Sonia M. Rompoti, MSc, Bsc

She had spent thirty-four years at war with her body.

Not dramatically, not in the way that made headlines. Quietly. The way women do — the shapewear under the dress, the angles she avoided in photographs, the apologetic way she held herself in rooms, as if she was sorry for the space she took up.

She met him at her cousin’s dinner party and he was attractive in the way that made her want to recede — taller than her, jaw like an architectural decision, the kind of man she’d told herself wasn’t for her before she’d even learned his name.

She was seated next to him.

She tried to be small. Old habit.

But then he asked her about her work — she was a food writer, the one subject she couldn’t be small about — and something in her expanded without her permission, and she watched him listen, actually listen, leaning slightly forward, and she forgot, for twenty minutes, to manage herself.

“You talk about food the way other people talk about love,” he said.

“It is love. Properly understood.”

“Show me.” He picked up the menu. “Talk me through this.”

She talked him through the whole menu. He ordered based on everything she said. He was not disappointed.

His name was James. He called the next day.

On their third date she made a comment — small, automatic — about a photograph from the evening, something dismissive about how she looked, the kind of self-deprecation she’d used as armour her whole life.

He put down his coffee.

“Don’t,” he said.

She looked at him.

“I know you’ve been trained to do that,” he said, carefully. “But I need you to know — from where I’m standing — there is nothing to apologise for.” He held her gaze. “Nothing. You understand?”

She felt something loosen in her chest that had been wound tight for decades.

She didn’t know what to do with a man who looked at her and saw something worth seeing. It took her some time to learn.

She learned.

Later — months later, in the morning light that was the most honest light, the light she used to hate — he traced the curve of her hip with the kind of deliberate attention she used to reserve for meals worth writing about, and she lay still and let herself be looked at and felt, shockingly, like something good.

“What are you thinking?” he said.

She thought about it honestly. “That I’ve been wasting a lot of time.”

He pressed his lips to her shoulder. “You’re here now,” he said. “That’s not a waste.”

So you made it to the end… which probably means you’re the kind of person who enjoys a little romance with their coffee ☕. If you’re in the mood for more stories about messy feelings, stubborn attraction, and women who absolutely refuse to settle for boring love, you can find all my books here.

Fair warning though. One story tends to lead to another. I’ve seen it happen. Repeatedly.