I think I may have miscalculated.
Ryder slowly lifts his messenger bag off his shoulder and sets it on the table. I watch his hands as they unbuckle the latch and slide out his computer. It’s like weird IT soft porn, watching the way the laptop slips out of his bag, how Ryder’s hands curl around the screen as he sets it upright.
A flush crawls up my chest and warms my neck. My cheeks pink. Shit, it’s hot in here.
“Right.” I clear my throat.
Ryder glances up and gives me a once-over. With his finger, he outlines my sweats-from-head-to-toe appearance then mimes applause. Thank you, he signs.
“Please.” I roll my eyes. “Don’t act like you didn’t like what you saw.”
Removing his phone from his pocket, he types quickly. His jaw is tense, his eyes laser-focused on his screen. I didn’t say I didn’t.
My fingers tighten around my phone, as my gaze drifts up to his. Our eyes lock in the world’s longest stare. That is until Ryder’s face tightens with concern as he scrunches his nose and sniffs.
I whip a glance over my shoulder to the kitchen. “Crap!”
Rushing to the stove, I pull the soup off the burner, then scrape the wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot, searching for scorched spots. Thankfully I don’t find any. “It’s not burnt…”
My voice dies off. Ryder is standing right behind me, heat pouring off his body. I close my eyes, and can’t help but picture my back to a roaring fire, the snap of its flames jolting me with surprise. I’m assaulted by the pungent fragrance of evergreens. He smells like a Christmas tree, the faint ghost of snow still on its branches.
Ryder leans in, then grasps my hand that holds the spoon. My eyes pop open as my body snaps to attention. With his other hand, he sets his palm on the counter. I’m caged in.
I glance up, so he can see my mouth when I speak, but before I can say a word, I freeze. His eyes are on me, his pupils blown wide, barely a ring of forest green surrounding them. Our mouths are inches away, our breaths faster and rougher than they should be.
“S-sorry,” I whisper. My tongue darts out to wet my lips. Ryder’s eyes dip, following its path. “I forgot to turn down the heat. I don’t think it’s ruined, though.”
Ryder releases my wrist and brings his hand to my face. I flinch, expecting some teasing flick or tug, any one of his many provoking touches. He pauses and frowns.
I would never hurt you.
He doesn’t say it. Doesn’t sign it. Doesn’t text it. But the words hang in the air, as invisible yet substantial as the crackling atmosphere between us. Slowly, his fingers drift against my curls, gently tucking them behind my ear. His thumb traces the shell of my ear, down my neck.
Oxygen doesn’t fill the air anymore. Or, if it does, I can’t find it. Goose bumps dance across my skin as every neglected corner of my body roars to life. My heart beats in unfamiliar places. My fingertips and toes. Low in my stomach. Right between my legs.
Ryder’s thumb settles at the hollow of my throat. His eyes lock with mine, reminding me how much he says with his eyes, how expressive they are. His lashes are thick, and while I thought they were black, now I see they’re sable, a rich, smoky brown. They don’t blink as Ryder leans toward me. Time suspends. My lips part as his grow closer.
He freezes, a breath away from my mouth. I’m doused in the haze of pine trees and manliness. My entire front is scorched by the heat of his body. Just as I begin to lean in, breaching the tiny remaining gap between us, Rooney barges through the door.
She stops as she sees Ryder and me leap apart so violently, I nearly fall into the sink. Her eyes bounce between us as a slow, satisfied grin lifts her mouth. “Am I interrupting something?”
Ryder shakes his head, lifting his ball cap and raking a hand through his hair, before he replaces it and tugs it low over his eyes.
“Nope,” I manage. My voice couldn’t be any huskier. Clearing my throat, I turn back to the soup. “Dinner’s ready if you’re hungry.”
Ryder clears his throat, too, and moves to the silverware drawer, getting spoons. Rooney’s eyes flick once more between us as her grin widens. “Thanks, I’m not hungry just yet. I’ll take a rain check.”
The moment she turns the corner for her room, our shoulders drop with relief.
Willa
Playlist: “High (& Dua Lipa),” Whethan, Dua Lipa
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.