“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.