The Manager's Smile
The second time is different from the first.
Sunday morning, coffee with a friend. Grey zip-up hoodie, white tee underneath, black mini skirt, trainers. No heels this time — it wasn’t that kind of meet-up. Just clothes. Just Sunday.
The skirt is mini on me. I knew that before I left the house. On a 6’3” frame with 64cm quads, a mini is minier than it’s meant to be. That’s the geometry. The hem lands where the hem lands.
We walked in and the manager caught my eye and gave me a little smile. Not a stare. Not a double take. A small, warm, acknowledging smile — the kind you’d give anyone walking into your café on a Sunday morning. I clocked two older women at a table near the window. One of them did do a double take, the way people do when they can’t quite sort what they’re seeing into a single box. She went back to her coffee.
And then we sat down and talked. She’s moving to Shropshire soon, so the clock is on these meet-ups. We’re trying to get one more in before she goes. Over too fast, as these things always are.
That’s the whole of it.
No event. No milestone. No ratio update. Just a man in a hoodie and a mini skirt, having coffee with a friend, on an ordinary Sunday. The skirt sat where it should. The hoodie did what hoodies do. The quads filled the frame under the hem, because that’s what quads do when the skirt is that short.
The first time out, I was nervous. I held it together, but I was holding it.
This time I just went.
#JustWearingThis
