Breaking Her No-Dates Rule. Emily Forbes

was a buzz of excitement in the room. The noise level had been high all evening, as was usually the case in a room full of women, but the level had increased noticeably in the last few minutes. Ellie checked her watch—ten-thirty. Her school leavers’ reunion had been girls only until now and her old school friends were becoming distracted by the arrival of their boyfriends.

      They had only been out of school for five years so there wasn’t all that much to catch up on. They’d been doing one of three things—travelling overseas, studying or working or a combination of all of those. A few were married, a couple had babies but they were the exceptions.

      Ellie watched as Carol, Amy and Fiona, in fact, most of the organising committee, went to greet their partners as they entered the function room. Two things were immediately obvious to Ellie. One, that three hours was the time limit allocated to catching up with friends before the girls needed to let their partners in on the evening and, two, the committee members were all in relationships, which was why the decision to include partners in the evening had been made. A third thing came to mind as Ellie watched the change in group dynamics—she wasn’t in the mood to watch happy couples.

      It had been three months since the disastrous dinner with Rob and her heart was well and truly mended. If she was honest, she’d admit her pride and her ego had suffered more than her heart. It was more about her dreams and what his lies had done to them. She was angry more than heartbroken and it wasn’t difficult to be angry with a man who was a liar and a cheat. Her dreams might have been shattered but her heart was intact, though she still didn’t feel like being surrounded by happy couples.

      The reunion was being held in Sydney’s infamous Kings Cross district in a private function room in a recently renovated and refurbished building. The building was typical of many in the Cross, with the businesses making the most of limited land by going upwards. There was a ‘gentleman’s club’ in the basement, a traditional nightclub on the ground floor with function rooms on the first floor, and Ellie didn’t want to know what was on the floor above that.

      The reunion committee had booked out the function room until midnight and Ellie knew that gave them access to the nightclub afterwards. Normally she would be planning on partying until the small hours of the morning but tonight she was out of sorts. She was tired of the incessant noisy chatter going on about her but it was still too early to go home. To get some respite from the noise she slipped out of the room and onto the balcony that opened off it. Maybe watching people in the Cross, instead of her old school friends and their partners, would improve her mood.

      She closed the balcony doors behind her and the change in atmosphere between inside and outside was incredible. Inside the air had smelt of perfume, hairspray and women and while initially that had been overpowering it was at least a clean smell. Outside the air smelt of petrol fumes, cigarettes, greasy takeaway food, alcohol and men. And the noise had changed from the high-pitched, excited chatter of women to car horns, music and deeper, loud voices.

      If she had been down at street level she might have retreated inside but on a first-floor balcony she felt safe enough to watch from a distance. The balcony was divided in two by a low iron balustrade and a second function room opened onto the other half. From her vantage point Ellie could see people inside the other room but for the moment the adjoining balcony was empty.