cami’s room.
Danika turns away, opens the oven. A waft of steam comes out, and she prods whatever is in there with a fork. “Nearly done. Is there anything you need to do with what you brought?”
Kim shakes her head. “Not really. Just put it on the table.”
“I made a potato bake,” Danika says. “It’s simple, and Cami loves it. It has tuna in it, but I made a separate dish for you with no tuna—just cream, cheese, and mushrooms. I hope that’s okay.”
“That sounds fantastic.” Kim’s chest warms at Danika’s thoughtfulness.
She puts out the cheese and salad she brought on the table, then watches as Danika moves around her kitchen, getting out cutlery, plates, water glasses.
Or rather, she watches Danika’s slim thighs under the shorts, watches the play of her forearms, and the strip of pale belly that appears as she reaches to a high cupboard for a water jug.
Danika says something, but Kim only catches, “—the girls.”
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” She shakes her head to clear the buzzing in her ears, the static that made her focus on Danika’s body rather than her words.
“Can you call the girls?” Danika repeats. “I’ll put this on the table.”
“Sure.” She turns away quickly so that Danika won’t see her flushed cheeks. Stop this, Kim. She needs to get a grip. She shouldn’t—she can’t—be ogling Danika as if she were a stranger in a pub.
It is danger and heartbreak—and somewhat weird—to think of Danika in this way.
She walks down the hall. Cami’s bedroom door is shut, so she knocks, waits, then opens it and sticks her head around the door.
The girls are sitting on Cami’s bed, heads together, as they look at the Matildas photos.
“Lunch,” Kim says.
“Yay!” Cami sets the photos carefully on the bed, and leads the way to the living area.
Danika’s vegetarian potato bake is delicious, and Kim asks for the recipe. Bella, too, is eating big, scraping her plate and asking for seconds.
The rest of the afternoon passes pleasantly, comfortably. Cami and Bella stay in Cami’s room doing whatever eight- and nine-year-olds do.
Danika gives Kim a tour of the garden. The raised beds, the wildflower patch, the sprawling patch of dark green leaves that will soon produce more butternut pumpkin than Danika and Cami can eat. They give most away, Danika says, promising some to Kim.
They’ve finished the pink wine and moved on to water and green tea.
They’ve chatted about their lives, the girls, finding similarities between the two that may be genetic (both kids are good at writing, but struggle with maths, both wrinkle their noses and scrunch up their eyes when asked to do something they don’t want).
“Nature versus nurture,” says Kim, although with the same part-time father, it’s not easy to separate.
Finally, when it’s nearly five, Kim stands. “We should get out of your hair. I’ll take Bella home.”
Danika blinks, as if surprised. “There’s no rush at our end. Cami and I have no plans tonight. Well, I’m sure Cami’s include telling me every time she successfully tackled Bella, and vice versa.”
“Thanks, but we need to go. I promised Bella we’d watch the eight o’clock fireworks from St Kilda Foreshore.
We might already have left it too late to get a good spot.
” She watches Danika, blinking in the sunlight.
It spills over her shoulders, paints her gorgeous legs with a golden glow.
Truth is, she’d rather stay longer, but she’s conscious of them not overstaying their welcome.
Before she can say maybe just another cup of tea, she walks down to Cami’s room and knocks on the door.
There are giggles from inside, and Cami’s voice calls, “Just a minute.”
The sound of shuffling, of something heavy being dragged across the floor. Bella’s voice, sounding breathless, “That’s good. I can’t see it now.”
What are they hiding? Some secrets that kids have.
The door opens. The room is a mess, with the rug hitched up on one corner and the bedside cabinet skewed.
“Hella-Bella, help Cami tidy up, then we have to go.”
“Mu-um, just a little longer? Please? We’re in the middle of something.”
“If you want to see the fireworks, we have to leave now,” Kim says. “And next time, Cami can come to our flat.”
A long look between the girls, then they nod in synchronisation. That’s apparently acceptable.
“Five minutes,” Kim says again, and returns to the kitchen and to Danika.
The kitchen is spick again, not that it was a mess to start with.
“When would be good with you for our night out?” Danika asks. “I need to check with Mirza.”
“And I need to make sure Bella’s happy with that,” Kim says. “Maybe Friday? Do you have somewhere in mind?”
“Not really,” Danika says. “I’m out of touch with what’s on. And this part of Melbourne can be quiet. That day works for me, though.”
“Let me think about it,” Kim says. “Maybe we could meet somewhere in the middle. I know a few places that would be good, but they’re all on my side of Melbourne.”
Bella appears, and Danika and Cami walk with them to the car.
“See you soon,” Kim says as she gets into the driver’s seat.
Danika nods.
As Kim drives away, in the rearview mirror, she sees Danika, her arm around Cami’s shoulders. They’re both waving.