Page 3 of Operation Sunshine
A sound escaped him before he could stop it, a quiet, involuntary hum.
All around him, the restaurant pulsed with life, the kind of energy he had chased for years but never found in boardrooms or private lounges. It wasn’t about the food or the décor. It was the laughter that cracked across the room like lightning, the kitchen’s symphony of sizzling pans and shouted jokes, the servers touching shoulders, sharing conspiratorial smiles.
Ben leaned back in his chair, his fingers still wrapped around the fork. He watched a young boy at a nearby table proudly present a drawing to a waiter in a black apron, who took it as though it were a priceless painting.
“Brilliant! I’m putting this up in the kitchen,” the man declared, pressing a kiss to the boy’s forehead.
The mother glowed with gratitude. The boy beamed.
Ben looked down at his plate, the sauce smudging the edge in an unpolished swirl. It wasn’t perfect plating. It wasn’t curated for Instagram.
It was real. It was love, served up without apology.
The noises in his head—the investor reports, the calendar alerts, the constant gnawing voice asking “What next? What more?”—fell silent.
For a few more long moments, he sat there and simply existed.
When the bill came, he paid quickly. As he stood to leave, the waitress in red called after him.
“Hope you enjoyed it. You looked like you were having a religious experience over there,” she teased, her eyes bright.
He blinked, then laughed too, a rough, unfamiliar sound that stilled her for a second. She smiled again before heading back to the kitchen.
Outside, the cold air slapped him awake. He turned back once, looking through the steamed-up glass windows at the warm chaos inside.
It wasn’thislife, not yet.
But it could be.
For the first time in years, he knew what he wanted. He thought of his apartment, empty and echoing, the dying fern, the hollow champagne glass.
This place was alive in a way he hadn’t been for years, maybe ever.
That night, he didn’t sleep. He lay on his stiff motel bed, replaying the glances, the laughter, the taste of that first bite of pasta. He got up and walked over to the window, gazing at the city lights flickering outside, drinking in the hush of the street broken occasionally by drunken laughter drifting up from a nearby pub. He pressedhis forehead to the glass, shivering with something that felt a lot like fear.
But also, impossibly, hope.
At dawn, with the sky barely brightening, he emailed the broker.
Subject line:Ready to make an offer.
Back in Melbourne, he packed quickly. He was leaving behind most of the trappings of his former life: the suits, the ties, the endless rows of carefully polished shoes… He filled a single duffel bag and one suitcase with underwear, a few shirts, several pairs of jeans, a couple of pairs of shoes, and his favourite mug, the one he’d bought years ago on a forgotten beach trip and used every day since. On reflection, he decided one suit might be a good idea, and he placed it with care in a bag.
First impressions, right?
When his colleagues had demanded to know what he was doing, he’d smiled and said, “I’m going to find out what it means to actually live.”
His last night in the city, he sat on his balcony, a cheap beer in his hand instead of whisky. The skyline glittered, so full of promise it had never really delivered.
And then he laughed,reallylaughed. The sound startled him, and it cracked something open in his ribs.
Tomorrow, I step into the unknown. Into a garden tangled with ivy and warm voices, a future that included chaos and feeling.
He didn’t know what would happen, only that he needed to find out if there was something beyond survival.
Something like love.
Chapter One
