“Then you have my undivided attention.”

Continuing flashback leading up to their first time. 

“Jasmine?” he prompted. 

She tore her gaze from his compelling one and took refuge in sipping her tea before she said, “At the moment, I live and breathe school.”

“And after that?”

After that, she would marry. But, she didn’t say it out loud. “Who knows?”

“You’re a reader.” 

When she stared at him mutely, he jerked his chin toward the bedroom, where two massive bookshelves dominated. Thank God, he was too far away to see the well-worn spines of her romance books. 

She brushed invisible crumbs off the table. “Yes, I enjoy reading.” 

“What genre?”

“Anything,” she said airily. “Fiction, non-fiction.” Though, she only read non-fiction unless it counted toward her grade. 

“I read on my downtime.” 

She perked up. “You do?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Probably business and finance books.” 

He didn’t smile, but his eyes warmed. “Guilty.”

“I’m into escapism,” she said haughtily.

“I noticed.”

“What? When?” she squawked. 

His lips twitched, and she wondered if he was holding in a laugh. That was something that she had yet to hear from him. It was almost worth having her secrets revealed to hear it. 

“The night we met, you weren’t tuned into the conversations around you. You were in your head. You do it when we go out, too. You trail off and go somewhere else in your mind.”

When she stared at him, speechless, he toasted her with his sunshine cup. 

“Seems like a decent place to retreat to.” 

“I didn’t even realize I…”

“It’s not noticeable. Maybe fifteen to thirty seconds, longer if you can get away with it, like you did at your dad’s party.” He took a drag on his coffee, watching her process before he asked, “So, you’re an artist.”

She rotated her cup and watched the ripples travel over the surface of her tea. “Dad thinks it’s a useless pastime.”

“Art isn’t for everyone.”

She tried not to bristle at his honesty. Most of those around her saw art as useless unless it was making money. Roth was a businessman like her father who only believed in what they could see, smell, and touch. They were realists and didn’t indulge in the fanciful like her. But Roth wasn’t a carbon cutout of her father. He was open to listening to others and took time from work to spend time with someone like her, even though he was sleep-deprived and would probably get up tomorrow and do it all again. Would he accept that side of her that not even her family could?

Feeling defensive, but also stupidly hopeful, she asked, “What’s your opinion on art?”

His eyes moved over her pensively before he said, “It depends on the artist.”

Her hands tightened around the mug. “And if the artist is me?”

“Then you have my undivided attention.” 

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