Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book)

by Reinhardt, Liz

  Evan 10

  I feel like an imposter. Wearing this sweet dress that isn't mine and isn't me, sitting at the big cherry table and keeping my mouth shut while Winchester's mom does her damnedest to make me feel like an intruding outsider. She goes on and on about Lala, who, I assume from the look of pure horror on Winch's face, is his ex. She talks about family and how everyone has to work together and be together and eat together and give up their dreams together.

  Ugh!

  Not only did she warp every fairytale image I had of big families and their cheerful camaraderie and overabundance of love, she made it clear to me why Winchester Youngblood has been so reluctant to take even a baby step forward in our relationship.

  And, for the first time since I met him, I feel a sinking sense that maybe he and I really aren't meant to be. Maybe our relationship is being blocked by obstacles neither one of us have any hope of overcoming. And maybe, for the first time in my entire life, I see all the distinct warning signs and can get out of this before I get myself into a mess I can't rebound from.

  For the first time, I cannot say I didn’t see it coming, because this is clearly a train-wreck just waiting to happen, and even I'm not that blind.

  Defeat buckles me right between the shoulders. I have never felt so sapped of strength or will. I'm sitting on the wide, open front porch of the Youngblood's palatial house wondering if I will be able to deal with walking away from Winch and leaving him here, without me, for good.

  "Would you mind if I tossed a few passes with Colt?" Winch asks, rubbing my hand in his. He's all apology tonight, and I feel miserable for it. I feel miserable for everything that's happened on this sticky, messy foul of an evening. "You could go in the kitchen with Mama and Benelli," he offers.

  I stifle a sigh and give him a sensible glare. "Really, Winch? I'm just as willing as you to pretend tonight wasn't as horrific as it actually was, but sit in the kitchen alone with them? I don't have a death wish, thank you very much."

  He puts an arm around my shoulders and leans his head on mine. I turn my face so my nose brushes his cheek, and I can smell the clean clover smell that always seems to cling to his skin. "I knew we should have waited to do dinner."

  I pull back and raise my eyebrows. "Waited for what exactly? It was inevitable that your family would hate me--"

  "They don't hate you," he interrupts, but his words are so unsteady, he can't even convince himself he means them.

  "No, you're right." His eyes snap to attention, bright with hope. "If I thought they hated me, I'd be implying that they actually worried that I pose some kind of threat. I'm something nasty they stepped in on the way to better things. They're just going to wipe me off the bottom of their shoe and never give me a second thought."

  His eyes go brighter, but it's not hope this time. Not at all. This time, they're wild with rage.

  "Don't you dare say that about yourself," he snarls, his hands digging into my shoulders. "You hear me?" I know my eyes have gone wide with shock, and that may be what makes him loosen this hold, and what extinguishes the rageful look in his eyes, replacing it with something so promising, it makes my entire body tremble. "You are the most goddamn amazing person I've ever met. And my family is just gonna have to learn to love you as much as I do, because I'm not letting you go. Ever. No matter what anyone thinks. You're worth fighting for. Okay?"

  He looks so sweetly sure, his battered, purple-bruised face still heart-stoppingly handsome. I trace my fingers very gently around the damaged skin of his eye and the slight swell of his nose.

  "I don't like the idea of you fighting about anything anymore." He starts to protest, but I put a finger over his lips, gently, because they're broken up, too. "Winch, I almost threw up watching that today. I've never seen anything so horrifying and brutal in my life. And it tore me up that it was you. That you were hurting. And then tonight--" I drop my voice and look over my shoulder, just to be sure no one from his family is nearby. "Tonight it was like no one cared. No one even asked about what happened. That whole awkward dinner where everyone got lectured about how amazing family is, but no one thought to ask how you got your face bashed in or if you need medical attention?" My voice goes thick and I take a few long, deep breaths.

  Winch wraps his arms around me and smoothes my hair with his hands.

  "It's okay. It's all over. And I promise, I'm getting away from all that. I am. I'm sorry you had to see what you did today. That's why I didn't want to take you. That's why I told you to stay by the car."

  I throw my hands up.

  "Seriously? Seriously, just stop and listen to yourself. My being there saved your ass. You could have been arrested or trampled by the crowd. And my not being there wouldn't mean it never happened. I'm glad I witnessed it, because I knew exactly how horrible it all was, and I'm hellbent on making sure that never, ever happens again to you. Okay? And I may be the only person in your life who can give you some perspective. What happened to you was scary and terrible. I am freaked out about it, and I'm even more freaked out that no one else if freaking out with me. This isn't normal, Winch."

  I snap my mouth closed when I realize how loud my last words were. I have no idea who heard, and, right now, I just don't care. Someone has to stand up to all this strange denial before Winch winds up beaten into a coma or worse.

  "Listen, we can talk about this all later okay? Let's go, I'll spend a few minutes with Colt like I promised, and then you and me can get the hell out of here, okay? Forget this whole day ever happened."

  He presses my hair back on either side of my face with both hands and kisses me, full and soft and sweet on the lips. I move my hands up and hold him around the neck for an extra-long second.

  I don't want to get sucked into this. I don't want every day we spend together to end with his plea for a redo. And I hate Winch's constant insistence that we forgot things happened. Maybe that's why crazy shit keeps happening to him. Maybe it's because he's always charging ahead, into the next disaster, never learning from what happened before.

  He leans down and offers me his hand, but I shake my head. "Go ahead. I don't want Colt to feel rushed. I'll be right here when you get back."

  Winch's eyebrows press together. "You sure?"

  "Positive. Go."

  I watch him walk away, throwing an odd look at me over his shoulder now and then, and try to figure out what I'm supposed to do now that things have gone so wrong in a way I can't possibly fix.

  "He's a good guy."

  The words surprise me so much, I almost fall off the step. Winch's father stands behind me, an unlit cigarette in his mouth, a lighter in his hands.

  "Mr. Youngblood." I get up and press down on the skirt of my dress with nervous, clammy hands. Shitshitshitshitshit. Did he hear anything? Should I say anything? Parents don't usually rattle me like this. "I was just going to, uh--"

  "Sit," he interrupts, squinting his eyes as he holds the cigarette tight in his lips and lights it with a few quick clicks of his lighter.

  I sit and instantly wish I hadn't, because he's still standing, leaned against the porch railing, and I feel diminutive and young and stupidly girly with him towering over me like this.

  "My son is a good man," he repeats, inhaling a long, slow drag and letting it course out of his mouth in a lazy stream of bluish smoke. "Don't tell anyone," he looks down at me and smiles a conspiratorial smile, "but I sometimes wish Winchester was my firstborn." He shakes a finger at me. "Don't misunderstand. I love Remington from the bottom of my heart. He's exactly like my own brother, Becse." He laughs around his cigarette, and plumes of smoke billow out through his slightly crooked teeth. "Funny as hell. Clowns, almost. But sensitive. Remington feels everything deeply. He isn't strong like Winchester. He can't put his feelings on hold or let things go. When he's angry, he feels it from the bottom of his soul, you know? He's like a human hurricane."

  "Do you think if he wasn't firstborn, he'd listen to Winch more?" I ask, tucking the fabric of the thin yellow dress un
der my knees more securely.

  Mr. Youngblood has been nothing but polite since I came to their home. He didn't showcase any of the underlying menace his wife directed my way. But there was something quietly, dangerously powerful about him. It’s a trait Winch shares, but with Winch there’s so much more easiness and good humor. I just have the distinct feeling that Mr. Youngblood is one hundred percent charming and gentlemanly...as long as everything is going his way.

  "If he wasn't firstborn, he wouldn't have our company to worry over. He'd have the kinds of freedom Winch has." He shrugs his broad, powerful shoulders. "But that wasn't his lot. Remington is first born, so he'll take my place when it's time for me to retire." The cigarette nestles between his lips as he looks into the distance musingly, sucking smoke in and out in gentle puffs.

  "So Remington will run your company even if he's not the best person for the job?" I've noticed how secretive the Youngbloods are, and I half expect something negative; a glare, a harsh word, a shake of the head. But Mr. Youngblood's smile is cruelly, cautiously polite.

  "In our family, we have old-fashioned ideas." He shrugs as if he's half-apologizing, though he clearly doesn't feel remotely apologetic for the uncompromising way his family runs. "But those ideas have kept the Youngbloods prosperous and successful for years. It's a tough economy out there. It will be twice as hard for my sons to gain half of what I had at their age." His eyes, greyer and starker than Winch's, focus on me for a long minute. "This family protects one another. Supports one another. If one of us sufferers, we all do. One of us celebrates, we all do. That takes a certain kind of sacrifice. You understand?"

  He smiles again, this time slightly kinder, as if he's trying to tell me, I know you don't and can't understand, and here's your cue to leave well enough alone, little girl.

  I know that smile. I've been an outsider in a crystal bauble my entire life, looking into worlds where I just couldn't fit or didn't make sense. Sometimes it was because of the taint of my notorious father and his crazy gambling habits. Or my flighty mother and her string of revolving-door younger men. Or my formidably rich and eccentric grandparents who didn't try very hard to fit in in any one circle, and wound up excluding me where they were reciprocally not wanted. I never had a solid social circle in school, my best friends are half a country away, and most of my boyfriends were users and cheaters.

  And now I have Winch, and he’s all I ever wanted.

  Why, just when I truly let myself begin to fall in love with someone, does the situation prove too impossible to overcome?

  My pounding heart and churning stomach make it difficult to answer Winch's father, but I'm saved from my socially awkward hell by Winch's return with Colt, both of them slightly sweaty with huge, matching smiles on their faces.

  "Pop, have you seen this kid's spiral? Unbelievable." Winch shakes his head, his dark eyes bright with pride, his arm draped over his little brother's shoulders with easy grace. "He'll have the craziest college scouts fighting like a pack of hyenas over him."

  Colt shrugs his wide shoulders, still lanky with his lean, long muscles. If he keeps playing football in college he'll bulk up, but right now he looks more like a javelin thrower or a fencer.

  Their father stubs his cigarette in a bronze urn and frowns. "Still football, Colt? Soccer isn't good enough?" The smile on his face has morphed, no longer condescendingly pitiful, but indulgently disappointed. Colt's face falls and Winch's eyes flash hard, then neutralize.

  "Soccer's not really my thing, Pop," Colt says, tossing the football back and forth in his enormous, long-fingered hands, and it's like that ball is a part of him. The grey in his father's eyes darkens as he drinks in every minute detail.

  "Soccer was good enough for generations of Youngbloods. I don't know if you gave it a fair chance. Maybe a few weeks back on the homestead with your cousins this summer..."

  "But I'm captain of the team, so I'll be in for extra training, Pop." Colt presses his lips together as his father goes very still and quiet. "Sorry to interrupt, sir."

  Immediately Mr. Youngblood's charming smile radiates again. "Don't be ridiculous. We'll talk about Hungary and soccer in a few weeks, when you've had time to think about how good it would be for you. Now come on in and we'll watch that movie about the UFC fighter Remington keeps going on about. Winch, you coming?"

  Winch looks at me, and I try hard to keep my nerves under control. I feel trapped. I feel trapped inside a maze that's in a sealed box that's been thrown down a deep, dark hole and I'm crashing to the bottom.

  "You okay?" he asks, his voice low.

  "Fine." I say the word, but I look right into his eyes and he takes half a second to read my every obvious, unhidden thought.

  "I won't be able to watch tonight, Pop. Evan and I have plans." He threads his fingers through mine and the pressure is slow and deliberate, like he's willing the calm strength of his hold to transfer through to me.

  "Go out later. Evan's welcome to stay with your mother and the girls. You come join me and your brothers. Your grandpa and uncle are coming around later." Mr. Youngblood's voice has all the confident exuberance of a circus ringmaster, and there's so much charm, anyone not listening closely would fail to detect the blade of unequivocal demand in his words.

  Winch only hesitates for a minute. "Sorry, Pop." His father's shoulders tense, and Colt jerks his head in Winch's direction, his mouth quickening up and down with a nervous twitch. "I have some things to do at the shop later tonight."

  His father's eyes are hawk-like on my face for a single blink, then that smile is back, all warm lines and general happiness. "Of course. You have a man's obligations now. Go and take care of what you need to. It was nice meeting you, Evan."

  "Thank you for having me at your home." I manage to say it with a smile and wave to Colt, who returns my wave with a nervous lift of his hand.

  We walk to Winch's Mustang silently, and we don't talk or make any eye contact until he has my door opened, I'm buckled in, and he's behind the wheel, pulling out.

  "You want me to take you back to your grandparents' house now." He should be asking it, not telling me.

  "I don't want you to do that. I texted them after dinner. They won't be home until tomorrow afternoon. My granddaddy’s committed to all these golf tournaments this year, before they realized I’d be living with them full time, so they haven’t really been home a lot on the weekends. And I don't really feel like being home alone tonight."

  I undo the pins in my hair and let it spill over my shoulders and whip partially out the window while I study his grim profile.

  "You want me to stay the night?" His voice is quiet and unreadable.

  "Do you have to check in first? Make a phone call? Fight in a bare-knuckle fight?" I guess I was going for funny, but the words clang out with the disappointment I feel after this long slog of a day. I'm drained in every way possible, I kind of hate Winch's parents, I'm pissed at how much I actually like Remy and kind of get Benelli, and I feel bad for Ithaca and Colt.

  And I thought I came from extreme dysfunction.

  He takes his phone out and sends a text. "I told my cousin he's on Remy-watch tonight, and not to call me unless there's a murder," he says to the steering wheel.

  "Really?" I creep a hand across the interior of the car and run it over his eyebrow and the bruise purpling his eye, down his scraped, swollen cheek bone, along his jaw, which must be sore, because he winces away from my gentle touch. I pull back, but he grabs my hand first. "So, no calls tonight?"

  "No calls." He kisses my fingertips. "Just you and me. I promise."

  "Then head to my grandparents' beach-house," I instruct, stretching my arms over my head, our hands still locked together. "We can crash there tonight."

  "Evan..." Winch says nothing, but I can hear the arguments he's chewing over, ping-ponging tensely in the air between us. "You have school tomorrow. I don't want you skipping out on school to spend time with me."

  "I'm a senior. It's my red-blooded American
right to play hooky. Especially when I have a gorgeous boyfriend to play it with. C'mon, Winch. Be bad with me." I turn in my seat and caress the tight line of his jaw with the hand he isn't holding. "Please. We've hardly had a real date so far." My voice drops. "My bikini is in my bag. It's so small, and you haven't seen it yet. Please, Winch? Please."

  Wordlessly, Winchester turns onto the long, straight shot of highway that will hurl us through the sandy brush through to the ocean and a night of perfect freedom. I want everything else to fade away. I want to be with him and forget all the reasons why being with him is such a colossally bad idea.

  Winch 10

  The day that was supposed to make up for the drama of last night wound up being extra drama.

  I feel like I can't get a break when it comes to Evan. Every time I attempt to make things work or do something just for the two of us, my brother or the rest of my crazy family get in the way. I'm beyond fucking sick of it.

  Never, not a day in my entire teenage life, did I attempt to get out of anything when it came to taking care of my brother. I stayed sober so he could get drunk. I drove underage so he could pass out in the backseat. I kept goons off his back after he provoked them, I screened potential girlfriends and booty-calls, I kept things from Mama and Pop, I did everything I could to shield them from his fuck-ups.

  Eventually I realized it didn't matter if they knew what he did. As long as they also knew that I'd do whatever I needed to do to take care of him after, they just ignored all his idiotic behavior. My one slip-up happened when he met Delphine, the girl he fell in love with, impregnated, then drove away with his irresponsible insanity.

  The only reason I didn't get my ass reamed for that was Alayah. The minute that sweet kid was born, every single person forgot to be a shithead for a while, and we made peace. Which lasted for a good six months, until the plans for Remy and Delphine's big wedding started to crumble.

  I guess I thought I'd get a swing at letting go when Remy got older, got his shit together. But I left my teenage years behind a long time ago, and I'm still mopping up his messes.