‘If you’d just take them to the sink when you finished, we wouldn’t have to do this every second day,’ Miranda whines.

‘That’s the problem, I don’t finish them.’ She holds up the mugs as proof, each one at least a third full.

Penny heads back into the kitchen, the smell of cold coffee filling her nose as her mum dumps her load of mugs on the bench then leans down and kisses her on the forehead. ‘Thanks, Pen.’

If Penelope closes her eyes, she can still feel her mum’s lips against her forehead.

‘What can I get you?’

It takes Penelope a moment, but she realises she’s now first in line and the cashier is waiting to take her order. ‘A coffee, please.’

The young man raises his eyebrows at her, pushing his shaggy hair out of his eyes. ‘Flat white, long black, cappuccino, latte … Any preference?’

‘Oh,’ she stammers. She’s never actually ordered a coffee before. She recalls the last one he mentioned. ‘A latte?’

‘Sure.’ His word is drawn out, and Penelope can feel him staring at her like she’s a little odd.

A few minutes later, the barista hands her a latte and sends her on her way. She carries it as though it’s precious treasure and waits until she’s settled on a park bench in the sun to take a sip. The moment she tastes it on her lips, memories of her mother come tumbling back, each sip like a lost page of a diary. She wants to be greedy, but savours each mouthful, forcing herself to remember more.

She knows tomorrow and each day afterwards she’ll be drinking coffee. Before now she’d always avoided it, thinking it would bring pain, but now she wishes she’d discovered this porthole back to her mother years ago.

Chapter 8

8

‘So, you’re just waiting to hear from him?’ Paige’s hands are still clutched around the menu as she looks worriedly at Bonnie. The two friends are meeting on their lunch break.

‘I guess so.’ Bonnie shrugs. ‘It feels kind of tacky.’ She hadn’t slept at all last night, thinking about Ollie calling off his engagement. Bonnie doesn’t know if he was going to tell Sophie about his feelings for her. They hadn’t gone into any of those kinds of details and now her gut is all twisted.

‘Less tacky than sleeping with him when he was still engaged,’ Paige points out.

Bonnie supposes that is something. ‘I was so close to doing that.’ She shakes her head at herself. Her body is still craving his, her mind wanting to ignore the practicalities of how a relationship with him is going to evolve. ‘Being around him makes me feel so young and …’ She leans forward to whisper, ‘Horny.’

Paige laughs at this. ‘You couldn’t keep your hands off each other when you were teenagers. Things clearly haven’t changed.’