Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book)

by Reinhardt, Liz

  She traces her fingers down my cheek.

  "I'm not hungry. For food."

  "Where are your grandparents?"

  I look through the curtains billowing in and out, to her open bedroom door and the hallway past it.

  "They are at a golf tournament and dinner in South Carolina. They'll probably get a room for the night." She bites the edge of her bottom lip between her teeth, and my body goes rigid. "We could hang out."

  "I'd love to." I thread my fingers through hers and try to steady myself. I've got time, no need to rush things. "You have a pretty sweet view from up here. It looks like a jungle down there."

  She peeks down, and I let go of her hand and watch while she paces along the edge of the balcony.

  "It does, right? I love it. This was always my room in the summer, when I stayed with my grandparents while my parents went out and philandered all over the world."

  She leans her elbows on the ledge and arches her back, giving me heart palpitations. I sit in one of the little wrought iron chairs set up on the balcony and enjoy the view.

  "Every summer?"

  Who would leave this girl anywhere for any amount of time? I'm already a little pissed that my chances of being able to stay all night with her tonight are slim to none with Remy currently riding the fucking crazy train.

  "Every summer," she echoes, her words dry.

  I hold my hand out to her, and when she takes it, I thread her delicate fingers with mine and pull her, all coltish legs and wild hair and fresh-smelling skin, down onto my lap.

  "Did you like staying here?" I can smell the shampoo on her damp hair, sweet and flowery.

  "Yes." She snuggles against my chest, and I wrap my arms around her, memorizing all the lines and curves of her body. "My parents are high maintenance. High drama. It was so nice to be here and just not have to deal with all their shit for a while."

  I kiss right along her hairline, loving having her in my arms and listening to the smoky-honeyed sound of her voice in the hot night. "When did you last see your parents?"

  Her sigh loosens all the tightness out of her muscles, and she sags against me at the final exhale.

  "Mom went to Cabo in May, so the end of my junior year. Daddy hung around until July, but I was in Ireland at this writing workshop, so I came straight back to my grandparents' like I do every year, but this summer I never left. It's no big deal anyway. Next year is college."

  She lays her head on my shoulder, and worry and hope punch and throttle in my chest with vicious intensity. I bet she can hear how hard my heart is beating, and I wonder if she realizes it's all because I'm here with her.

  "Where are you going to college?"

  I mentally calculate the number of months I'll have with her before she leaves and, probably, starts a new life that I won't be part of.

  I can't be part of.

  It's been hard enough to be with her just the last few weeks when we live ten minutes away from each other. How the hell would I manage years and possibly hundreds of miles?

  "My grades are pretty bad." She cranes her neck to look up at me. "I'm not dumb."

  I tug on a piece of her hair and narrow my eyes her way. "I know. I don't date dumb girls."

  She twists in my arms so we're face to face, the tip of her nose brushing my cheek, her big blue eyes staring into mine.

  "Are we?"

  "Are we what?" I struggle to keep an even handle on my breathing as she wraps her legs around my back and twines her arms around my neck.

  "Dating?" She brushes her lips over mine while she asks, and my brain feels like it’s been in an industrial explosion.

  "Yeah." I manage to keep my voice calm. "We're dating."

  "You didn't even ask me." She pops her bottom lip out, I kiss it, she smiles.

  "I'm not asking. Asking means you might be crazy enough to say 'no,' and I'm not taking 'no' for an answer."

  I kiss her hard, pulling at her until she's firmly on my lap and caged in my arms. I kiss her until I feel the breaths rasp out of her mouth and taste her sweet little moans. I run my hands over her body, hot and smooth under the practically nonexistent shirt and shorts she's wearing.

  When she drops back, her swollen lips part and her eyes, slammed wide open, look almost black with too much pupil.

  "I think you may have made some really good points about you and I being in any kind of a relationship. I don't really remember them, though."

  She sucks the corner of her bottom lip in and bites down just enough to make all kinds of insane, sexy images run through my head.

  I tug her hips closer, and she nudges her lips onto mine. This time I make sure that I slow down and keep things steady until she's imprinted against me without an inch of space. And then her hand goes down to my fly, and I hit the brakes.

  Not yet. Not before she's totally mine and it means what I want it to mean to her.

  "You never answered my college question." I grab at her wrists like we’re just playing, but hold her hands back with real intent.

  Her scowl is full-faced and looks like it may turn into a bite. "I don't want to talk right now."

  I slide my hands down so I'm holding hers and run my thumbs over the skin of her wrists, where I can feel the excited drum of her pulse. It's hard for my pulse to resist getting infected by that beat.

  "I do wanna talk. I wanna know about you. So get talking."

  "You're pretty damn bossy, and I don't know if I like it."

  She softens that gorgeous mouth, bats those pretty eyes, and leans that curved body close.

  I give her one quick kiss and say, "Bossy is how I am, take it or leave it. Now quit trying to seduce me, and tell me about college."

  She sighs, rolls her shoulders, crosses her arms, glares, but I'm stone. I bounce her on my legs, 'cause it's damn hard to look tough when you're getting shaken all over the place. I give her major credit; that stubborn little ass tries like hell to keep a pissy face, but she finally laughs and swats at my arms.

  "Fine! Stop! I give up, and you're shaking my brains." She presses her hands on either side of her head. "Okay, college is weird right now. I applied to Trinity--"

  "In Ireland?" I ask, and love the way surprise widens her eyes.

  I'm unexpectedly informed about world topics for a delinquent.

  "Yes, in Ireland. Because I wrote this essay in a program they hosted over the summer, and I guess it impressed the bigshots there--"

  "Can I read it?" I interrupt.

  "Stop interrupting. Yes. Not now, though. So I applied to Trinity, in Ireland. And I applied to Rutgers in New Jersey, because my best friend lives there and it's one of her safety schools. Plus it's huge and close to New York City, which I feel, weirdly, might be like a second home for me. Plus it's a state school, so it's not as grade-crazy as some of the private schools."

  She takes a hair thingy off her wrist and puts her hair into a sloppy ponytail. "I applied to SCAD for dance, but I don't know if I want to do that. I've fallen behind in the last year, and I don't know if I'm as passionate about it anymore."

  "What about Armstrong or Georgia Southern?"

  I run my fingers up and down her arms for the pure joy of seeing all the dots of goosebumps that prick up on her skin, while I pray she decides to stay local next year.

  She wrinkles her nose. "SCAD is bad enough. I want to get out of here. I figured art school will at least keep me away from all the preppy silver-spooners I've been around all my life."

  She makes her two fingers walk up my arm and do a little jig on my bicep.

  My laugh feels like an old shirt shaken out of a suitcase, wrinkled but still wearable. I nod at her fingers, still doing a vicious little jig.

  "Is this the kind of dancing you do? That Irish stuff where they have all that bouncy hair?"

  "How do you know about step-dancing, Mr. Youngblood?"

  She scoots off my lap with a grin, and I shrug.

  I settle back against the balcony, and she walks into her room, still in
my sight-line, and clears a binder and backpack off the floor while I tell her why I know anything about the weird dance thing.

  "My kid sister, Ithaca, found this crazy little movie about some Irish kid who does all that dancing, and she made mom drag her to all these classes. Winds up, she was only interested in that fake bouncy hair, so my parents got her some and she quit the dancing."

  I've never mentioned anything about either of the twins with anyone outside the family. They've been pretty damn protected from everything since we were young. They even go by mom's maiden name, Wharton, so they could get a clean slate at their stuck-up private school.

  "I'll have to meet this Ithaca and show her there's so much more to it than bouncy hair. Though the hair is pretty damn cool."

  I stiffen at her words.

  Ithaca never got along with Lala, which makes sense, since my baby sister is the outspoken rebel of the family, and Lala's all about a woman's place and shit like that.

  But Ithaca'd probably love Evan.

  The problem is, anyone or anything my baby sister loves would almost definitely be shunned by everyone else in my family.

  Evan sets her feet on the shiny wood floor, leaves her arms relaxed but straight at her sides, and starts this complicated dance where her feet move fast and precise with all these high, quick kicks and twists. She's a natural; totally graceful, totally comfortable with her body, and I can't take my eyes off of her while she dances.

  When she finishes and takes a bow, I clap and call out, "Bravo! Bravo! Encore! Encore!"

  Her cheeks glow bright pink, and her ponytail fell out when she was dancing, so her hair is all tangled around her neck. She shakes her head and comes back to me, sitting on the ledge of the balcony.

  "Nope. You gave me the third degree and got some of my deepest, darkest secrets out. Now I want some of yours. Who are you, Winchester Youngblood? Why aren't you in college? Will I ever get to meet these intriguing siblings named after guns? What are your plans for the future?"

  Each question is a spear stab to my gut.

  I get up and hook my arms around her, nestle between her legs, and lean in to kiss her. She kisses me once, short and sweet and pushes me back.

  "No way. You can't use my own tricks on me." Her hands link lazily around my neck. "You know, the fact that you don't want to answer any of my questions just makes me more curious. What are you hiding from me?"

  This is the logical next jump for us. It makes sense that if I care about Evan, I'll open up and let her see what I keep closed tight. I'm afraid to blow this night wide open, make her question whether or not she should be with me.

  Because, the answers to her questions aren't going to make her happy, and I know that for a fact.

  Because it's been a long time since the answers to any questions about my life made me happy.

  Which is a whole different problem, all its own.

  Evan 7

  Pushing forward physically equals pulling away emotionally for Winchester.

  I feel like such a girl to put it in those terms, but that is the God's honest truth. If the following fact makes the truth any more palatable, here it is: I so desperately want Winch to get tangled up with me physically, I'm almost willing to put the baby lamb of our emotional connection right on the sacrificial alter and carve it up with a big, bad knife.

  Almost willing.

  But not quite.

  Winch has pestered me about the sexy way I see myself, which never bothered me one tiny bit until he started doing that thing where he clenches his jaw and shakes his head really quickly.

  It's kind of hot, getting him riled, no doubt.

  Mmm, so very hot.

  But not what I want.

  I want Winch to respect me.

  So, I pull away physically, and push him towards testimonials and sharing and mutual stories, and I do it because Winch is becoming more real by the nanosecond, and I want all that. Down to the lotioned soles of my pampered feet, I want to link with this mysterious boy on some real, deeper level and not have it be just a wild romp.

  No matter how deliciously perfect a wild romp would be.

  "Tell me," I coax. "I can see in your eyes that you're about sixty percent of the way to spilling your guts to me."

  His cheekbones get this red tinge, like he might be blushing, and I have no clue why, but I figure it means I'm punching big ole dents in his armor. "Let's start with simple stuff. Where did you graduate high school?"

  "I got my GED." He throws his chiseled chin out and looks at me from the comfort of narrowed eyes.

  "You've got nothing to prove to me." I keep my voice lazy as a fat cat on a warm lap. "I'm barely passing the basics at my fancy lil’ prep school. Did you think about college?"

  I put my arms over my head and run my hands through the tangles in my hair to keep everything light and easy, but also because I thoroughly enjoy the way it makes his mouth drop open when he notices how my breasts strain against the front of my shirt.

  "No." He snaps his mouth shut, and I like it. I love it, actually, the effect I have on him. "College isn't for me."

  "How would you know if you didn't try?" I challenge, raising my arms higher over my head and smoothing my hair into the world's slowest, most perfect ponytail.

  His swallow is so loud, it's practically in surround sound.

  "Because my family owns a business, so I came out of high school with a job lined up. That's the whole point of college, right? To line up a good job. But I had one, so I figured I was way ahead of all those over-educated jerks paying out the ass for a piece of paper most of 'em would never use."

  I pat my hair and practice my best round-eyed, admiring look on him. "Oh. So, what kind of work do you do?"

  He doesn't even twitch. It's like watching a rabbit hop into a snare.

  "My family owns a few businesses. I make runs for them. Settle accounts. Practice diplomacy when it's needed."

  He inches closer, and I hop off the balcony ledge and move into my room, toward my desk, bending over to pick up imaginary scraps of paper so I can keep his attention and get him to talk more.

  I don't even take a second to truly process what he's telling me or unjumble exactly what I think about it. I need to shake the information out of the tree like so much ripe fruit and grab every piece up before it goes rotten. I'll be able to paw through it all with my full attention later. He follows me in and leans against the frame of the French doors.

  Winchester's eyes are very firmly planted on my backside, so I ease out the next question, trickier than the last two.

  "And what about Remington? What happened the other night?"

  I have a nice, round backside, plenty of cushion, but shapely and proportionate. More than one guy has declared my backside the finest he's ever seen, but it's not enough to keep Winch on track.

  Like a spell he's snapping out of, he gives a groggy shake of his head and runs a hand over his hair.

  "Nothing. It's nothing. I told you, my brother's in a little bit of a bad spot now, but he's coming through fine. Just fine."

  I stop shaking my rump for his hormonal benefit and look at him.

  I really look.

  His eyes are shifty. His mouth is drawn tight to one side. He cracks every knuckle on his hand. Because he's worried. He's upset. And he can't trust me enough to tell me why.

  I stop all the stupid crap, all the pouting and panting and breast and booty shows and just chill out and sit by his side. I reach one hand over and knit his fingers with mine, then take an extra deep breath.

  For a few quiet beats, neither one of us moves or talks or does a single thing except settle into the art of being together the way we are, brand new in this turned-the-corner instant.

  "My daddy is a stupid, stupid man," I start, embarrassed that my voice is only a whisper, but secure in the knowledge that that's the loudest I can manage. "He bets on things--" I shake my head so hard my own ponytail whips my face. "He bets on things that lose. Always. It's like reverse luck
. You can always count on my daddy to pick the loser."

  I try to pull my hand away, and I tell myself it's just to wave a stray piece of hair out of my eyes, but I know, deep in the marrow of my backbone, that it would make me relieved to not have to be physically connected to Winch while I tell this. His eyes snap at me, like your loyal dog trying to warn you there's danger ahead, willing to bite to make you listen. He squeezes my hand, and I hold tight because he gives me no choice, and the words keep bobbing out.

  "I can always pick the winners, though." I eye him to see if this lucky tidbit interests him in the 'let's go bet on the horses' sense, but he just watches my eyes and leans forward, anticipating my next words. "Seriously always. Like magic. I could be rich, picking horses. I'm that good, no joke. Daddy figured it out when I was tiny, of course. And, at first, I helped him."

  "Hamburger days?" Winch finally breaks in, remembering the story I told him earlier.

  "Yes. Well, they came later." I squirm, but there's no turning back. "For a while we were swimming in money. There was no losing. We had it all, and it seemed so damn easy. Then...we lost everything eventually. The house I grew up in. My school tuition. My mama. She left because Daddy was such an embarrassment, losing all the time. Losing can make you really...distant. And mean. And weak. And he just kept losing."

  I can't bring myself to tie it all together. I look sideways, begging Winch with every worry line and desperate pull of my lips to figure this whole damn story out and not ask me to say the obvious.

  The rabbit and the snare? It was never Winch walking into the trap. He hopped close and wiggled his nose in disdain.

  I'm the idiot with one furry foot in the noose, about to be slit and skinned for dinner stew with my unlucky foot on someone's keychain, an ironic good fortune trinket.

  He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles with a ticklish brush. "You don't have to tell me."

  I take my furry foot back out of the trap and get ready to hop into some clover.

  But the relief in his eyes stops me in my tracks.