Love Isn't as Easy as the Books

Part 10

 The second hardest thing Becky has ever had to do was be friends with Freen Sarocha.

The CEO was constantly busy. The first hangout session, don't call it a date it's not a date, was canceled three separate times by various corporate emergencies.

When they finally did meet up for coffee late on a Sunday afternoon, Freen was looking dead on her feet. Even her flawless makeup game couldn't compete with the intense dark circles under her eyes.

Becky's heart broke for her. At least when she missed sleep it was intentional. If she understood half of the news (it was all corporate jargon and business and financial law talk that Becky was thoroughly convinced no one on the planet truly understood) Freen's company was under investigation or attack. Or was it both?

And from the looks of it Freen was taking each instance of her company's troubles personally. Becky just wanted to give her a hug and a hot chocolate before tucking her into bed and making her breakfast in the morning.

Instead she just sat awkwardly on the other side of the booth as Freen drank a triple espresso and forced herself to not reach across and hold her hand.

"How you holding up?" Becky asked with enough sympathy in her voice for even 2-hours-of-sleep-a-night-for-two-weeks Freen to notice.

"Through a very carefully crafted lattice work scaffold system of caffeine and sheer force of will," Freen answered. "It is structurally unsound and liable to collapse at any moment. But you know that's just kind of par for the course. How about you? Adjusting to life in New York well enough?"

Becky shrugged. "Publishing is always where I figured I'd wind up, but it is very different than I imagined. Like I never actually got to see any of my fan mail."

Freen perked up. A sly little grin adorning her tired face. "Oh my god. What's that like? I need to know."

Becky frowned at the obvious schadenfreude. "Well Jin thought it would just be hilarious if I helped sort it all. I've learned things about people I've never wanted to know," Becky said with a shudder.

"Oh come on! Share! Share!" Freen prodded Becky, still grinning evilly. Talking with her was surprisingly easy, almost as if it this was how it always was.

Becky tried real hard to keep a smile from her own face. "There's a lot of little old ladies I've given wild ideas to. And they've told me just how I've spiced up their sex lives which are images I'll never be free from. Then there's the hate mail. Which is new. It isn't much but some people objected to who I paired off in The Triangle and The Lovers' Affair. Oh, and I've been proposed to like six different times. And those are just the ones I know about."

"Oh my god, who is proposing to you?" Freen asked, mentally double checking that she didn't write one while drunk one night. She didn't. Right?

"A couple of women reading... our story," Becky mumbled into the table. "And I've been informed there's a steady stream from... that other one." Her voice had dropped off steadily since she started. It was barely audible.

"The Conqueror and the Warrior?"Freen asked gently. Her first instinct was to reach across the table and grab her hand, but there was no way she could possibly do that.

"Yeah," Becky mumbled. "Apparently that has a pretty devoted lesbian fan base. A good chunk of them are always writing me to ask me to go back to the femslash and leave behind the hetero stuff."

"You want to talk about it?"

"Bi-erasure?"

Freen flashed a confused look for a second.

But before she could respond Becky cut her off, "I don't know about you or what you consider yourself, but I'm bi. 100%. If that bothers you or you think it's a phase or that I'm strictly straight because all of my real relationships were with guys, than you should tell me now or we'll have a problem."

Freen just blinked for a second.

What did she respond to first? The weird inflection Becky had on the word real, that could only be described as venomous? That sounded like an obvious place to start. Or maybe the implication that their relationship wasn't real? Or should she just straight up answer the question? But that line of conversation was likely to turn to talking about exes.

"Uh... I'm bisexual too," Freen said and immediately turned her gaze out the window. "I don't know what else to say. I mean I do but I'd rather do it at the bar literally across the street because this seems like this is going to get heavy."

One change of locale and drink order Becky and Freen were sitting in the mildly upscale bar booth.

"So where were we?" Freen asked, more to her gin and tonic than to Becky.

"I was being a bit of a defensive asshole," she admitted. "I didn't consider..."

"It's fine... I mean, I get it," Freen interrupted. "It's hard not fitting into what people think you're supposed to be."

"Yeah," Becky sighed in agreement.

"You should have seen the fit my father threw when I was dating a girl in college," Freen said. "He threatened to cut me off and we didn't speak for over a month."

"That sucks," Becky said, it was all she knew how to say. What else was there?

Freen finished her drink in a few large gulps.

"It's not like he was one to judge anyways," she said as she leaned back into the booth and closed her eyes.

"You look like you need some sleep," Becky said, changing topic. "When was the last time you got any sleep?"

"About a week before my father was arrested."

"Wasn't that like eight months ago?"

She only nodded.

"Why don't we go home, before you completely collapse?" Becky asked. "We can continue this later."

Freen nodded, and made a half hearted promise to meet up again next week.

But it would be another month before Becky and Freen were even in the same room together.