Sweet Romance13 min read
He Read My Draft — Then He Bought My Debt
ButterPicks9 views
I first noticed Finn's presence because the living room light had been left on.
"I thought you were at work," I said, wiping my wet hair with a towel and squinting at him on the sofa.
He didn't answer right away. He was staring at my laptop like a man who had just spotted a treasure map.
"Whose computer is that?" I snapped, moving faster than I meant to.
"It's yours," he said softly. "What are you writing at midnight?"
I lunged forward. "You can't—how much did you read? Where did you stop?"
Finn pushed the laptop high above his head, out of reach. "I was trying to see if you were okay."
"Don't be dramatic," I pouted, bouncing on my toes. "It's just a side job. It's not—it's a genre you don't read."
He lowered the laptop and looked at me with a quiet, unreadable expression. "Show me."
My heart did a bad flip. "No."
Finn's mouth curved the tiniest bit. "I can provide better reasons for you to stop."
"I'd rather not," I said, forcing a light laugh.
"Let me see," he insisted.
He planted his hands on my waist and drew me in until the laptop screen hovered between us. Up close his jaw was sharp, his eyes cooler than I remembered. "How many love rivals did you give him?" he asked.
"What?" I scrambled to explain like a child caught coloring outside the lines. "It's fictional. It's not about you."
He pressed his forehead to mine for a second, like he was measuring distances. "Comfortable with lying?" he murmured.
"I wasn't lying," I said, too loudly. "They aren't real. It's fantasy. It's—"
He surprised me by kissing the corner of my mouth, then letting go. "I could support you," he said, and the words landed softer than I expected.
When Finn didn't explode with anger, I relaxed. "I know," I said. "But I want to be more than someone you support. I want to stand next to you."
He swallowed. "Then write yourself taller."
I laughed, but inside my cheeks were hot. Finn was impossibly composed most mornings at the office and impossibly close on nights like that.
The next day at home his coffee cup was empty and the apartment smelled faintly of smoke. He'd gone out early. I stared at the empty place where he'd been and realized how much I relied on his shadow.
At work later, I found everyone talking.
"Finn was with that heiress," Kendra whispered from across her desk, eyes wide. "They were practically wrapped around each other!"
"Did you see her photos?" someone else added. "She has a model figure."
I felt something hollow out in my stomach. "Maybe it's just business," I said aloud, though my voice wasn't steady.
"Lea, Finn left in a rush this morning. Looked like he had a fight," the manager, Mariano, said. "Stick around after the meeting."
When Finn called my name in the meeting room and asked me to stay, the walk down the hall felt like walking the plank.
"Lea," he said quietly when the room had emptied. "Can you explain to me what you did last night?"
I gulped. "I write men’s novels. I write for an audience that likes big, loud plots."
He blinked. "And you put me in the pages?" The question had no accusation. Just curiosity edged with something I couldn't name.
"It was fiction," I said too quickly. "I didn't—you know I'm not—"
"Red women?" he asked, as if he were guessing a flavor.
"Red women." I made a face. "They are just characters."
Finn’s expression darkened like evening clouds. "Do you like adding trouble to my life for fun?"
I bristled. "I'm not trying to make trouble. I was trying to be valuable to myself. To earn a little extra."
He closed his eyes and breathed out. "Work late tonight," he said. "Stay."
"Stay?" I repeated.
"Yes. Stay." His fingers brushed mine in the dim meeting room. "We’ll finish this later."
I left the room with my heart stuck somewhere between my ribcage and my throat.
At home that evening Finn kissed me like an apology disguised as a promise. He was impatient and gentle at once.
"You okay with me seeing your drafts now?" he asked, when the moment softened into quiet.
"I'm terrified," I admitted.
"Then don't hide things from me," he said. "I like knowing."
I tried to hold onto that when he left on what he said would be a two-day trip. I kept working on my chapters, fingers typing until the whole apartment blurred into paragraph breaks and red notifications.
But one day he came back early. The office buzzed with rumors as if sparrows had burst into the ceiling.
"Finn came back with some news," Kendra whispered. "They saw him with a woman—she’s a socialite. It looked like…"
She rolled her eyes. "It looked like a scene from a magazine."
I clenched my jaw and told myself not to watch his every move. I told myself he would tell me if it mattered. But then the video circulated.
"Look," Kendra said, showing me a clip of Finn arm-in-arm with a woman whose profile was elegant and who wore a grin like polished glass.
I forced a smile. "Maybe she's family," I said, because I needed that to be a possibility.
A phone buzzed hard in my hand. My father's name flashed. I almost didn't answer.
"Five thousand," he demanded the moment I picked up.
I swallowed. "Dad, I just sent—"
"Not enough," he snapped. "Your brother needs it."
There was a picture attached with the call—a small boy with a bleeding forehead and a hospital tag. My thumb trembled as I tapped to transfer money. After I hit send I felt lighter and heavier all at once.
At home Finn stood at the door when I arrived, coat unbuttoned, looking like he had been waiting a lifetime.
"You look tired." He took the bag from my hands and pecked my forehead. "Tell me what's wrong."
I almost told him everything. Instead I handed him the hospital note and he read it, jaw tightening.
"I'll go see him," Finn said immediately.
"I can do it," I insisted.
"No." He cut me off softly. "You write. I go. I'll be back tonight."
At the hospital his steps slowed as soon as he saw the little boy. The child looked at Finn with shy curiosity.
"Hi," Finn said, crouching to the boy's level. "I'm Finn."
The boy's eyes widened. "Are you my brother?"
Finn couldn't keep the smile off his face. "Not yet," he joked, but there was a warmth there that made my chest ache.
When my parents arrived to make their usual scene, the nurse looked on with thin patience. The room smelled of antiseptic and tired coffee. Mom immediately fell to theatrics, tears mixing with accusations and performance.
"Mr. Castle," my mother wailed, "we're in trouble. The child's treatment—"
Finn stepped forward like a wind that rearranged the room. He didn't yell. He didn't throw money like a showman. He looked at my parents with a steady, cold kindness that felt worse than fury.
"You asked for help because the debts are getting collectors involved," he said. "Tell me the truth now."
My mother sputtered and spat a hundred excuses. My father muttered as if in a fog. I could see the shame threading their faces.
"How much?" Finn asked.
My father stuttered. "Half a—some amount—the men—they—"
Finn's phone lit up, his thumb moving too quick for me to follow. In minutes, the hospital's pocked account was cleared.
"So it's resolved," Finn said, turning to leave. "You should go home."
My mother tried to cling to him. "Mr. Castle, you are so generous—"
He snapped. "You used your daughter's income to gamble and then abandoned the child when someone came to collect? You put a child in danger, and now you expect sympathy?"
She cried harder, but the words had no shelter. Around us, hospital staff and patients peered in. A few raised eyebrows. One of the nurses looked like she could have applauded.
Finn didn't yell. He didn't break them physically. He methodically dismantled their excuses. "You took money meant for medical treatment and gambled it away. You left. If I ever see you near my girlfriend or this child again, I will make sure people never hire you for anything."
My mother clutched at me. "Lea, you should be grateful to him."
"I am grateful he's helped my brother," I said, louder than I meant to. "But I'm not grateful for what you did."
Finn leaned in close to my ear and said, "I don't like people who hurt the ones I love."
That night at the hospital exit, my father's pockets were empty of excuses and his face had an industry of guilt. When we stepped into the glass elevator, it felt like a verdict had been passed.
Over the next days Finn took over many mundane things I had clung to.
"Let me pay the bills," he said, handing me an envelope.
"No," I said. "I want to handle my own life."
He smiled a private smile. "You will. But not alone."
We reached an awkward peace. Back at the office, gossip settled into the normal hum. The rumour about the socialite? It was his sister, Victoria, who burst into my apartment one afternoon like sunlight.
"You're Mrs. Finn Castle now?" she teased, handing me a small plate of cookies and calling me "sister-in-law" in a voice that made my knees float.
"You're his sister?" I asked, stunned and relieved.
"Of course. Did you think I'd let him meet someone who couldn't handle my brother's hubris?" She laughed and gave me a look that said she had ruled over more than one family misunderstanding before breakfast.
Finn's return to normal was slow and sweet. He began to do things that made me forget the old fears.
"You're amazing when you worry," he told me one night when he returned my coat to me in the rain.
"That's not a compliment," I muttered.
"It is," he said, leaning in to tuck a wet hair behind my ear. "You guard people like a bright little lighthouse."
I warmed at that, and then he surprised me by opening my laptop and reading my latest chapter with a careful curiosity.
"You wrote this?" he asked, scolding and proud at once.
"Yeah." I tapped my fingers on the keyboard. "It's messy, but it's mine."
He pressed his thumb lightly to the corner of my laptop. "I like this messy you."
We had our small rituals. He would fix my tea when I forgot, and one evening when it was raining, he took off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders without a word. It was a tiny, perfect act of protection.
"Why do you do that?" I asked.
"Because you're cold," he said simply.
That, in itself, was a kind of confession.
But my family problems didn't vanish. Weeks later, men in black walked into the hospital looking for the unpaid debt. They were loud and sharp like knives. My father had run. The men began to stir trouble again.
This time Finn stood like a dam.
"He's my girlfriend's family," Finn said smoothly when they stepped into the ward with demands. "Leave now."
One of them sneered. "Your money's been used. You either pay again, or we take it out of them."
Finn stepped forward. "You already had your payment. Someone used the money and ran. If you want the source of your repayment, I'll help you find him."
The thug's face curled. "You can't buy time."
Finn's phone flashed. He paid them off in a heartbeat, the transaction moving too fast for their expectations. "Consider it an investment," Finn said. "You walk out the door and never come back."
There were witnesses—nurses, a cleaning lady, a young couple visiting a newborn. They watched the men leave in confusion. On the elevator, one woman whispered to me, "You don't know how lucky she is."
"She is my girlfriend," Finn said, and his voice had a softness that made me dizzy.
At the hospital garden, I asked Finn what he saw when he looked at me.
"I see a woman who keeps trying to be decent in a messy world," he said. "I see someone stubborn enough to shoulder a drowning house, but kind enough to rescue what's left. I'm tired of you carrying everything alone."
"I don't want to be a burden," I said. "Sometimes I think you deserve someone better."
He kissed the side of my head. "I chose you. Not because you're perfect, but because you are brave even when your hands are shaking."
I kept writing. My editor, Elena, called me the "rare talent who writes men and still makes them feel human". My side project gained readers who liked quiet candid lines between explosions.
Readers started commenting, "Your heroine is real." "Keep going, author!" The pressure was big and sweet at once.
"Don't stop," Elena urged me when she visited the office. "You have something honest. Keep feeding it."
"I will," I promised, typing in snatches in between hospital nights and office hours.
Finn began to insist, gently, that I rest. "Finish one chapter and let me take care of dinner," he'd say. He'd hover in the doorway like a knight. Sometimes he'd look silly and small as he tried to guess which scenes were mine and which were just filler.
One rainy afternoon after a long day, I broke down in front of him.
"I can't keep sending them money," I sobbed. "I can't keep letting them use me to pay their debts."
"You won't have to anymore," Finn said. "I've spoken with some people. We can stabilize things. I don't want them to touch you."
"It feels wrong to take it all from you," I said.
"It's ours to share if you let me be in it," he answered. "I want to be in it."
That night he sat with me while I wrote the most honest chapter I had ever written—about service, about shame, about a little boy who saved enough in coins to buy a candy for his sister. Finn read that chapter in the dim glow and laughed softly when the boy's pride made him fumble.
He surprised me by reading passages aloud like they were a prayer. "You made him brave," he said. "You made me see things I didn't want to."
I forgave him for reading my drafts without permission because he had given me the steadiness to write them.
Time ran like a patient river. My book's comments ticked up. Finn's quiet actions added layers to our life: he started to come to family gatherings only when I asked; he would not tolerate my being spoken down to. Once, at my parents' house, he smashed a bottle against the floor—an empty threat to their selfishness—and told them in front of neighbors that they would not rely on me like a bank.
My mother screamed that night, but Finn stood like a wall. Eight neighbors turned to watch, their expressions uncomfortable and wide.
"You're my girlfriend," he told them plainly. "She is not your ATM. Keep your hands out of her life."
I felt relieved and humiliated at the same time. But then something strange happened: people whispered. Someone told another neighbor how my mother had used my money to gamble. Another person, who had been the subject of my mother's "charity", nodded in a small, sad way.
Public opinion is a powerful thing. It can shame you into cowardice—or it can flip and strip the abuser bare.
My parents retreated like small animals, their performance tired and empty. The street watched them go. Someone clapped once, the sound like a bell.
Weeks later, at a company event where Finn had to host, he made a small speech about responsibility that was clearly aimed at anyone who took advantage of others. He didn't name names. He didn't need to.
That night, as we walked home, he took my hand. "Stop worrying," he said. "Stop carrying it alone."
"Promise me one thing," I said.
"What?"
"Don't ever let me lose my hard-earned independence."
He kissed my fingers. "I would never take it from you. I want you standing next to me, not behind me."
A month later a scandal tried to blow up—someone at work leaked that Finn and a wealthy girl were engaged. The rumor was loud and spiteful. Finn refused to bite. He let the truth—Victoria's playful explanation—quiet it.
"We're family," Victoria announced at a small party she organized just to reassure everyone, and she hugged me like a sister she had chosen.
"You're his anchor," she said into the small crowd, and I felt flush with a warmth that had nothing to do with money.
As my writing kept growing, I learned to balance chapters and life. Finn became less a distant deity and more a partner who assigned me time to write and time to sleep. He would steal my laptop when I refused to rest and tuck it under his arm like contraband.
"You're not allowed to die in my arms," he told me one night when I complained about exhaustion. "You're allowed to demand help."
I started to take him at his word. I scheduled meetings with an accountant. I planned a budget. Finn watched me reorganize my finances with pride, not pity.
"I knew you'd be a good woman," he told me once as we ate instant noodles warmth in the apartment kitchen. "I liked you before I knew how brave you were."
Those were the little heart-thump moments: when he laughed at my stubbornness, when he tucked a blanket around my shoulders, when he read my sentence aloud and smiled like it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard.
Standing at my desk one night, I scrolled the comments that named characters I had created. A handful of messages stood out—some readers thanking me for writing a heroine who took care of family while still making mistakes.
Finn came up behind me and laid his head on my shoulder. "You did this," he whispered.
"Only because you let me," I said.
He kissed my temple, and in that small gesture was a universe.
We learned to argue without sharp claws. We learned to let the other person step in and do what was needed. Once, when a debt collector tried to intimidate a friend of mine, Finn confronted him in a crowded café and made him apologize. The man left flushed and humiliated, and the customers around them applauded quietly. I watched Finn's back and felt my heart steady.
Months folded into a new normal. The blog updates were punctual, Finn's presence at my side was loyal, and my brother's medical plan was stable. My parents occasionally tried to prod for more, but their leverage had been cut into splinters by the public shaming and Finn's refusal to be conned.
At a small awards event where my work was praised for its raw honesty, Finn climbed the stage with me and whispered before I accepted the honor, "You're mine."
"Not mine," I corrected, feeling brave. "We're together."
The crowd didn't know the real history—no one saw the late nights I spent talking into pillows, or the mornings I fed my brother soup at dawn. But having Finn by my side made the world less hungry.
When the book sold enough that I could afford to breathe, I printed a small copy and tucked it into his coat pocket—old-fashioned proof that I could, at last, give him something back.
On a rainy afternoon he handed it back, thumb worn at the cover. "You made me read this from start to finish."
"You did without asking," I said.
"I didn't ask because I love how you hide the brave parts in plain sentences," he said. "Keep writing."
I did.
We still argued. We still had old shadows. But lately, whenever I shook with anxiety, he'd reach out and steady me.
"Why me?" I asked him on a night when the city rain painted the windows.
"Why you?" he turned it into a question back, eyes mocking.
"Yeah."
"Because your life is honest," he answered without hesitation. "And because you pick up everyone you meet."
I laughed, which turned into a sob that felt like release. He wrapped his arms around me and held me steady.
At the end of that year, I closed my laptop on a chapter that had my brother in it more than me. Finn walked in and read the last line over my shoulder.
"You didn't need me," he said quietly.
"I needed you," I corrected.
He grinned, and the room felt small and big at once.
"Let's promise to be clumsy together," he said.
"And honest," I added.
"And loud when we have to be," he said.
"And quiet when the world demands it," I finished.
We didn't use a ring to seal the promise. We used a small hospital bracelet of my brother's that I kept in my jewelry box—stained, cracked, and real. I slid it into a drawer. The bracelet was our reminder of what we'd survived and who we'd chosen to protect.
One night I scrolled through comments and saw a string of readers debating the best moments. I smiled. So many were small, almost stupid—like when Finn once fed me a spoonful of soup and hissed, "Not too hot," as if the act was fragile treasure.
I wrote another chapter, and Finn read it with his usual intensity.
"You always make things feel like home," he said.
"Because you make the home feel safe," I answered.
He kissed me then, like a punctuation mark on the sentence of our life.
We still had work to do on finances, on family, on trust. But we also had small, bright proofs: the way he would take my coat, the way he would read my sentences aloud as if they were spells, the times he stood up in public for me and made sure everyone saw.
And whenever I scrolled to the comments and read a message that said, "You deserve better," I would look at Finn and know that better had been standing in the doorway the whole time.
The End
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