Hello! I know it's been a long time but law school hasnt been kind.

This chapter has neither reason nor rhyme I know but I wanted to celebrate my birthday with an update. Happy reading everyone. This chapter has smut so proceed with caution!

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Chapter Nine

Robert feels as though the day might not actually end. He'd been ready to go home and rest since nine am that day, the long night he'd suffered with Mary being unwell and cranky had been enough to make him want to throw a temper tantrum himself. He hadn't even seen his girlfriend since the weekend, because he'd been preoccupied with Mary and her illness and her tendency to be clingy on days that she isn't feeling well. Cora had offered to help him look after Mary, concerned as she'd been, and had even shown up in his doorstep with soup for the child, but he'd been resolute in sending her home. He doesn't want her to catch the flu that Mary had because the exams were coming and Cora really couldn't afford to be sick at such a time.

She had acquiesced, but only after extracting a promise from him that she be allowed to come during the weekend. It's Friday that day, and the weekends are upon them, and Robert knows better than anyone that there is no stopping his girlfriend now. Cora had been beside herself with worry over his daughter, and he knows that Cora is itching to see for herself that Mary is getting better.

After all, she had been brought to the doctor's, prescribed some medicine that she mostly refuses to take unless tricked into them, and had been resting for a good three days. Mary is very much on her way to recovery, but Cora isn't so easily placated.

They had agreed to come home together. Robert is to pick Cora up in the coffee shop, or outside, and all he had to do was text her that he's waiting. He had received a text from her, though, that she is just in the library picking up some weekend reading, and that she'll let him know when she's there. It's almost six, and he worries a bit because they had agreed on quarter past five, and Cora is almost always never late. Fifteen minutes isn't much, and she'd already sent him a text informing him she's on her way, just running late, still he worries.

He's sipping the coffee he just ordered when she notices her walking towards the parking lot. She's not alone though, and he spots the same guy she went to the art gallery with tailing her. She looks very much annoyed, but he knows his girlfriend. He knows she's too nice to shoo him away. He wishes he could burst out of the car and make the walking carrot stick of a man go away, but he can't. He doesn't want to make a scene. And that, in no way, shape, or form, helps.

He doesn't know what's being said, but it seems as though Cora is arguing with him. He's helpless but he really wants to jump in defense of Cora.

Yet, he waits.