Only When It's Us (Bergman Brothers #1)(31)

She’s plastered, in a napkin of a dress. There are shitty men in this club, creeps who would gladly take advantage of her vulnerability. What if I hadn’t gotten here? What if someone had used and hurt her?

Willa’s panting, her eyes wide. Slowly, they travel down my body. Her head tips to the side, in that way she has when she’s thinking something through.

Drawing her head back up, her eyes look different tonight. A color I can’t quite describe. Then it comes to me. Molten lava.

“You look weird without the flannel.” She hiccups. “Very un-lumberjack-y.”

Her hands slip along my chest, setting a fire beneath my skin, heat surging through my veins. I push them off instinctively and step back.

Willa’s shocked, by the look of her widening eyes which begin to shift. I watch their transformation as her jaw hardens, her molten lava eyes narrow and turn volcanic. She’s pissed at me, but maybe not lethally pissed. She’s still sure to tip her face in full light and speak clearly enough for me to read her lips. “What are you doing here, Ryder?”

I pull out my phone, wiggling it at her. She shakes her head. “I don’t have it.”

An angry huff of air leaves me. If she doesn’t have her phone, we can’t talk.

“Sometimes I wonder if you’re ever not angry, Sasquatch.”

I balk, my eyes searching hers. What can I say? How can I explain all the twisted, knotted things I feel and think about her, especially when we can’t even communicate?

“Do you hate me?” Her eyes are wet with unshed tears.

When I was in elementary school, my older siblings were big fans of a brutal comic series that I had no business sticking my nose in. I remember snooping through it, turning the page to a gruesome full-length spread in which the villain had just been slit from nose to navel. I had nightmares for days and couldn’t unsee it for weeks. I feel like that villain and the boy who saw him, all at once. Viciously gutted, scarred by that look in her eyes.

Some kind of pained noise leaves me, and Willa’s head snaps back. I clasp her jaw, turning her face so she watches my mouth say the words silently. She has to understand this. Willa, no. I could never hate you. Never.

Her eyes squint. “I can’t, Ryder. I can’t read lips like you.” She hiccups again. “I can’t…” Her speech slurs, and now I’m the one who can’t understand. I smack a hand over the wall, frustration building that I can’t talk to her or hear what she needs to say.

I pull out my phone and open the notepad. Go home? I write.

She squints, her tongue stuck out as if she’s relying on that for better concentration.

Nodding, Willa tries to type yes, I’m guessing, but it ends up being urd. When I glance up, I see her color fading and recognize the warning just in time. Spinning out of the way, I clear her hair from her face as Willa bends and vomits, emptying her stomach.

She hacks and sputters, and I can imagine she’s crying even if I can’t hear it. Refastening my grip on her hair, I dig in my jeans for a hankie. Yes, a hankie. Cloth over Kleenex gives Mother Nature a hug. I wipe her mouth when her body finally stops spasming, and help her stand upright.

Willa’s bleary-eyed, her lips trembling. Then her eyes roll back in her head, and she drops in my arms.





“Ryder,” she mumbles. I hear it faintly because I brought her home with me and shoved that hearing aid on my not-so-fucked-up ear right away. Certain sounds are too loud. Others, too quiet. I could hear a flea sneeze and the sound of my own hair growing, but I still have to crane my ear to catch her weak voice. The hearing aid’s frustrating and inadequate, yes, but it lets me hear Willa, just a little better, and I’m grateful.

Rooney and Becks were having a good time when I left, meaning they were both shit-faced. Becks does this on a nightly basis, so somehow, even when he’s annihilated he’s still conversant and remembers everything. Rooney, on the other hand, clearly doesn’t drink often, and will probably want to be taken out back and shot tomorrow, for the headache she’s going to have.

I told Becks I was taking Willa home because I was nervous to leave her alone in case she got sick again. Then I made him promise either to bring Rooney here if she took the same turn as Willa, or simply see her safely to her place once she was okay to leave. He promised me and I trust him implicitly. Becks might be an absolute slob, but he’s a good man, and he’s Rooney’s lab mate and friend. He’s got her back.

Willa’s singing to herself, something about lakes of stew and candy mountains, as I kick shut the door to my room and lay her on my bed.

“Ah yes.” She hiccups. “The room of evergreen seduction.”

A small laugh leaves me that isn’t entirely silent.

Willa called this the room of evergreen seduction, and I’m dying to know why, but she still can’t find her phone and there’s no way to talk. Frustration surges inside me, beating inside my lungs and volleying up my throat. When I’m with Willa, I want to have a voice to ask her questions when she says cryptic shit like that, and honestly, Willa says a lot of cryptic shit, especially when she’s mumbling and doesn’t think I’m listening.

Which I’ll need to fess up to at some point.

I remember what I did at the club, and pull out my phone, then type in the notepad, Evergreen seduction?

She squints as she reads, then she flops back onto my bed. “Yes.”