The Weight of Destiny by Nyrae Dawn

Already some of the tension starts to ease out of my body as I finger through my math book.
    “Holy shit, this is so strange.” Ryder takes his shoes off, too, and then sits on the bed beside me. He doesn’t straighten his shoes out.
    “What’s strange?” I tried not to ask him, really, I did. It shouldn’t matter. But this is the second time he’s said something about us is strange.
    “Nothin’.”
    Whatever. I start my first calculus problem. I smell his soap again. Instead of working, he fingers the leather bracelet on his wrist.
    “So, what do you do?” Ryder asks a few minutes later.
    Without looking at him, I reply, “Do?”
    “For fun.”
    Don’t look his way. If you do, you’ll stop working, and that’s not what you came here for. It’s not what you need. “FBLA. I’m also president of student council. I do some volunteering. Oh, and I’m organizing this fundraiser for school where—”
    “I said for fun.”
    I slap the pencil down on the desk and jerk my head his way. “That is fun for me. Would it be cooler if I said partying and bonfires on the beach?”
    “Maybe a little.” Ryder holds up his hand, his fingers open about an inch. He’s smiling, but it looks almost fake. His eyes glance my way, and then around my room, then down, and I realize he’s not being a jerk, he’s uncomfortable. Out of his element. Unsure.
    I wonder if this is the first time he’s felt something like that. Ryder doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who feels insecure often.
    “We came here to do homework, remember?”
    “No, you came here to do homework. I came because you’re beautiful.”
    And... there goes my blush again.
    Tit for tat. He’s nervous so he’s trying to do the same to me. “Hand me your backpack.”
    “Yes, boss.”
    “That’s the second time you’ve called me that. Why?”
    “Because you’re a future business leader of America, remember? And you’re bossy.” He winks his blue eye at me.
    My elbow makes contact with his side and he groans even though I know it wasn't hard enough for it to hurt. “I’m not bossy. I’m self-assured. Hand me your bag.”
    Ryder raises a brow. Okay, so I’m a little bossy.
    He hands me his backpack and I eye him as if to ask if I can open it. He nods and I pull out an Algebra book with a piece of paper stuffed inside. “Come on, we’ll do yours first.”
    And then I set my table on the floor, lie on my stomach and set his work out in front of me. Ryder pauses, waits so long that I’m not sure he’s going to move, but then finally he stretches out next to me.
    For the next hour, we do his homework together. He’s a little confused by the equations so I explain some of the formulas. The longer I talk, the more I expect him to tell me to shut up and that he doesn’t give a crap about this, but he doesn’t. He actually listens.
    After he finishes the last problem, I feel his eyes on me, trying to look inside me. “Your eyes scrunch up right here when you’re concentrating.” He rubs his thumb against the side of my forehead beside my eyes, which are now drifting closed.
    “I wanna kiss you again, Virginia. That’s it. Just kiss.”
    It’s as though he knows I needed to hear that last part. I open my eyes and turn his way. I’m mid-nod when his lips capture mine. They’re softer, gentler than they were the first time. He brushes his thumb over the same spot he previously touched before pushing his hand through my hair. He rolls me over, but doesn’t lie on me like he did at the beach. Just leans over me, pressing tender kisses to my mouth. Exploring it with his tongue as though it’s a foreign land that he’s just discovered.
    “My head is wrinkling your paper,” I say when his mouth moves to my neck.
    Ryder chuckles against the skin there. “I don’t care.”
    We kiss some more. Kiss so much my lips feel raw but I don’t care. Soon, my hand is on his chest like it was at the beach, and I’m easing him away. “My Dad will be