Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(19)

The scent’s doing things to my dopamine transmitters. I’m oddly calm and content. If I spoke at all these days, right now I’d say, Ahhh.

My eyes are still shut, my mind lulled, but I can feel Willa staring at me. I’m too chickenshit to meet her eyes. I know if I stare right back, unlike previous stare-downs, this one will make my heart tumble in my chest, just how it did when I watched her at her game.

Willa pats my hand, before I hear, “Ryder?”

My eyes fly open as I startle so badly, I slam my knee into the desk. Willa’s voice—it’s the first time I’ve heard it. My pulse trips and thunders through my body. A flush of heat rushes up my throat, then floods my cheeks.

Her voice is liquid velvet, poured sunlight. It’s smooth and low and soft around the edges. It’s the clearest sound I’ve heard since I woke up in the hospital. It feels epically unjust. Why? Why did Willa have to sit on my good side, why did she have to have a voice that falls in that tiny window of wavelengths that I can still pick up?

Why did it have to be her?

When our eyes finally meet, hers glitter with curiosity. She taps my right shoulder lightly with one finger.

“You can hear better out of this one, huh?”

I can hear the quality of her voice but can’t understand everything as she talks. Thankfully, she still says it slowly, and I watch her full lips. Those soft, pouty lips.

Dammit.

I nod.

Slowly, she leans closer, setting her elbow on my desk. Our arms press against each other, as she stares at my mouth, then meets my eyes once more. “Why don’t you talk, then, Ryder? If you can hear somewhat? Why don’t you use hearing aids?”

My jaw ticks as I pull back. Extracting my phone from my pocket, I type, Hearing aids aren’t a panacea. Speaking with them is not that simple.

I watch her open up the message and frown. She pauses, staring at the words for a long minute, then types, Panacea. Damn, Brawny, that’s top-notch bookstore vocabulary right there.

I glance up. Willa’s smiling gently. She’s giving me an out, not pushing me to explain myself.

If I didn’t think it would lead to world devastation, I would hug her for it. Instead, I text her back. Bookstore vocabulary?

Willa nods. “Summer job. Worked at a bookstore. You learn big words.”

Favorite book, I type.

She exhales heavily. I don’t know where to begin. I have too many.

Pick one.

She shoves me. “You’re so bossy.”

I smirk.

Willa taps her mouth. As I watch her, I find myself oddly thinking how satisfying it would be to drag that full bottom lip of hers right between my teeth. Shit. Bad train of thought. I need to get laid. I’m daydreaming about biting the crazy-haired thorn in my side.

My phone buzzes. Jane Eyre.

I scrunch my nose and type, Rochester is such a dick.

He’s a Byronic hero, Willa fires back. Tortured, moody, sexually intense. He’s runner up to Darcy on that front. Jane is the real star anyway. She’s strong and unapologetically independent.

I smile at her response, as I get that weird feeling in my sternum, just like when Willa scored at her game and I watched her eyes light up like sunshine. The feeling that made my mind spin and unease tighten my stomach.

“Ryder.”

I can’t quite suppress my shiver when I hear her say my name again.

Her head’s tipped to the side. With her frizzy, untamed hair, her wide-set brown eyes catching the lecture room’s warm lights, she looks young and innocent. That is until she traps the corner of that bee-stung lip between her teeth.

I lift my shoulders quickly. What? I mouth.

Willa leans in closer and pokes my chest. I reel, frowning from my body to her hand. Her familiar scowl is back. When she pokes me again, this time I swat her away. “When were you planning on admitting you showed up to my game?”

I open my mouth, then shut it, turning toward my phone. What’s the big deal? I was just curious to see what all the hype was about.

Her face freezes as she reads my message. Picking up her phone, she types, And what’s the verdict?

My thumbs hover. I should shut this down right now. Say something bland and disinterested, nothing of the smack-talking banter that we constantly volley. But instead, my thumbs type, You’ll do.

A smile brightens her profile before she schools her face. Typing quickly, she then turns over her phone as Aiden starts the lecture.

My phone buzzes. Asshole lumberjack. I could see your plaid from three miles away. Thanks for coming.

The rest of the class, I studiously avoid her, our attention ahead as we scribble notes while Aiden lectures. It’s hard to concentrate, thinking about how my name sounded, the memory of her voice. More than once, I bite my cheek, pinch my skin. Anything to bring back my focus. Spending my thoughts on Willa, our interactions and verbal sparring, paying her attention and backhanded compliments, is playing with fire.

But maybe just this once it would be worth it to get burned.





My hands shake. I stir the meatballs one more time, then toss the noodles in butter and parsley. My heart’s somewhere down in my stomach, banging around and ruining my appetite. I’ll be lucky if I don’t barf the moment Willa walks in the door.

It’s become a bit of a habit, to have dinner while we work on the final. Often, I arrive right after Willa’s out of the shower from practice. She’s always starving, so she shoves a protein bar in her mouth while whipping up something quick. A few times I’ve helped her to speed up meal prep, but we bickered so badly while we did it, she demoted me to setting the table. She’s cooked every time and last week my mother’s voice started lecturing me in my head, asking where her feminist son had gotten to, that he was comfortable letting a full-time female student athlete feed his fifteen-credit, lazy ass, twice a week.