I drop off Willa at her apartment and watch her slowly walk up the pathway. She turns and gives me a tired, halfhearted wave before she steps inside and closes the door behind her. Confused and torn, worried I’ve hurt her and terrified she’s played me, I feel the last emotional stilt collapse from under me. I pull out my phone, texting Dad, Got ten minutes for your favorite son today, old man?
His response is almost immediate. I always have ten minutes for you, Ry. Bring your old man a sandwich and an iced tea. Then we’re talking favorites.
13
Willa
Playlist: “Sunscreen,” Ira Wolf
What the fuck just happened?
Tears prick my eyes. I slam the door behind me, feeling the urge to do a quick sketch of Ryder’s face and throw darts at it. That’s followed by an oppositional tug to run after him, yank him by his good ear and drag him to my bed, where I’d take one punishing orgasm from him after another.
When he said your world is not my world, all I could think was how wrong he was. Ryder’s a big part of my world, for better and for worse. He’s my nemesis, my antagonist, my provocateur—perfect bookstore word for a moment like this—but he’s not just someone as cut and dried or as extreme as my enemy. He really is my frenemy. Someone I can count on to soak up every little thing I say, find its one weak spot and tease me for it. The person who’ll notice when I have a booger on my nose, take a picture just to fuck with me, then wipe it away with his bare hand. The guy that knows I eat three helpings of Swedish meatballs and has my practice schedule memorized so he can harass me with texts while I’m sprinting, late to our class.
So, I called his bluff. Bullshit, my world’s not his. I sat on his lap, got right up in his face and pretty much dared him to kiss me. It was the only way I could think to express all of those icky, sticky, mushy, impossible-to-verbalize feelings I have about him. To make Ryder Stellan Bergman understand how much his world is mine.
Provoking him to a make-out session is how you tell him that? Great logic, Sutter. Crystal clear communication, right there.
“Oh, shut it,” I mumble to myself.
I can’t stop remembering those kisses. Every one of them is branded on my lips. Kissing him and being kissed, the confident way he tilted my head and cradled the nape of my neck in his rough, warm hand. I can still feel his tongue dancing with mine. Patient, steady strokes that indicate the tall, green-eyed, asshole lumberjack might have a trick or five up his pine-scented flannel sleeve when it comes to the sexy times.
Not that we’re going there. Nope. People who drive each other to insanity, who torture, and prank, and provoke each other, don’t want sexy times together. They don’t want to kiss until they pass out from lack of oxygen. They don’t want to wrap themselves around each other until every incinerating square inch of their skin burns and smokes.
What the hell are Ryder and I playing at?
One minute I’m riding on his back at his chivalrous insistence, the next, he’s giving me hell for my cheeseburger weak spot. One moment we’re kissing, his hands gripping my waist with a desperation I have never felt in a man, the next, we’re staring at each other like the other person is about to pull the cord to the trapdoor beneath our feet.
Is he fucking with me? Is this just some ongoing horrible tease that I stupidly started in retaliation for the hearing aid sneak?
I drop off my gear, change clothes, and nab a protein bar. Leaving, I shut the door with unnecessary force and almost snap the key locking it.
Chill out, Sutter.
Shaking my head, I try to shake these pointless thoughts. I’m going to see my mom—I want to be focused on her, not my trivial college drama. Rain begins to drop from darkening clouds overhead as I walk to the hospital. I tip my face to the sky, begging it to wash my brain clean. To erase all this worry and nonsense over a fucking man.
I tamp down a fresh swell of confusing tears and palm my eyes despite rain painting my cheeks. I don’t even know what I am feeling, just that I’m feeling plenty. Whatever emotion it is, it’s a hot, stinging ache that radiates down my throat to my stomach. It reminds me of the time I gulped scalding tea, and rather than spit it out like a sane human being, I sealed my lips and swallowed. Except this burn doesn’t dissipate. It’s a living thing, a scorching, consuming fire that I have no clue how to quell.
My walk to the hospital doesn’t take long, which is good since the drizzle accelerates to pouring rain. I squeak down the hall, water squelching out of my tennis shoes, as I round quietly into Mama’s room. I don’t want to wake her if she’s sleeping.
Her eyes dart across the book she has propped on a pillow in her lap.
“My Ántonia again?”
She glances up at the sound of my voice and does a double take. “Willa!” Taking in my appearance, her eyes widen. “What the hell happened to you?”
After a long, slow breath to try to lock down my emotions, I walk over to her bed. “I got caught in the rain on my way over.”
Mama gives me one of her piercing once-overs. “I can tell. But that’s not what I meant. You look upset, Willa Rose. What’s going on?”
Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
“You remember that guy from class I told you about? My project partner, who pulled the stealth tactics with his hearing aid?”
“The asshole lumberjack.” She shifts in her bed. “Yes. What did he do to you? Do I have to go beat some Brawny boy’s butt for making my Willa cry?”
It makes me laugh. “No. We just…things are getting confusing, more intense. The stakes keep rising, and now I’m not even sure what I’m betting on or what I’m trying to win.”
She tips her head. “Oh?”
“I’m frustrated. The whole situation’s annoyingly distracting. I don’t want to be spending all this time spinning my tires about it. Men are a waste of time anyway, as we’ve both agreed.”
Mama cocks an eyebrow. “I don’t exactly remember saying that. I’ve taught you that many men are disappointments. But, also that some are good, rare gems in their species. The hard—and for me, deterring—part is that it’s difficult to know which are which at first, sometimes for a long while.” Her eyes search mine. “You want to talk about it?”
“Nah.” I wave my hand and swallow the lump of frustrated tears thickening my throat. “Like I said, I don’t want to think about him anymore. How are you feeling today, Mama?”
Her smile is a little forced, like mine. “Oh. So-so.”
An unsettlingly evasive answer from a woman with aggressive cancer.
Fear pinches my stomach and twists it into a knot. “What’s Dr. B have to say about things these days?”
Mama’s pause is too long. My hands fist my wet shorts, creating a fresh puddle of water on the tiles at my feet. “Mama?”
Her sigh is heavy. It’s the one that typically precedes her telling me something I won’t like. “Willa, there’s something I haven’t told you that I should have. Come here.” She pats the mattress.
I glance up and down my drenched body. “I shouldn’t. I’m soaking wet.”