If Only You (Bergman Brothers, #6)(96)

“Viggo!” I hear a voice hiss. “Stop aiming for his goddamn head!”

“You’re not the boss of me,” Viggo hisses back.

“Someone should be,” says a voice I vaguely recognize.

Enough of this bullshit. I stop walking and yell, “Hey!”

A hand claps over my mouth. It’s surprisingly strong. I shove it off and spin around. Ryder. He lifts a finger to his mouth.

I shake my head, so damn confused.

“Fashionable Sebastian.” Viggo reveals himself from the crest on the path, pointing over his shoulder. “We’d like a word.”

“Fuck off.”

He sighs. “I had a feeling you’d say that. Which leaves me no choice but to—”

“Okay.” Axel, the oldest and tallest brother, with his serious expression, who looks a little like Viggo, but with Ziggy’s sharp green eyes, steps out from behind a tree. “Enough of the Godfather shit. Just tell the poor man what you want.”

“You’ve turned into such a softie,” Viggo says to him, clearly exasperated.

“Jesus Christ, Viggo.” Oliver marches up to me. “Would you kindly join us in the storage shed?”

Oliver points over his shoulder to a structure a little further down the hill.

Sighing, I drop the soccer ball to my feet. “Fine.”





“Welcome,” Viggo says, “to your first, and possibly only, Bergman Brothers Summit, Seb.”

Oliver, Ryder, and Axel sit, slumped on boxes and upturned buckets, looking as displeased with this development as I am. It makes me feel marginally better.

“I’d say ‘happy to be here,’ but I’ve turned over a new leaf, and I don’t blow smoke up people’s asses anymore. So I’ll be honest: I’m actually not one bit pleased I’m sitting in a musty shed with you fools rather than the woman I lo—”

I stop myself, clenching my jaw. They don’t get to hear that word from me before Ziggy does.

Oliver’s eyes widen. He sits up and smacks Viggo in the chest. “Told you! I told you! Now you cough it up, honey bunch.”

Viggo scowls at his brother. “I didn’t bet you money on this.”

“I know!” Oliver says. “I mean your dignity. Cough up your dignity, because this is ridiculous. He’s here because he loves her, because he’s been spending the past half year trying to be a person he feels is worthy of Ziggy, which, ya know, long time and all for poor Zigs, who really does not like to wait, but still, kudos to him for the commitment—do it once and do it well, am I right?” he says to me, before turning back to Viggo. “After all that, he’s finally here, and what do you do? You knock him in the head with a soccer ball and lure him into this damn shed to tell him something he already knows. Isn’t that right, Seb?”

I swallow roughly, scared that I’m so transparent. Relieved that I’m so transparent. That someone who loves Ziggy sees how I want to love her, too.

“Yeah,” I say quietly, earnestly. “That’s right.”

Oliver drops back against the shed’s wall on a hmph, folding his arms across his chest as he glares at Viggo.

Viggo gapes at his remaining brothers, as if for moral support. “C’mon, guys. Help me out.”

Axel shakes his head. “Nope. I was against this. There are great uses for Bergman Brothers Summits. This is not one of them.” He stands, dusting off his thighs. “I’m going back home to my wife and the quiet. You are too goddamn loud.”

With that, Axel slaps open the shed door and strolls out.

Ryder sits forward next, elbows on his knees, looking at me. “I’m uh…sorry for the Godfather move back there, but I just wanted the chance to say, before you walked in there—every time I talk to Ziggy, she talks about you. With so much love. She loves you.”

My heart jumps against my ribs.

“I don’t know what kind of love it is,” he adds, shrugging, lifting a hand to his hearing aid curled around his ear and seeming to make some sort of adjustment. “But I know all kinds of love matter and are beautiful. Whatever it is that you two share, I just want to know you’ll be good to her, the way I know she’ll be good to you.”

Now that I can respect. I nod. “I can promise that.”

Ryder smiles, a bright grin behind his dark-blond beard. “Excellent. Then I’ll be going.”

“Wha—” Viggo gapes at him.

Oliver pushes off the wall and stands, too. “I’ve said my piece. I’m out.”

The shed door swings shut, listing a little on its hinges as the wind moves it. Which leaves me and Viggo. Just the two of us.

Sitting back against the wall, I cross my ankles, arms folded across my chest. “So, here we are. I feel like we’ve been working our way toward this for a while.”

“No you don’t.” Viggo stands and starts pacing. “You don’t get to lead this meeting.”

I glance around, eyebrows raised. “You see anybody else here? I’m just talking.”

Viggo knocks back his ball cap and tugs at his hair, spinning and facing me as he slaps it on again. His eyes are tight, his face hard. “From one self-admittedly glib person to another, I really don’t appreciate how cavalier you’re being.”