I smiled. “Uh, yeah, but I haven’t seen Bri.” I passed a glance her way. “Maybe that will change. It is a big school, but it’s possible.”
Bri touched a hand to her dress again. “Yes, maybe.”
A small smile before I pushed off mom’s chair. I jerked a thumb back. “I’ll run to the wine cellar. Get us something for dinner?”
Something told me Bri wouldn’t protest and didn’t as I left the room. Mom actually yelled at me to get a couple of bottles.
Here we go.
Chapter Ten
Ramses
The evening was filled with Bri and me, my mother between us as Bri pretended not to know me and I, once again, let her. I understood the game she was playing, that she hadn’t wanted to create tension between her and my mom, her friend. Since the woman who gave birth to me and I obviously got up to a little tension of our own only nanoseconds before, I readily endured the casual banter about work, school, and the like. Mom told Bri all about me, a proud mama, which wouldn’t have been so bad had I not, uh, well, fucked her friend. I guess she and Brielle had history from when Mom used to work at NYU. My mother had done a stint there for a few years while Dad had been extending his business out there. Mallick Enterprises was global, properties all over. Maywood Heights may have been home, where he’d gotten his start, but once he’d gotten a handle over the area he’d ventured out to some more lucrative areas. This put the Mallick name all over the globe and apparently, in New York during a time where my mother had been the professor of the woman I’d slept with.
Weird or fucking what?
That was thick between us, but I had to give it to Bri, she rolled with the punches. Like in class, she didn’t allow for a break in the conversation, a social butterfly with her laughter, her essence. I spent most of the time just looking at her over a dish of tamales she’d brought. She said her mom’s recipe.
My lovely Latina.
Damn had this woman gotten in my head, but with my mom between us, I wasn’t going to get to talk to her anytime soon. Not that Brielle allowed for absolutely any of that. She kept the party going, the conversation and wine flowing. I actually had to get a third bottle and figured, once dinner was over and dishes cleared, I might be able to sneak away and get a second to talk to her.
This appeared to come when dinner wrapped up, but once Mom made the call to get the dishes, Bri, of course, insisted on helping her with them.
Of course.
I started to help too, but that was when Bri suddenly needed to use the bathroom.
“Oh, down the hall, honey,” Mom said to her, grinning. “And Ramses and I have got all these. You’re the guest.”
I helped Mom with the dishes. Even doing one better by offering to load the dishwasher for her. This got me extra special brownie points and basically forgiveness from words earlier exchanged. My mom was nothing if not a sucker for helpful gestures from her kid.
“Thanks, darling,” she said, taking the dish towel. “Can you check on, Bri? I’m going to wipe down the table.”
This saved me from making up an excuse to go do that very thing. I made my exit quick.
I found my professor down the very hallway she’d escaped down. I caught her looking at the pictures lining the walls, pictures of my family and me. She was stopped in front of a particularly obnoxious one of all three of the Mallick brood, my dad standing behind a chair while my mom sat in it with me to her right at age like ten or eleven. What made it obnoxious was that it was a painted portrait and we all literally looked like the royal family. We’d had to stand for hours for it, and I hated that day. Dad and I had been completely at each other, and Mom had to play Switzerland between us all day.
That was us though, the Mallicks. My hands in my pockets, I sidled up next to Bri, the wine glass in her hands a permanent staple tonight. She might have to take an Uber out of this bitch once she was done.
“Enjoying our legacy?” I asked her, and when she didn’t jump, angling her head back, I assumed she knew I was there. It seemed every time I spoke tonight, she launched out of her seat, like the two of us were seconds away from being caught knowing each other… intimately.
She wore that like a weighted badge, incredibly stiff when I came up on her. In fact, she eased back to the other side of the hall.
“I suppose you think this is funny,” she said, looking at me. “That your mom is…”
“Your friend,” I countered, not letting her have all that space. It was too much. I stamped down steps right to her, solid when I looked down at her. “Your mentor?”
Because I’d figured that out too, but what I hadn’t was why she’d think I found all this funny.
“And something’s funny about all this?” I asked her, placing a hand on the wall. I got right into her space, and she backed away.
“Ramses.”
“Bri?” I braced my arms. “Or is it professor here?”
She shook her head, laughing. Her glass to the air, she indulged in a healthy gulp before she rubbed her neck. “No, it’s not funny, but for some reason it keeps happening.”
It did keep happening.
Which was why I was confused she continued to fight it.
I steered into her space again, but once more, she angled away, and this time, I did laugh. All this was completely exhausting.
And I was so over this.
She was right, none of this was funny. But it was reality, and we had slept together.
Even if she didn’t want to address it.
Regardless of how she felt, it had happened and there was no point in pretending.
We both backed away when another’s steps graced the hall and we weren’t alone, my mom’s rag in her hands. She must have finished wiping down the table.
“How about a game of cards, you two?” Mom asked, really so unaware of the situation, the tension in my shoulders and how Brielle seemed to look at anything but me in that hallway. Mom exchanged a look between us. “Everything okay?”
Or maybe she wasn’t so unaware. But like a champ, Bri passed that off quickly. She rubbed her neck, starting to say what was most assuredly a denial. Heaven forbid she spend another second with me.
“Actually, Ma, I think I’m going to head out,” I said, Brielle’s eyes flashing wide. No, she hadn’t expected that. I directed a look at my mother. “I planned to drive back to campus tonight, classes in the morning.”
This was true, but I would have stayed.
I guess I didn’t see the point now.
Brielle clearly didn’t want me here, but Mom did, all but frowning at my announcement, and I truly felt bad. We really didn’t get to see each other a lot with our busy schedules, but this felt like it was all for the best.
“You can’t stay, love?” she asked me, and when I shook my head, she did frown. “Okay.”
Okay.
Taking her face, I kissed the top of her head before hugging her completely around it. Something I always did since I got taller than her, and it annoyed her.
“Oh, Ramses.” She shoved at me, but knew she loved it, laughing before tapping her cheek and making me kiss her there. “Be safe.”
“I will.”
“And look into what I mentioned,” she said, eyeing me. “You know about talking to…”