Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(26)

It hasn’t been consuming my brain every spare minute I have, which isn’t that many spare minutes, between all the fretting I do about Mama, soccer, my grades, my career, the question of eternity, and the point of my existence.

Okay, it’s been a little consuming my brain. Was Ryder going to kiss me?

Listen, I am a tough chick. I am a Bad. Ass. Feminist. I don’t need a man to make me happy, and I sure as shit don’t need one to validate my worth.

But maybe, just maybe, I want a man who’s not only a penis to get off on, but an actual friend who knows and likes me. A big, warm body to wrap around me at night, to hold my hand and kill spiders and if I’m really lucky, tiddle my tulip and actually coax an orgasm from it. A man has yet to do it, and I’ve been told I’m high-maintenance in that department. Apparently, I’m the one to blame for that track record.

Is it so wrong to want someone who knows how to bust me just as well as how to rub my back? Maybe I’m a little tired of being big, brave Willa, who juggles it all. Maybe, just maybe Ryder Bergman wants to be that guy who catches a ball or two for me.

I can’t tell. Like, I really, really can’t tell. Sure, he pays me attention. He knows my schedule and we see each other most days of the week and text during all others, but Mac smooshed us together like peanut butter and jelly on the shitty Wonder Bread that is this hellacious course I enrolled in. We’re practically dissolved into each other at this point, for all the work we have to do jointly.

He was probably just fucking with me, how I fucked with him in Business Math. But that seems like dangerous territory, to pretend to flirt with each other, to feign seduction. Doesn’t it get tricky, when you’re sparking and colliding, constantly circling each other, two hungry, horny animals, to differentiate what’s fact and what’s fiction?

Currently, Ryder types a million miles an hour, like some Pentagon techie who took too many uppers and washed them down with taurine-laced coffee. The man puts the tense in intense.

“Ryder?”

I sit to his right. He’s at the long side of the table because the guy man-spreads like no other, while I’m at the short end of the table. He should be able to hear me.

His fingers peck brutally at the keys. He will break those keys to submission. He will subdue them to his typing will.

His eyes are narrowed in focus. I poke his arm. Ryder continues typing, but his keystrokes slow, a monsoon tapering to a steady drizzle.

“You okay, there, Sasquatch?”

Slowly, he swivels his head my way. I get one single nod, before he turns back.

We’re working on separate parts of the final project right now, but frankly, I’m more concerned about the testing portion. If it’s remotely similar to the midterm we just took and I barely squeaked a B minus from, then I need to up my game. When I told Ryder as much via text yesterday, he agreed we could study together, but since I got to his place and we ate in bizarrely banter-free silence, he’s been hacking away at his computer like a cracked-up crazy.

“Are we going to study, Ryder?”

His typing slows even further. Now it’s a lingering drip. Those green eyes swivel to my face and down to my mouth, then back up. Standing abruptly, he reaches into his bag, pulls out a massive pile of notecards, then walks over to his couch.

“O…kay?” I glance over my shoulder. Ryder’s spreading the cards on his coffee table in some system I have no understanding of. I try not to stare but fail. He’s unfortunately mesmerizing, mountain man forearms poking out of his flannel. Tonight it’s white with hunter green, gold, and blue plaid. It makes his hair blonder, his eyes greener, and his worn blue jeans pop as they hug his muscly legs.

Tonight, unfortunately, he’s not just an asshole lumberjack. He’s a sexy, strong and silent-type lumberjack, and he’s driving me up the goddamn wall with this shutdown act. I miss the zingers, the banter, the repartee. He’s just…quiet. And in a way, yes, technically Ryder’s always quiet, but tonight, it’s like he’s not even here.

“What’s up with you?”

He picks up his head, having heard something, but what, he can’t tell. I say it again, slowly and clearly, leading Ryder to frown at me and pull out his phone.

Nothing, Willa. We just have a shit ton of work to do. Are we studying or not?

Scowling, I stand and sweep up my phone, then my notebook as I walk his way. I don’t miss how he averts his eyes rather than holding mine, like usual. I don’t miss how he falls into the sofa with a soft but not inaudible sigh.

“Ryder, what’s up?”

His groan is a hoarse crack in his throat as he scrubs his face. When his hands fall, I see what I missed earlier. Dark smudges under his eyes. A pale cast to his skin. Kneeling gently onto the sofa next to him, I sit back on my heels.

“Do you feel okay?”

He starts by nodding, but when his eyes lock with mine, he stops. The nod becomes a shake.

No, he mouths.

Worry drops like a stone in my gut. “What’s wrong, Lumberjack?”

He rubs his eyes with the heel of his hands, then pulls out his phone and types, Headache. It happens sometimes. No big deal. As soon as it sends, he shuts his eyes like the dim light from the nearby lamp is offensive.

Scooching closer to him, I pat his hand. He opens one eye and looks me over.

What? he signs.