Chapter 26
CECE
I sat in Latin class. The phrase amor vincit omnia, which meant love conquers all , was scrawled across the whiteboard in his neat, looping handwriting. I stared at it, my jaw tightening. If anything, love just made everything messier, more complicated, more painful.
I thought it was all bullshit. Love conquered all my ass. Love like the crap they wrote about back in the day didn’t exist. People sucked.
I wished I would have been around back then. Maybe I could have found the love the old-school writers and poets rambled on about. Until I saw it with my own two eyes, I was going to call bullshit.
I tapped my pen impatiently against the edge of my notebook as Professor Hargrove droned on about conjugating verbs in a dead language. My mind wandered, as it always did these days, to Grady Stone.
His name was like a splinter lodged deep under my skin, impossible to ignore no matter how hard I tried.
I could still feel the heat of his hands on my body, the way his voice had dropped to that low, gravelly tone when he’d whispered my name.
But then I remembered the look on his face when I’d told him about Sophie.
The way he’d pulled away like I’d just handed him a live grenade was an image I wouldn’t forget anytime soon.
What the hell was wrong with him? He was so damn handsome it should’ve been illegal, but he was also the most frustrating man I’d ever met.
One minute he was kissing me like I was the only thing that mattered in the world, and the next he was treating me like some fragile doll who couldn’t handle a little rough water.
I clenched my pen so hard I thought it might snap. Focus, Cece. Focus on the stupid Latin verbs and stop thinking about him.
But it was impossible. Every time I tried to focus on the conjugation chart in front of me, my thoughts kept circling back to him. And not just to him but to the dive he stole from me. Was he punishing me for being a young mother? That was fucked up and none of his damn business.
“Excuse me,” the guy two rows up whispered to the pretty young woman sitting beside him. “Did you do page forty-five?”
She giggled and brushed her hair back. Immediately, I clenched my pen.
Don’t fall for that, sister, I chided her in my head. They always disappoint you.
We moved on to past participles, and I tuned out about half the lecture.
The other half escaped me. I hated how easily I wanted to drift toward the distraction of someone else’s love story.
Wouldn’t it be cute if the young people did fall in love?
They could tell their grandchildren they met in a boring Latin class while the professor talked about love.
As if.
The guy leaned closer to the girl, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “So, you’re saying you’ve never been to The Library? It’s kind of a ZU student rite of passage.”
She giggled again, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve heard about it, but I haven’t had the chance to go yet. I thought it was like an older place? Like old people.”
I tried not to groan at the insult the student didn’t know she was delivering. Old people. Was I old? Old er , but sheesh.
“It’s not all old people,” the guy said. “But it’s quiet. Chill. Bartender and security are lax.”
I frowned at that. I didn’t know if that was a good thing. I couldn’t imagine Grady allowing underage drinkers, but whatever. What he did was none of my business. I tried to focus on my work, but my head was all over the place. I could not keep my mind on what I was supposed to be learning.
I couldn’t help but imagine what it would’ve been like if I’d met someone like him instead of Grady.
Someone my age, someone who didn’t have a decade and a half of life experience on me, someone who didn’t make me feel like I was constantly playing catch-up in some twisted game of power dynamics.
Someone who didn’t look at me like I was a problem to be solved the moment he found out about Sophie.
What if I’d met a guy in one of my classes—someone who didn’t have the authority to kick me off a dive trip because he thought he knew what was best for me?
Having a kid at eighteen had certainly dampened my dating options back then, but it never really bothered me.
I had my eyes on the prize. I knew what I wanted.
Getting messed up with a guy would have been a distraction.
I always told myself I would have time to date after I got settled.
Since I had busted ass and gotten through school pretty quickly, I felt like I still had a good chance at finding a good man before I was thirty.
Shopping for a good man was hard enough, but when you factored in finding a good father, it felt like an almost impossible feat.
Part of me always knew I would look for an older man.
Not older, but at least a few years older than me.
It was a fact men matured just a little slower than women.
The last thing I wanted was a man-child.
I didn’t want some young twenty-something that was still trying to find his way.
I knew what I wanted to do with life and I needed a man that had clear direction.
I always had a list. Not written down, of course.
That would’ve been too cliché, but it was there, tucked away in the back of my mind.
A checklist of sorts for the kind of man I wanted to end up with.
Someone stable, someone who knew what he wanted out of life.
Someone who could handle the fact that I came with a kid and didn’t see it as a burden or a dealbreaker.
Someone who wouldn’t flinch when I told him about Sophie, who wouldn’t look at me like I was damaged goods because I’d had a child at eighteen.
And then there was Grady.
He wasn’t supposed to fit into that list. He wasn’t supposed to be the kind of man I even considered.
He was my professor, for God’s sake. He was older—way older—and he had this air of authority that should’ve been a red flag, not a turn-on.
But somehow, against all logic, he’d managed to check off every box on that invisible list.
He was stable. He had a career that he was amazing at.
He was smart and knew what he wanted out of life, and he went after it.
We had a little something in common. Yes, I lusted after his body and would be more than willing to ride that cock again, but I also liked talking to him.
Like actual conversations about his experience in the world.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
When class finally mercifully ended, I gathered my Latin dictionary and notebook without hesitating. I shuffled down the hallway to the library to do a little studying before I had to go home. Mom was out with Sophie doing more school shopping.
The library smelled like musty books and coffee.
The one downside to majoring in history and archeology was not having the benefit of technology.
Plenty of resources had been transcribed and put online, but some stuff required good old-fashioned books.
Old, dusty tomes that most people couldn’t give a shit about outside the halls of academia.
I balanced the pile and sighed as I made my way up to the desk. The librarian was the typical sort with cat-eye glasses hanging from a chain around her neck. She wore a pink sweater and a black skirt that could have been from the fifties or designed to look like it was from that generation.
I shoved the books across the high desk and pulled out my student ID. She made small talk and I did my best to keep up but I had a million things on my mind.
At home, I settled into the couch with my laptop.
Sophie was building a Lego castle at my feet.
I tried to focus on the article in front of me, my eyes scanning the same paragraph for what felt like the hundredth time.
The words blurred together, my mind refusing to latch onto anything but the sound of Sophie’s voice as she narrated her Lego adventure.
“And then the dragon came and breathed fire!” she exclaimed, her tiny hands waving a red Lego brick through the air. “But the princess wasn’t scared because she had her magic sword!”
I smiled despite myself, glancing down at her.
She was completely absorbed in her story, her blue eyes wide with excitement as she moved the Lego figures around.
The princess—a mismatched figure with a pink torso and yellow legs—stood bravely in front of the dragon, which was really just a green block with a few spikes stuck on top.
“What happens next?” I asked, unable to resist. I was certain Sophie was going to grow up and either be an author or an actress. She was definitely a creative soul.
My daughter looked at me, her face lighting up. “The princess fights the dragon and saves the castle! And then she gets married to the prince and they live happily ever after.”
“Of course they did,” I said, reaching down to ruffle her hair. “Good job.”
She beamed at me before turning back to her Legos, already starting a new story. I tried to return to my work, but it was impossible. I had a paper due in two days. It was the first one for the semester and I was going to make sure I aced it.
Sophie made what I assumed was a fire-breathing noise. That was who I was doing it all for. For this little girl with eyes full of wonder. I closed my own eyes and refocused. I wouldn’t mess this up for her. Not for a professor. Not for a cock that could make me tremble at the knees.
“My turn,” I said, closing the laptop. “You know what? Let me help with your story.”
I could study tonight after she went to bed. She deserved my full attention. I would figure out how to deal with the cocky professor later. He was not going to get away with sidelining me.
Sophie’s Lego castle was coming together beautifully, complete with a moat made of blue blocks and a drawbridge that actually worked.
I was helping her build a tower when the front door swung open, and Mom breezed in, her short hair freshly styled with soft waves that framed her face perfectly.
She smelled like salon products—shampoo, hairspray, and that faint chemical tang of dye.
“Granny!” Sophie squealed, abandoning her Legos to run over and hug Mom’s legs. “Your hair looks so pretty!”
Mom laughed, bending down to scoop Sophie into her arms. “Thank you, sweetheart! Do you like it? I told the stylist to make me look fancy.”
“You look like a princess!” Sophie declared, reaching up to touch Mom’s hair.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Mom said with a wink in my direction. “But I’ll take it.”
I smiled as I watched them, my heart swelling with gratitude. Mom had always been there for me and Sophie. I didn’t know what I’d do without her. She set Sophie down and walked over to the couch, plopping down beside me with a dramatic sigh.
“Long day?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“You have no idea,” she said, leaning back against the cushions. “The salon was packed, and my stylist was running behind. But it was worth it.” She ran a hand through her hair, admiring the bounce of the waves. “What about you? How’s the studying going?”
I glanced at my laptop and cringed. “It’ll be a late night.”
She patted my knee. “It’ll all be worth it in the end.”