Page 18 of Under My Skin

“Don’t apologize. I admire your dedication in trying to be a good mother and keep up with your studies.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” I admitted. “I’m trying to do what my sister wanted, but even before she died, we knew it was going to be tough taking care of him by ourselves. Now she’s gone and I’m doing it all myself, and I feel like I’m drowning.”

Oh, my God. Why had I just said that out loud? He didn’t care. He was a professor and saw hundreds of students a day. I was honestly surprised he even knew my name. But then again, I was probably a problem student to him lately because I’d missed so many classes and gotten assignments turned in to himjustunder the deadline.

“I can only imagine.” He gave me a sympathetic smile. “Why don’t you let me feed him during the lecture so you can still take notes?”

I would have loved to see my face. Of all the things he could have said, that was thelastthing I’d expected.

“Are…are you sure?” I stammered.

He chuckled. “Absolutely. I have three of my own, and I fed and burped them all more times than I can count. I know how hard it is, even when you have a support system.”

My eyes started to burn, and I swallowed down the lump that rose in my throat at this unexpected kindness. Professor Gomez would have been well within his rights to be upset at me for bringing a newborn baby – who had the potential to disturb all the other students – to his lecture. But instead, he was showing me sympathy and trying to make my life easier.

“Thank you,” I managed to choke out as I took Isaac out of his carrier and handed him over. “He should fall asleep after he eats, and then you can just put him back in his carrier.”

Just as I was getting Isaac situated and handing the bottle and a burp rag to Professor Gomez, Morgan walked in and headed directly for the desk next to mine. With his hands full, Professor Gomez headed back to the front of the class, and Morgan turned to me.

“Hey, babe,” she said. “What’s Isaac doing here?”

I sighed. “The lady who was supposed to watch him called me less than ten minutes before I had to leave and told me she was sick. I didn’t have time to find someone else to watch him.”

“Seriously?” she groaned. “Like, I get being sick, but she couldn’t have called you this morning? She had to wait until the eleventh hour?”

“Right?” I took a deep breath, trying like hell not to start crying in the middle of this damn lecture hall. “I don’t know what to do, Morgan. This isn’t working. And even if I drop out of school and get a job, I’m left with the same problem, you know? I can’t just bring a month-old baby with me everywhere I go.”

Morgan looked torn for a second, like she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to say what was on her mind, but then she took a deep breath. “I wasn’t even going to say anything because I know you and I know you’ll probably hate this idea, but I might have a solution.”

Wait, what? What kind of solution would she possibly have had that I would have hated enough for her not to even mention it?

“I mean, unless we’re talking about auctioning off my virginity, I’m open to pretty much anything at this point,” I whispered, so no one else could hear. “And honestly, if things don’t change soon, I might even be willing to do that.”

She started giggling so much that she snorted, and I couldn’t help chuckling with her.

Morgan and Amara were the only people I’d ever come out as demisexual to. The only ones I had ever trusted not to judge meabout the fact that I needed a deep emotional connection before I could feel any kind of physical attraction…and that I still hadn’t found that kind of connection with anyone. And neither of them ever had. In fact, Morgan had always told me that when Ididfind that person, it would make my first time that much better because it would be with someone I truly cared about.

But that showed how desperate I was. I was almost at the point that I was willing to just grin and bear it in exchange for the money I needed to care for Isaac.

“No, not that,” she snickered, then took another breath to regain her composure. “One of Mal’s teammates…he’s gotten some bad press recently, and his publicist is trying to reform his image. He’s not a bad guy. Just got into a bar fight when someone he knew in high school started talking trash about a good friend of his, and he ended up getting arrested and charged because he was the one who threw the first punch. And, well, he has a reputation with women too, so part of what his agent wants him to do is find a girlfriend. She was going to arrange for him to start pretending to date another celebrity, but he refused. He said he’d find someone to put on a show with on his own.”

“So, what? He wants to pay some random girl to pretend to be his girlfriend?” I scoffed.

“Well…yeah, basically,” she mumbled, throwing me a sheepish look. “I swear to God, I didn’t know about any of this until afterward, but Mal kind of already told him about your situation. He said he wants to meet you and see if he can help you out if you’re willing to pretend to date him for a little while.”

This all sounded a little too good to be true. But, then again, this was the world Morgan had lived in ever since she and Malachi had started dating. He’d been a star at our college before he went pro, so even then, she’d been in the public eye. Maybe for a celebrity, something like this wasn’t so far out of the realm of possibility.

“Who is it?” I wondered.

“One of his best friends, actually. Braden Hicks.”

My heart slammed into my throat and I could hear my pulse hammering in my ears. I tried desperately to keep my composure because I wasn’t about to tell Morgan why I was suddenly having an anxiety attack. Icouldn’ttell her. Not when it could end up getting back to him.

What kind of a cruel joke was the universe playing on me? Hadn’t I already suffered enough? Why would I get offered such a simple solution to all of my problems, but then be told that the way to obtain it was by pretending to date the one person in the whole world that I truly despised?

Thankfully, before I had to say anything, Professor Gomez cleared his throat, drawing our attention to the front of the class. And, swaying back and forth as he gave Isaac his bottle, he started to deliver his lecture about organic compounds.

It was almost impossible to pay enough attention to take decent notes, because I couldn’t stop thinking about the conundrum I was facing.

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