“Got it.” A nod as I backed down the hallway and refused to make eye contact with a certain professor. Mom was right. I probably should talk to someone and maybe I would once I got the time.
Yeah, maybe.
For now, a drive sounded just like the trick to get my head right while at the same time giving Brielle just what she wanted.
A night so obviously away from me.
Chapter Eleven
Bri
“My son’s nice, isn’t he?”
My feet caught on a chunk of ice, and I went flying, sliding across the sidewalk like a figure skater. Evie basically had to grab hold of my jacket just to keep me from falling on my ass.
“Oh my God, Bri.”
Embarrassed to hell as she stabilized me back on my running shoes. For the most part, the sidewalks of Maywood Heights were cleared and sprinkled with salt for our early morning runs, but one still had to stay vigilant, i.e. pay attention.
Hard to do when your friend mentions the son you slept with.
A reality between both Evie and me, but definitely not mentioned to said friend who currently had a hand on me. We’d jogged downtown this morning before work, the air crisp and our Lycra tight. I typically liked jogging through varied seasonal elements, gave me a challenge, but Evie couldn’t always make it and did prefer the gym. Sometimes we met after work at the Maywood Heights community center, something I preferred due to my schedule, but mornings worked out best due to hers. We tried to sync up as much as we could, but there were many days I was off on my own and she herself the same. I also preferred outdoor runs, so today we compromised. I got up early to run with her downtown, and she agreed to a sprint outside.
This felt like a mistake now as my friend had to stabilize me. Her cheeks red from the chill, her eyes twitching wide in her North Face jacket. “You okay?”
“Fine. Fine.” Though not playing that off very well. I’d done just as well at dinner the other night.
And how hadn’t I realized that was her son?
Mallick… freaking Mallick. God.
Evie had been married when I met her but had gone by Mallick-Pierce back then. Pierce was her maiden name, and now that she was divorced just like me, she went by simply Pierce. I honestly hadn’t put two and two together and definitely not that her twenty-two-year-old kid had been the one making me moan for hours on end and well into the morning.
God, had I kept that on the down low, necessary. Though, clearly Ramses himself had felt different. I thought he might say something during taco night, and it’d only been my quick thinking to keep that from Evelyn.
I didn’t know how she’d react, but she obviously wouldn’t be, well, happy. Why would she? Her son was younger than me.
And you’re his professor.
I wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole, catching my breath as Evie urged us to sit on a bench by the street. This allowed me to get things together a little, take a breath. Standing, she placed her sneaker on the bench. “You okay, hun?”
No. “Yes.” I suppose I had to be, watching as she took a seat. She started to give me some of the water she carried, but I turned it away. “Sorry. Feet just slipped from under me.”
She nodded like she knew, like she cared, and I knew she did. I mean, she was the reason I was here in the first place and not back in Jersey. She did care, listened to me, which made me feel completely shitty. I was keeping a secret from her, a big one.
God, you’re a terrible person.
It wasn’t often I felt evil. That wedding and all my sadness during had been an example and right now in this moment another, my friend smiling down at me. Evelyn Pierce was nearly over six feet in height, well above my five foot six.
She definitely was his mother.
The woman was built like an Amazon and gorgeous to boot, a debutante in her previous life from what I understood. She came from money, married into money, and so now I knew even more why Ramses was on the level as much as he was. He came from legacy, wealth on both sides.
I mean, his daddy’s name is on half these buildings.
Well, not the buildings per se, but the development signage. There wasn’t a construction site in visible sight without the name Mallick on it. The only one I saw more than that was Reed, whoever that family was.
Yes, there was a lot of money in Maywood Heights, and many of the buildings themselves were graced with the name Prinze. Apparently, Ramses’s friend December was linked to money as well. I was assuming so since that was her new husband’s name.
Okay, so why are you thinking about her now?
Because I was obsessed, obsessed with him, and getting up, I passed off that I needed a continued break. Evie, of course, looked at me like I was crazy. I just fell, nearly splitting open my leggings, but I was ready.
Laughing, she jogged alongside me again, and this time when she brought up her son, I wasn’t completely blindsided, agreeing with her about how nice he was. Ramses was nice, charismatic, charming…
Handsome.
Had he not been in his twenties and my student, I may have been all over that. Oh, and of course, the fact he was the son of like the only friend I had in the world right now.
I didn’t have a lot of those at the present, lost a lot in the divorce. Everyone loved Alec Norrington, star lineman for the New York Giants. He was a big freaking deal, even now post-retirement.
The asshole.
I still had to see his face on Sports Center, grinning like an asshole just to spite me. It seemed he’d edged away from the booze enough to start making money again, like our divorce freed him up and made him actually want to do something with himself. Perhaps, losing it all made him stare his own life in the face.
I jogged to a stop. Evie did too beside me. She was easily twenty years my senior, but she was in better shape than me. That said something since I ran every day. She propped hands on her hips, getting her own few breaths in before taking a chug of her water bottle. She offered again, but I denied her.
“I suppose I just worry about him,” she said, still talking about Ramses. It hadn’t stopped, and I felt really shitty listening to that, too. She said he’d been acting off and wondered if I noticed anything at dinner the other night.
I’d answered honestly, of course. I mean, how would I know?
You don’t know him, right?
I didn’t technically. Anyway, this conversation was far too personal. I shouldn’t be talking to his Mom about him.
“I can’t help it, I suppose.” She laughed it off. “You know, being his mother.”
God.
“He just…” She shook her head. “He’s dealing with a lot right now. Did I mention he used to go to Brown?”
She had during our run but hadn’t said why he left. He went to Brown, but he was here now, working and taking over their family’s businesses. The businesses thing was mentioned at dinner, in passing, but yeah, he was getting acclimated working for his family, whilst in school. Quite busy like he mentioned to me the day I cut things off initially.
Really all his priorities and his ability to juggle them made him just that much more appealing. Something else I needed to fight. Ramses may have his youth, but he was determined and appeared to have his life more together than me.
This stuff, his involvement with his family’s business endeavors, was all things mentioned in front of him, though. Not this Brown issue. Whatever it may be. Even still, talking about any of this stuff without him around felt weird. It was far too personal and didn’t seem to be my place to hear any of it.