Places like this are my worst nightmare. Immediately, sound smacks my ears and what’s normally a persistent tinny ring ratchets up to excruciatingly loud steel drums. I squint, trying to minimize the overwhelming impact of the strobe lights as I slip through the crowd. Thankfully, it’s easy to see. I’m taller than virtually everybody else.
I spot Rooney first, doing the kinds of moves my mom would ground my sisters for even trying. When she spins, there’s Willa, and now Rooney’s dancing looks like a Puritan shuffle by comparison.
Willa’s ass swings in mesmerizing circles, her powerful quads sustaining her body as she grinds to the floor, then she snaps up. Her hands are in the air, revealing defined shoulders and a peek of cleavage not dissimilar from the morning of the yellow shirt that shall live in infamy.
A loud sigh leaves me, swallowed up in the sounds of the club.
Rooney spins, then freezes as her eyes start at my feet and trail appreciatively up my body. When her gaze settles on my face and she recognizes me, her features shift from interest to wide-eyed fear.
“Oh shit.” She says it emphatically, with a bright blue strobe light shining on her face, otherwise, I’d have no idea what she just said.
Willa’s oblivious, bouncing her butt against Rooney’s thigh, making Rooney bounce in rhythm with Willa’s movement. Rooney stares at me in horror as she sways. I step around her and crouch until Willa and I are eye level.
Willa’s eyes are shut, her plump bottom lip pinned between her teeth. Sweat beads her neck and chest. Rooney manages to bump her enough that Willa opens her eyes and immediately locks them with mine. They narrow coyly as she checks me out. As realization dawns, they widen, and she stands up. “Ryder!”
Standing turns to swaying. Before Willa can fall and concuss herself, I sweep her into my arms, carrying her toward the back exit I pegged the moment I entered. Shoving open the door, I set her down carefully in the night air, and press her up against the brick wall. Bracing my hands over her head, I face her, making sure she doesn’t collapse as I try to calm my anxious anger.
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.