“Brisbane is lovely. It’s much… gentler than Sydney. Much smaller, of course, which suited me fine. And a whole lot cheaper as well. So yes, you should go.”

“Was it hard coming back to Sydney?” Martha asked.

“Yes and no.” Lou looked into her pale eyes. When she first met Amber, she would never have pictured someone like Martha as her partner, even though she couldn’t quite explain why. “My family is here and we’ve always been very close, so it’s been great to be back. Although living with my parents again took some getting used to. But sure, it was hard to leave the city where I’d made a life. I just really needed a change. And to not run into my ex, because that’s what happens in Brisbane. You run into the people you don’t want to run into all the time.” She scoffed. “Sydney is a new start for me. Well, perhaps not really new anymore as I’ve been back for six months now. But I grew up in this city so it’s good to be back. To come home.”

Martha nodded and just gave a prolonged hmm as an answer.

“What?” Lou asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know… You’re such a gentle soul. You have the same glow about you that Amber has. What kind of madwoman in Brisbane let go of you?”

“Stop flirting with my colleague, babe,” Amber said. “I’m sitting right here.”

“I’m not flirting.” Martha gazed at Amber and stared into her eyes. “Why would I flirt with anyone else when I’m with you?” She turned her attention back to Lou. “I’m just observing.”

“Lou, please don’t feel as though you need to talk about your ex just because Martha is overly curious.”

Lou appreciated how protective Amber was about her, and had become even more so since she’d told her about Mia. She had all the qualities of an excellent mentor. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.” Lou took a sip from her wine, then continued. “To put it quite simply, Angie and I grew apart. About three years ago she got this new job and it started taking up more and more of her time. Other things became important to her, like making more money and going to the right kind of networking events. Things that had never interested her—or me—before. But most of all, she was never home anymore. She was always at some after-work cocktail party schmoozing with her bosses or at some self-improvement seminar over the weekend. In a nutshell, we never really recovered from that.”

“Did she do CrossFit?” Micky asked. “A-type personalities prefer those kind of brutal workouts to the more holistic and gentler benefits yoga has to offer.”

“I’ll have you know that people with lots of different personalities do CrossFit,” Robin replied.