What happened after coffee meet (Patreon)

Flashback 

After their impromptu coffee meet, they’d gone to dinner five times. It was always spur of the moment, with Roth calling to say he was in the area and if she wanted to get a bite to eat. She thought the first time was a fluke, that she wouldn’t continue to feel comfortable and at ease with him. But she did. She felt an odd kinship with him that she didn’t understand. She felt more herself with him than she did by herself. Just an hour with him every other week made her feel confident, grounded, hopeful. Her anxiety was down, and she was doing so much better in her classes, one of her professors even remarked upon it. She wasn’t an idiot, she just lacked the confidence and let doubt and overthinking get in the way. 

This was the longest length of time her father had punished her, but this was the first time she wasn’t bothered. In between her studies, she stopped punishing herself and had started writing again. She couldn’t help herself when she was meeting her real life fantasy hero for infrequent dinners. Without her father’s demands for her to attend social functions or shadow her sisters in the office, she had time to indulge in her fantasies and had made excellent progress on her book. 

Her life wasn’t perfect, but it was good. For the first time in years, she felt at peace. It was strange that Roth was inadvertently the root of her current estrangement with her family, and also her saving grace. Ford called to say he was in the States, but flying out within the hour, and would try to make time to see her the next time he flew home from Europe. He emailed her once with pictures from Paris and London, with no text to say when he would be back or if he missed her or what he was up to. It didn’t bother her as it had in the past. 

The casual, quick, and enjoyable dinners with Roth gave her something to look forward to, though she cautioned herself not to get used to it. She knew he felt indebted because of the Langdon deal, but she was enjoying his companionship too much to tell him he didn’t need to keep taking her out to pay her back. Soon enough, the calls would cease and she would never see him again. Every time they said goodbye, she was convinced she would never hear from him again and then a week later, his name popped up on her phone. It was ridiculous how much she’d come to need this downtime. When she was with him, her worries ceased to exist. There was no talk of family—her or his, though he mentioned he didn’t get out to see his mother in Colorado much. 

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Sins. Please do not share or distribute.