Chapter 24
CECE
I unfolded the napkin with a little sigh, smoothing out the crinkles as I scanned the restaurant.
The sound of conversations around us felt familiar.
The smell of sizzling bacon and coffee made me feel almost normal.
Almost. Saturday morning breakfast was part of our regular routine.
Mom insisted on all of us taking a morning off.
No studying. No working. No housework and definitely no one making breakfast.
Across from me, Mom sat with her ritual breakfast: two perfectly hard-boiled eggs and a cup of black coffee that burned the inside of her mouth just the way she liked it.
Beside her, Sophie was about halfway through a plate of waffles, bright red strawberries melting into maple syrup.
The whipped cream that had been on top of the waffles had been eaten or melted into the syrup.
I took a bite of my omelet. It was my standard fare and usually my favorite. I stared down at the eggs, cheese, and spinach mixture. I wasn’t hungry. Regret had soured my appetite. How could I have done that to myself? I had fucked my professor. Not once. Not twice. Three times.
And I knew if he offered a fourth, I would jump at the chance.
There was clearly something wrong with me, like I was trying to blow up my whole life with bad decisions.
I was used to college guys balking at the idea of hooking up with a chick that had a kid.
Grady was an adult. Why was he so thrown off by the idea?
I couldn’t stop replaying that moment when his entire expression changed. One second he was asking me to stay the night, voice all husky and satisfied, and the next he was staring at me like I’d grown a second head.
The look on his face when I said “daughter” pissed me off. You’d think I’d told him I had a communicable disease. His whole body went rigid, pulled away from me like I might contaminate him. Like Sophie’s existence somehow made me damaged goods.
I stabbed at my omelet with more force than necessary. Mom glanced up from her eggs, eyebrow raised, but didn’t say anything. Smart woman.
What really pissed me off was how good it had been.
How fucking incredible he’d made me feel.
I’d never come that hard in my life, never felt so completely consumed by another person.
He’d worshipped my body like I was some kind of goddess, made me feel sexy and wanted and perfect.
Right up until the moment I became a mom instead of just a woman.
“Mommy, you’re making an angry face,” Sophie announced around a mouthful of waffle. “Did they forget the cheese in your omelet?”
I forced my expression to soften. “No, baby. Just thinking about class stuff.”
Class stuff. Right. My assignments were simple compared to the complicated puzzle that Grady was. I kept moving the pieces around in my head, trying to figure out how to make it fit together.
I caught my mom watching me again. Where is your mind?
I forced a smile. “It’s good, I promise.”
She gave a gentle nod and returned to cradling her coffee.
Sophie launched into a story about a dog she saw on her latest beach walk.
“And then the doggy ran right up to me, Mommy! He was so fluffy and his tail was wagging like this—” She demonstrated with her arm, nearly knocking over her glass of orange juice.
“And he licked my hand! It was so slobbery but I didn’t even care because he was so cute! ”
I smiled despite the knot in my stomach, reaching over to wipe a bit of syrup from her cheek with my napkin. “That sounds like a very friendly dog.”
“He was!” Sophie exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement.
“His name was Max, and his mommy said he loves kids. I told her I want a dog too but couldn’t get one until you got a job.
” Her face fell slightly, and she poked at her waffle with her fork.
“When are we gonna get a house? So I can have a dog?”
The question was fair but it still sucked. I glanced at Mom. She didn’t say anything, just sipped her coffee and let me handle it. I had probably asked her for a dog when I was Sophie’s age. I did remember having a cat, but never a dog.
“We’ll get a house one day, Soph,” I said, forcing cheerfulness into my voice. “But it takes time to save up for one. And when we do, we’ll make sure it has a big backyard for your dog.”
Sophie perked up immediately. “A big backyard? With a swing set too?”
“Of course,” I said, ruffling her hair. “And one of those playhouses you like.”
She squealed with delight, already launching into plans for her future dog—what color it would be, what toys it would have, what tricks she would teach it. I listened half-heartedly, nodding along while my mind wandered back to last night.
“Mommy?” Sophie’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. She was staring at me with those big blue eyes that always seemed to see right through me. “Are you sure your omelet had enough cheese?”
I forced another smile and shook my head. “It was great, baby. I’m just tired.”
She frowned, clearly not buying it, but before she could press further, Mom intervened.
“Why don’t we talk about your future dog some more, Sophie?” Mom said. “What kind of dog do you think you want? A big one or a little one?”
Sophie’s face lit up again, and she launched into a detailed description of her dream dog, complete with hand gestures and sound effects.
I shot Mom a grateful look, but she just gave me a small smile over the rim of her coffee cup.
I knew she had some suspicions about what I had been doing last night.
She didn’t know who I was doing it with, but she wasn’t naive.
And she probably knew what time I rolled in, doing my walk of shame.
“Will we live here?” Sophie asked.
I blinked. “What?”
“When we buy a house, will it be here?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “It will depend on where I can find a teaching job. It could be anywhere.”
“And will you come with us, Granny?”
Mom grinned and winked. “Just you try and get rid of me.”
I didn’t know what my mom had planned for the future. We hadn’t really talked about it. Eventually, I imagined she would want to move on with her life. That was a bridge to cross another day. I had enough burned bridges to deal with.
My phone pinged in my purse. I fished it out and saw it was an email notification on my university account. We didn’t really have rules about phones at the table. Eventually, we would. I opened the email and froze.
It was from Grady.
Cece—I’m sorry to do this by email, but with the storm headed to South Carolina, conditions are looking rough offshore.
I don’t want to risk anything. I’m afraid you’ll need to sit out the dive trip.
I’ll sort out your TA duties—I’m still counting on you for grading and logistics, but I don’t want you underwater until we’re sure conditions are safe.
I’ll make it up to you in class, promise.
—Grady
I stared at the screen. There was no way it was real. Was he out of his fucking mind?
Did he really think it was appropriate to shun me because we had sex?
Because he found out I had a kid, and since he didn’t want to fuck me anymore, he could toss me to the side?
That son of a bitch didn’t get to mess with my future and my career because he was pissed his piece of ass had responsibilities.
Mom reached over and touched my hand. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah,” I said again, a little too quickly. “You know, I think this omelet’s not sitting right with me after all.”
Sophie finished her last bite of waffle and climbed into my lap for a hug. I hugged her back, breathing in strawberry and sugar and childhood.
“I’m going to go use the ladies’ room.” I set down my fork and gently put Sophie in her chair. I rose and headed for the bathroom with my jaw clenched.
I stared at myself in the mirror, eyes prickled and wet. He’s a jerk. A sexy, magic-cock-toting jerk. A jerk who tells me what I can and can’t do. On a diving trip—our diving trip. That he invited me on. It was part of the perks of being his TA. He has no right!
Technically, he had every right but it still made him a son of a bitch.
Grady Stone, with his stupid perfect abs and his stupid perfect mouth and his stupid perfect dick, didn’t get to decide what I could or couldn’t do.
He didn’t get to bench me from the dive trip because he was suddenly too chickenshit to deal with the fact that I had a kid.
A kid who was none of his damn business, by the way.
I stared at my reflection, my hands gripping the edge of the sink so hard my knuckles turned white. My face was flushed, my eyes blazing with a mix of anger and humiliation. How dare he?
How dare he?
The dive trip wasn’t just some extracurricular activity for me.
It was my chance to prove myself, to show him and everyone else that I belonged in this program.
That I wasn’t just some grad student he could fuck and then discard when things got too real.
It was my future, my career, and he had no right to take it away from me because he couldn’t handle the fact that I had a life outside of him.
I splashed cold water on my face, trying to calm the fire raging inside me. It didn’t work. If anything, it just pissed me off more.
I was going to find a way to talk to him.
To ask why. To get my spot back— my goddamn spot .
Maybe tell him not to make decisions for me.
Grady’s email didn’t say he didn’t want me on the trip.
Just that conditions were dangerous. How was it too dangerous for me but not him? Was Lina still going on the trip?
That thought made my blood boil. Now that he got to fuck me and satisfy his curiosity, he was ready to move on to what Lina was offering. He didn’t want me in the way. It would be just the two of them with her in a tiny bikini and him half-naked in those damn swim trunks.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about this, but there was no way I would sit back and let him treat me like that.