Meeting Amanda Ch. 2 - The Next Day

Tess and Amanda enter the room. “Would you like coffee, Amanda?” I asked.

“Yes please, with a little bit of sugar if you don’t mind,” she replied. I didn’t have to ask Tess if she wanted coffee. After being together for over 20 years, I knew how she liked her coffee: a freshly brewed latte macchiato with just a drop of caramel sirup.

The ladies went out to the porch as I served them their coffee. “There you go, madam,” I said while I gave Amanda her coffee.

“Thank you very much kind sir!”

“And a Latte for milady!”

“Thank you, James,” Tess replied with the fake accent of a British lady.

The soft morning sun licked our faces as we enjoyed our breakfast. “You really have a nice home! I really like you garden as well, it’s nice and secluded. I can only dream of a place like this for myself,” Amanda said while looking at our garden.

“We’re still really in love with it ourselves too,” Tess replied. “We were really lucky when we heard this lot was up for sale all those years ago.”

“And lucky we could afford it! If my company wasn’t so successful we wouldn’t be able to even afford a parking lot in this neighborhood,” I completed Tess.

“You have your own company? I thought Tess said you worked as a freelancer?” Amanda asked.

“I started my own software company about 15 years ago, but I sold it. It started out as a small company with just me developing software. Before I knew it, I picked up more than I could chew so I had to hire an additional software developer. And before I knew it, I had a company with over 75 employees.” I explained to her.

“I had a great time, but as the company grew I shifted from being a software developer to a manager. Most weeks I worked about 60 to 80 hours a week. I literally got tired of that and was under quite some stress. And about 2 years ago it was enough. My health started to suffer and I looked out for a buyer and sold the company. Now I can do the things I like again such as freelancing on some software development jobs.”