Please Harder, Professor

Chapter 161

Bellamy’s POV

Mornings have developed a rhythm that feels dangerously natural.

I wake to Noah's feet padding down the hallway at six-thirty AM. He climbs onto the couch where I'm sleeping, Mr. Carrots clutched in one hand, and announces with complete seriousness that he needs breakfast.

Specifically, a banana. Cut into exactly six pieces. Not five. Not seven. Six.

Sophie emerges from the bedroom fifteen minutes later, hair messy, wearing one of Adrian's old shirts she hasn't bothered replacing yet. She heads straight for the coffee maker without speaking. I've learned she's not fully human until caffeine enters her system.

Amelia starts fussing from the nursery around seven. Sophie prepares her bottle while I wrestle Noah into his high chair and negotiate the banana situation.

We move around each other with practiced efficiency—she reaches for the formula, I hand her the bottle before she asks, she grabs the burp cloth I'm about to need, I pour her coffee exactly how she likes it.

No wasted movement. No awkward collisions. Just synchronized partnership built through repetition.

Noah demands his banana be re-cut because piece number four is "too big." Sophie rolls her eyes but does it anyway while balancing Amelia on her hip. I distract Noah with questions about what Mr. Carrots wants for breakfast.

This is my morning. Every morning. For two weeks now.

And I catch myself forgetting it's temporary.

The thought creeps in while I'm making scrambled eggs, watching Sophie feed Amelia at the kitchen table. Noah chatters about trucks between bites of his perfectly-portioned banana. Sunlight streams through the windows Sophie opened fully the day after Adrian left.

This could be my real life. Not a temporary arrangement while Adrian figures himself out—if he even intends to come back. But permanent. My family. These children. This woman.

The fantasy is seductive. Terrifying. Dangerous to entertain.

But I can't stop imagining it.

Sophie has changed in the two weeks since Adrian walked out.

She laughs more. Real laughter, not the brittle performance she maintained while slowly dying inside. Yesterday Noah tried to put his shoes on Mr. Carrots and Sophie laughed so hard she had to sit down.

This morning Amelia spit up directly into her own hair and Sophie giggled instead of the exhausted sigh I would have expected before.

There's lightness in her movements. She doesn't carry her shoulders hunched anymore, doesn't move through the apartment like she's walking through a minefield.

She hums while doing dishes. Dances with Amelia to the music from Noah's cartoons. As if Adrian's absence lifted weight rather than adding it.

I try not to read too much into this. Try to tell myself it's just relief at not having to manage his moods, not having to watch him fail constantly. Try to convince myself it doesn't mean anything significant about us.

But the observation won't leave me alone.

She's lighter without him. Happier. More herself—or maybe discovering who herself actually is for the first time.

And I'm here watching it happen. Part of it. Maybe even helping it happen.

The guilt I should feel about that never quite materializes.

***

Evening arrives with both children finally asleep after extended bedtime negotiations. Noah insisted on four different stories. Amelia fought her last feeding, fussy and restless until Sophie walked her around the apartment for twenty minutes.

Now Sophie collapses on the couch beside me with an exhausted sigh. Not the defeated exhaustion of someone drowning, but the satisfied exhaustion of someone who survived a challenging day.

"Wine?" I offer, already reaching for the bottle I opened an hour ago.

"God, yes."

I pour two glasses. We sit in comfortable silence for a moment, just breathing. Not romantic. Not a date. Just two exhausted parents decompressing after another day of orchestrated chaos.

Sophie takes a long sip, then settles deeper into the couch cushions. "Do you think I can actually do this?"

"Do what?"

"All of it. Raise Amelia alone, finish my degree, build some kind of career as a single mother with a scandal following her everywhere." She stares into her wine glass. "Or am I delusional thinking any of that's possible?"

I choose my words carefully. "What do you want the answer to be?"

"I want you to tell me I can do it. That I'm not crazy for trying. That Amelia won't suffer because her father walked away and her mother is just…" She gestures vaguely at herself. "This."

"You can do it." My voice is firm, certain. "You're already doing it. Every day. And Amelia isn't suffering. She's thriving because her mother loves her and shows up and refuses to give up."

Sophie's eyes get wet but she blinks the tears back. "What if I'm not enough? What if she grows up resenting me for—"

"She won't." I interrupt gently. "Kids don't resent parents who try. They resent parents who don't show up. You're showing up, Sophie. Every single day."

She takes another sip of wine. Quiet for a long moment. "How did you do it? After Olivia died. How did you just—keep going?"

The question catches me off guard. We've danced around Olivia before but never addressed her directly. Never talked about the mechanics of surviving that kind of loss.

"I didn't have a choice." The words come slowly. "Noah needed me. That was the only thing that mattered. Some days I could barely get out of bed. But he needed to eat, clean clothes, someone to show up even when I felt like I was dying inside."

"Does it get easier?"

"Not easier—different."

I turn my wine glass in my hands, watching the light catch in the liquid.

"The grief doesn't go away. You just learn to carry it. Learn to function around it. Eventually you have whole hours where you forget to be sad. Then whole days. Then you realize you're not just surviving anymore, you're actually living."

Sophie looks at me with something in her expression I can't quite read. "You never talk about her. Olivia."

"Talking about her makes it real in ways I'm not always ready for." The confession slips out before I can stop it. "It's easier to just keep moving. Focus on Noah, not think about what I lost."

"What was she like?"

The question should hurt. Instead it feels like relief. Like someone finally giving me permission to remember her as more than just the tragedy that shaped my life.

"Loud." The word makes me smile despite everything. "She laughed too loud, talked too much, argued about everything. Made me feel like I deserved good things even when I didn't believe it myself."

I pause, swirling the wine. "She would have loved you. Would have kicked Adrian's ass for walking out."

Sophie laughs softly. "I would have liked her."

"She would have adopted you immediately. Declared you family within five minutes of meeting you." The memories come easier now, less painful. "She collected broken people. Said everyone deserved someone who showed up for them."

"Is that what you're doing?" Sophie's voice is quiet. "Showing up for me because that's what she would have done?"

I could lie. Could tell her it's obligation to Adrian or professional responsibility or simple human decency.

But sitting here in the dim living room with wine loosening my tongue and Sophie looking at me like my words actually matter—I can't bring myself to lie.

"I'm showing up for you because I want to. Because you matter. Because somewhere between formula explosions and late-night conversations, you became someone I…" I stop myself just in time. "Someone I care about."

The almost-confession hangs between us. Sophie doesn't push for clarification. Just holds my gaze for a long moment before looking away.

We're not kissing. Not touching beyond the casual contact of sitting on the same couch. Not crossing any physical lines that would make this something we can't take back.

But somehow this moment feels more intimate than sex ever could.

The vulnerability between us. The trust implicit in these confessions. The way Sophie looks at me when I speak—like my words matter, like I matter, like she sees me as more than just the security guard who stayed.

I realize with dawning clarity that I've already crossed the line that counts.

Not physically. But emotionally.

I'm completely, irrevocably in love with Sophie.

Not the complicated, damaged love I had for Olivia—though that was real and good and shaped who I am. This is different. Simpler and more complex simultaneously.

I love the way Sophie fights for Amelia even when she's terrified she's not enough. Love her laugh when Noah does something ridiculous. Love how she's slowly discovering who she is without Adrian's shadow crushing her.

I love her.

And sitting here on this couch, wine glasses in hand, children sleeping down the hall—she has absolutely no idea.

The realization should terrify me. Should send me retreating to professional boundaries and careful distance.

Instead it settles over me like certainty. Like inevitability.

I'm in love with Sophie.