by Eden O'Neill
“Nice to meet you, Ramses.” But then she said that, put out her hand, and once again, pretended nothing had gone down between us. She swallowed a little. “I’m Brielle, Bri.”
So this is the game we’re going to play?
Not surprising, considering this was her and had been her MO since I’d met her. Mom thought I was good at avoiding shit, but something told me my professor here could teach me more than a few things.
I simply stared at her, the hand between us. Bri urged me with her eyes to take it, and lucky for her, I had no desire to bring any more disappointment to my mother. I’d given her a boat load in the past few months.
I clasped Brielle’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Ramses.”
We shook on it, a slow shake with a bucketful of crap in it and unsaid words. What I wouldn’t give to high dive head first into Jersey girl’s mind right now.
At the present, I was forced to ease away from those thoughts, the shake over and both our hands returned. Between us, Mom sat like the friendly hostess she was, all this unbeknownst to her and lucky for it. Mom laced her fingers. “Bri teaches history at the university, honey.”
“Does she now,” I stated, gripping the back of my mom’s chair. “What do you teach, Brielle?”
Obviously, I was poking her, seeing what I could get out of her when she choked on the contents of her water glass. She just so happened to be taking a drink then, one that clearly came back up in her throat with the slight cough she allowed to escape.
She pressed a napkin to her lips, passing the whole thing off with her sultry smile. Or maybe, it was only sultry to me, this woman’s wiles not lost on me. She straightened. “Early western civilizations and ancient European,” she stated, manicured finger easing the neck of her dress away from her throat a little. “To name a couple.”
“Nice.”
“Aren’t you in a history class this semester, Ramses?” Mom worked around in her chair. She faced Brielle. “Ramses is a senior at Pembroke. His final semester.”
Brielle took that with another shot of water, but something told me we’d both need something a little stronger by the night’s end.
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…”
“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.”
&nb
sp; 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.
Then again, this was my friend. She should be able to tell me things, right?
“What happened at Brown?” God, why had I asked? I really was obsessed. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re fine. He’d kill me for talking about it, but he got himself into some trouble.” She propped hands on her hips. “Anyway, our lawyers had to get involved. Now he’s here, working like a dog, and trying to get through school at the same time. It’s a freaking mess, and he doesn’t have to do it. I think he’s just working to try and prove he can do it all, that he’s okay, which he’s not.”
I wanted to ask what kind of trouble, goddamn me. Thank God Evie prattled on; otherwise, I would have asked.
“Anyway, I’m throwing all my business on you instead of asking how you’ve been.” She cuffed my arm, smiling and how I didn’t know Ramses was her kid floored me. He obviously held an ethnicity that differed from her own, maybe more than one but that smile couldn’t be denied. Evie liked to smile just as much as Ramses.
What kind of trouble had he gotten into?
“Brielle?”