“Yeah, and she’d be cool with it.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You don’t either, but you’re quick to say it. Shut this down.”
This all seemed moot, the back and forth. We were arguing about things that hadn’t happened. “I’ve barely been divorced for a year.”
“And I’m not asking to get married.” He shook his head. “I just want to give this a chance. Are you saying there isn’t one?”
“No.”
This surprised him, clearly. His eyes flashing. He leaned forward. “Okay.”
Oh my God, what are you doing?
I was being selfish. Willing to entertain this was completely selfish. Because what other words defined this?
He was a young man and had many more experiences that awaited him. Many young women like Meredith last night, ones who hadn’t been married and didn’t have all this baggage.
And I had a lot.
They went beyond my ex and how cruel he’d ended up treating me. They were buried, deeply rooted.
I needed them to stay there.
Placing them there was all I could do to function every day, and in all my thoughts, Ramses made me look at him once more.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
He tilted my chin. “Using too much of this,” he said, touching my temple. “You’re so in your head right now when you don’t have to be. It doesn’t have to be so hard. In fact, it’s so simple.”
“Explain it to me then.” I worked my hair around. “Make it as simple for me as it is for you.”
Dampening his lips, he faced away. His fingers dragged across his mouth before he returned. “How about we put a deadline on it.”
“What?”
He nodded. “One of your biggest issues is my mom, right?”
“Yes.”
“And the fact I’m only a few years younger than you. Which I can’t help, by the way.”
“I know.”
Smirking, he hugged his arms around my entire waist. He’d actually been able to grip his biceps this time. “We figured out the whole me being your student thing. I’m not anymore, but maybe you’d feel better if we officially came out with everything if I wasn’t a student anymore.”
“Meaning…”
“Graduation hits, and we are a couple,” he stated, smiling. “We acknowledge it. We tell my mom. We skip over a few details. Say we started talking shortly before but didn’t actually start dating until after graduation. We still will be dating before graduation, but this way, in the eyes of my mother, it looks a little more innocent.”
“I don’t see what difference that would make.” It was still lying. I shook my head. “And what? We sneak around? Behind her back?”
We obviously couldn’t go anywhere together.
His big shoulders lifted. “I don’t want to, but I’m willing to do that for you. It also puts a hard deadline on the secrecy, and who knows…” His brows waggled. “You may be tired of my ass before then and we won’t have to worry about telling her at all.”
I’d be hard-pressed to imagine that. He drove me crazy, yes.
But I liked his crazy.
I liked our crazy, and I wanted to scream about how ludicrous this entire thing was.
This won’t work. This won’t work. This won’t work.
“This will work.”
Crap. I’d said that out loud.
He took my hands, grinning. Using our fingers, he tugged some of my hair out of my face. “Or maybe it won’t. But at least, we’re giving it a chance. I told you. No regrets.”
I released a heavy breath, and I knew what I was going to say before I even said it. There was just something about this guy. He always got his way with me.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he covered the back of my head.
Bending my head forward, he warmed the top of my crown.
“Ball’s in your court, professor,” he said, the smile in his voice evident. He pulled his big arms around me. “My Jersey girl.”
I closed my eyes in wild wonder that his friend could ever not love him back. Ramses was so easy to love.
God.
I hugged him tighter, nearly wishing she had. It’d be a lot easier for him. It wouldn’t be easy with me.
I was too damaged for it to be.
Chapter Twenty
Ramses
I almost regretted the commitment I’d made with Brielle, the urge to keep what we had a secret.
But then I had her.
I had her every day in my DMs, messages between lectures and board meetings. She’d given me her personal email too, so at least I wasn’t hitting her up at school when I did that.
She’d been concerned about that too, if one could imagine.
Like my mother was literally monitoring her emails, her need for secrecy apparent. I didn’t like it. Not at all, but that made her comfortable. She also didn’t run, so I didn’t argue.
I had her.
I didn’t have to chase her anymore, which I liked. I seemed to always have my running shoes on with this woman, but over the next few weeks, I didn’t have to do that with her.
I couldn’t take her out or anything, and between her schedule and mine being tight, that did make a relationship difficult. That’d happen even without the whole keeping us a secret thing, but we made it work. When we could arrange it, she did come over to my place, stay the night. We recommenced our runs after school and work often, so that made getting together easy. Her staying at my place on occasion also made it easier for her to go to work in the morning.
And hell, if I didn’t take full advantage.
I liked waking up to her, kissing her awake until she let me inside her. The best shit was the shower sex. I couldn’t fucking get enough, and it was lucky if either of us made it on time to classes the next day.
We always did, though, and she made sure of that. My responsible ex-history professor. She stayed at my condo a few nights a week, and when she didn’t, we were texting the shit out of each other. I didn’t push for anything more outside of that since I did get to see or hear from her most days.
I was also busy, so pushing for more wasn’t really an option at the present. I was still bound by obligations with school and work, and her life was the same. Our current arrangement made it easy.
But I was still looking at the calendar.
I’d even circled the event on the date: graduation. Like her getting my ass out of the shower for class after morning sex, I planned to hold her to that date. I refused to let us lie to my mother forever.
Me: So, once I’m considered an educated adult by the prestigious standards of Pembroke University (i.e. have graduated), you know I’m going to take you out, right? Treat you?
I damn well planned on showing her off and sent her many text messages just as this. She needed a reminder. We had a deadline and all this secrecy shit would be over eventually.
She texted me back while I waited for a client, a surprise on my roster today. In fact, I’d been a little confused by the name, but more curious than anything. I had a few minutes before it yet, so took full advantage of texting my girlfriend.
My girlfriend.
We didn’t use such words, girlfriend and boyfriend. Not because I didn’t want to use them, of course. I’d shout it from the rafters that I was seeing her.