The Boyfriend Sessions by Belinda Williams

I’ve been chasing them for months for their paperwork and now three of them have finally got me what we need and they expect us to turn it around before deadline, which is, oh, only a week and a half away.”
    The concept of accounting always made me feel slightly uneasy. All those spreadsheets, rules, and money. I had no idea how Cate spent her days organizing other people’s business taxes. I’d die first.
    “Added to that,” she continued, “Penny is still being an absolute cow. I tell you, I never would have dreamed of behaving like that two years out of university, but they always seem to get away with it.”
    It was a frequent refrain. The young recruits, fresh out of university, who expected everything to just fall into their lap with minimal effort.
    “God, we must be getting old,” she mused. “I’ve been doing too much of this ‘not in my day’ crap lately.”
    “You’re only twenty-eight, Cate, relax.”
    “I know! But you wouldn’t believe how many of these young ones are in long-term relationships. At least three of them are engaged already. I’m well on my way to being partner and I swear half the reason the partners think I’m a good bet is because I’m single and not likely to fall pregnant anytime soon.”
    The door buzzer prevented her lamentations going on any longer. It was always hard to get through to her when she was in a mood like this. For all her success at work, she was deeply family orientated and would like nothing more than to settle down with the right guy and start a family.
    I always felt slightly out of my depth when required to offer reassurances that life would turn out the way it was supposed to. In my experience, that wasn’t the case. When I was fourteen, the age where you’re only vaguely aware your parents are in fact human, I was forced to come to terms with the unpredictability of life. I came home earlier than expected one afternoon—I’d skipped math class—to find my mum at home in bed with another man.
    His name was John and he lived several houses up the road. Apparently their affair had been going on for some time, because after Mum worked up the courage to tell my dad, she confessed she wanted a divorce. She married John a year later and they’ve been together ever since.
    A vision of my dad came to mind and along with it the familiar mixture of guilt and sadness. I did my best to push it away gently and blinked as Maddy, Scarlett, and Max bustled in through the front door, shocking me out of my reverie.
    Max? What on earth was he doing here?
    This was supposed to be my first ‘boyfriend breakdown’ session and there was no way I was going to talk about the private details of my love life with him listening in.
    I elbowed Cate sharply when she came back into what I now wished wasn’t an open-plan kitchen. “What’s Max doing here?” I hissed.
    She looked surprised. “I asked him to come and fix my laptop and it worked out perfectly because he gave Maddy and Scarlett a lift here after work.”
    I’d caught the train home earlier, but Maddy had been held up in the city at a client meeting near Scarlett’s office.
    “But aren’t we discussing my exes tonight?” I plastered a big smile on my face and waved at them from the kitchen.
    “Yes, that’s the plan.” Cate gave me a funny look.
    “Well, I’m not doing it with him here. Wine anyone?” I called out, casually.
    They all nodded in the affirmative, so I turned to get some more wine glasses from the cupboard.
    “But why?” Cate asked. “You’ve known him forever. I don’t see how it makes any difference—”
    “Because he’s a guy, stupid!” I twirled around to confront her, wine glasses in hand, only to find myself staring at Max’s chest.
    “Problem?” he asked innocently.
    To my annoyance, Cate giggled. “Christa’s just nervous about tonight, that’s all.”
    He looked confused. “I didn’t realize fixing laptops was such a big deal.”
    Cate waved a hand at him.