Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book)

by Reinhardt, Liz

  I flick off the sound system, and it's like popping a helium-filled balloon. Everyone starts to disperse immediately, and I can't get them out fast enough.

  There's a lot of pissed-off murmuring and bitching, but I couldn't give a shit less. Evan stalks to the far railing of the deck, texting furiously, but I don't dare approach her until every other person is gone.

  Lala is the last to leave. "Who is she?" she demands, pointing to Evan.

  "None of your business. Party's over." I grab her by the shoulders and turn her to the door.

  She twists out of my grip. "Take your fucking hands off me! This is bullshit, Winch. I don't know what the hell happened to you, but you turned into a real dick."

  "All the better reason to get away from me. Good-bye, Lala."

  I don't touch her again, but I herd her to the door, secretly thanking God that Evan never turned around and gave Lala a good look.

  She tosses her blond hair and shakes it back from her face, licking her pouty lips and narrowing her eyes. "This isn't fucking over."

  Her phone is already in her hand, and I'm willing to bet she's texting my sister. Benelli will keep her mouth shut until she talks to me, but she's definitely Team Lala, and I know she'll be curious about Evan. My head pounds with the migraine that's crawling in fast and strong as hell.

  I watch as Lala stomps away and keep watching as her Audi squeals out of the driveway and into the dark night. Finally the only sound is the crash of the waves, over and over, roaring and peaceful all at once.

  Evan's back is to me, her long neck bent over her phone. I want to kiss her up and down that neck, make her moan my name the way she did on that stupid date so many days ago. The one I can't stop thinking about even though I know I should put it out of my head.

  "Hey."

  I had enough weight to stop a full blown rager in its tracks, but this girl leaves me feeling like I'm a gangly middle-schooler talking to his first crush.

  She whirls around, the tight little dress clingy and perfect against her tanned curves. I imagine how much more perfect it would be peeled off and dropped on the floor.

  "What's going on? Why did you kick Jace out? Why did you end the party? This is...I feel like..." She puts her hands up to her temples and squeezes her eyes shut.

  I take a few steps toward her and have to cement myself where I am to keep from going further.

  "Who are you texting?"

  I point to her phone and am ripped between equal parts dread and hope that she called for a ride home.

  "Brenna. My best friend."

  She stares at the little screen and furrows her brow.

  "You told her what happened?"

  I kick some cans out of the way and sit a few feet away from her, head leaned back on the chair cushion so I can watch her from my half-closed eyes without looking too obvious. She’s fucking gorgeous. I forgot just how gorgeous she is.

  "Yes."

  She shakes her head angrily at the phone and tosses it in her purse with a sharp motion of her wrist.

  "What did she say?"

  Despite the shittines of the night, something tells me her friend gave her advice I'm gonna be happy about.

  "Brenna, who is a hopeless, insane romantic, told me that I should ask why you kicked Jace out with no explanation. She seems to think you're actually not an antisocial maniac."

  She pulls herself up on the deck railing and the wind blows loose pieces of her hair around her neck and moves the skirt of her dress to her upper thighs.

  "Do you want to ask me?" I close my eyes and wait.

  "Is it a good reason?" Her voice is curious. I shrug, she sighs and asks, "Winch, why did you kick Jace out?"

  "Jace cooks meth." I lift my head up for the satisfaction of seeing her mouth drop. "That's what he does with his fancy-ass chem degree. My brother is in a bad place. He's had some guys approach him, dealers. I've been working my ass off to keep them away from Remington."

  "Do your parents know?" Her voice is a bare-bones whisper, almost lost in the screeching wind.

  "My parents...it's--" I stop before I say "complicated" again. "My parents leave these things to me. My brother and I have been close since we were real young, so it makes sense for me to handle all this."

  "Sense?" She chews on the word, shakes her head, puts a hand up, drops it, and sighs. "Listen, can you just take me home? I would have left with Jace. I didn't know this was your place or anything. Tonight has been so bizarre. This is honestly the weirdest freaking night ever."

  Her eyes drop and her shoulders sag like she's exhausted. I'm half afraid she's going to fall off the railing, so I get up and move next to her.

  "I know you didn't realize this was my place. But I'm glad you're here."

  I stand right next to her, close enough to smell her and feel the heat coming off her skin. Her laugh is so devoid of happiness, it sounds like a bunch of rocks shaken in a tin can.

  "Glad? Really? I didn't hear a word from you all week long, Winch." I look up at her face when she says my name, and I can see the torn, hurt frustration that I put there. It stabs like a hunting knife in my intestines. "I hate games, and I feel like I'm getting played by you big time. You're happy now because I walked in here and fell into your lap. But you never would have come to get me, you never would--"

  "I wanted to," I interrupt and run my fingers over her hand. She stares down at my hand on hers. "I wanted to call you. See you. You have no idea how bad I wanted to."

  "Oh, I have an idea." Her voice is low and husky. "I wish I could stop thinking about you. I wish I never met you, actually. Because all week long, all I thought about was you. And when Jace came up to me, the only reason I was remotely interested was because I hoped he might make me think about anything else for a few minutes."

  This time her laugh is real and so loud and sweet, it claws with a sharp need low in my gut. "And he brought me here. Right to you. Define fucking irony."

  She pulls her hand away.

  I take it back again.

  "Maybe it's fate or something."

  This is an unbelievably bad idea. She hops down off the railing and she's immediately fitted against me, right where she belongs, right where I want her.

  Her eyebrows raise up high and her smile is forced. "You believe in fate? Or something?"

  "You make me believe in a lot of things I never thought I would."

  This is crazy talk. This is the result of too many nights thinking about her and not getting any sleep, too many days imagining I see her right around every corner, and too many attempts to deny how much I want her.

  Now she's right in my arms for a second time, and I realize I'm not going to get a third chance to make this right. I have to make a decision.

  Evan 6

  Winchester Youngblood doesn't want me.

  He didn't call me all week.

  He didn't come by and try to see me.

  No Facebook messages, pigeons with notes tied to their little pink claws, pebbles clattering against my windowpane.

  But when I wind up at his party with another guy, he's suddenly ready to be my gallant defender. It's all cheekbones and soft blue eyes and that accent I still can't place that fills my ears up and blocks every other sound out, like the full spill of ocean water when you jump in the waves too fast, too deep.

  "This isn't a good idea," says me, Queen of Colossally Stupid Ideas.

  I know the exact determination of how bad it is by how incredibly good it feels. When his hands coast just a hair of an inch away from my skin, I arch into them.

  And I want more.

  "We're not exactly known for our good ideas," he says, his voice low, his lips hovering just above my lips, and I want them to commit.

  Commit to every hot, sweet thing I know we both want, no matter how stupid it is to want it all.

  His mouth hits its target and his lips drags along my neck so slowly, it makes me shiver with naked desire for him. He opens his mouth, and the wet press of his tongue makes me j
ump.

  "You weren't even interested in me," I argue, unclouding my stupid thoughts and hauling him a few inches away.

  "That's ridiculous."

  He talks like he's some blue-face-painted warrior used to commanding legions. This is the same voice he used when he told a few dozen drunk debauched party-goers to get the hell out of his house, and every single one of them listened and scurried away.

  I twirl out of his arms and grab onto the railing, digging my fingernails into the wood so I can anchor myself.

  "It's not ridiculous at all. Actually, it makes total sense. You can't just have me now, because you decided you want me when I'm here and available."

  Clouds slipped over the moon while he was turning me into a pool of Jello, so it's too dark to see much on the beach, but I search for anything else to fix my eyes on anyway.

  Winch's body mirrors mine, and he wraps one arm around my waist.

  "It's getting cold. Come on inside, we can talk. I swear to God, all we'll do is talk."

  He's the path lined with wildflowers, and I'm Red Riding Hood. I've been warned, but I just can't resist the blossom and perfume that calls me over.

  The party-silent house creaks and groans in the wind that picks up and rattles the windows, and I nearly trip over a couple of glasses, knocked on their sides, as I follow him through the labyrinth. When I bend to right them, Winch tugs at my hand and shakes his head.

  "We have a cleaning staff. You don't need to do that."

  Nothing about Winch screamed "money" when I first met him, not the way everything about my ex Rabin did. Rabin was all ego and polish and pampered can't-lift-a-finger-to-help-himself syndrome. But Winch doesn't just have money; Winch has control. He's used to being in power.

  What does he do?

  What does his family do?

  He steps surely and quietly along the bleached hardwood floors, past the living room full of leather chairs and cathedral ceilings, past a granite and stainless steel kitchen, down a long hall lined with brilliant modernist prints, to a series of doors. He slides a key out of his pocket and slips it into a lock, then throws open the door on a room that feels like it's all windows facing the crashing ocean waves and a bed.

  A big, soft, inviting bed.

  There must be other things in this room, but, despite my mind's very sensible protests, all I can think about is lying down on that bed with Winch and forgetting everything that happened -- or didn't happen -- this past week.

  He leans his long frame in the doorway and his eyes follow me as I walk around the room, his mouth tight. "You want a drink?"

  "Sure."

  My feet manage to move me to the bed, and I sink onto the mattress, suddenly surrounded by the mingling smells of detergent and clover and pure, hot Winch. I hear him put the key in another door, and the low rumble of his voice, then another guy's, I assume his brother's, hits my ears, though I can't make out a single word. I hear him click the door shut, then I hear the sound of glasses clinking, the refrigerator opening, and his returning footsteps.

  He comes in, two glasses in hand, and gives me one before he takes a seat in the chair across from me. I'm attempting to position my dress so he doesn't see my underwear and balance the glass he handed me, all the while wishing I'd taken the chair.

  And wishing twice as hard that he'd chosen to join me on the bed.

  I take a long chug, and my tongue recoils in shock at the crisp lack of bite. This isn't vodka, which I stupidly thought it would be. It's ice water. Winch leans back in his chair and eyes me over the rim of his glass.

  "I wasn't going to give you alcohol, Evan. I'm in deep enough shit already with you. We don't really need to mix drinking in with all this."

  I pull my index finger around the edge of the glass, collecting condensation in the whorls of my fingertip.

  "What is all this exactly?"

  I keep my voice tightrope taut, but my eyes hunt his, refusing to let him duck and cover away from my gaze.

  He shifts uncomfortably on the chair. "I don't know."

  "Why?" I bully, not above beating this out of him if that's what it takes.

  "Because my life is a clusterfuck, Evan!” His voice bursts out louder than either of us expected. We both jump, then he lowers his voice and explains. “It's not fair for me to even imagine letting you into it. And it looks like things are going to get a fuckton worse before they get any better."

  He puts the glass down with a thump and pushes up off the chair, moving around the room in a random, edgy circuit. I sit straight on his bed, legs crossed, and watch him.

  "I thought I'd be able to just flirt with you when we met. Like that would be enough." He runs a hand through his hair, then brushes it back down, over and over, his still-fresh tattoo poking from the cuffed sleeve of his untucked, cuffed button-down. "Then I thought, fuck it, we could just be friends during that shitty time we had to hang out at our service assignment. I figured I'd get my fill of you and be able to leave. But you know how that worked out."

  "Actually, I thought that was exactly how it worked. You took me on one date, then didn't call for a week. I would have said that was you getting me out of your system."

  I put my glass down and jump up, reaching for his hands because there's no way I can watch him attack his hair like a maniac anymore. He stills instantly, but, somehow, it’s like he’s transferred all the pent-up, pacing, wild momentum of his body to his eyes, so it still feels like he might as well be climbing up the walls.

  I run my fingers over his forehead because I can’t convince myself not to touch him. "Look, if this is so damn hard and so damn confusing, maybe it's not meant to be, right? In the last few months I found out my ex-boyfriend is a sexually harassing shithead, my parents’ marriage is probably officially over, and I had to move in with my grandparents and start a new school I hate, all on top of getting arrested and having to do community service. We're both in a shitty place, and it was fun to flirt, but maybe that's all it needed to be. I'm cool with that."

  My heart is a pod of dolphins beaching themselves on the rocky shore for no apparent reason.

  His hands break from mine and sweep up and down my arms, replacing his manic hair mussing with lulling arm-brushing. His words are low, slow, and ring with solid honesty.

  "I'm so not cool with that."

  "We can just be friends." My voice slaps and smacks, devoid of any real conviction.

  His fingers press and draw down my arms. "I haven't stopped thinking about you all week."

  "If it bothered you that much, you would have called." The flop of my voice has moved up several octaves, graduating to a high-pitched squeak.

  His voice, on the other hand, is beach-glass smooth.

  "I'm crazy good at resisting temptation." He cups my shoulders and drags the back of his fingers down the skin of my bare back. "Correction. I was crazy good at resisting temptation. But here you are, in my room when I should be on the road bringing you home."

  My heart had been warming like a surfers' contained bonfire, but his words are the gasoline that’s exploded it into an arsonist's wet-dream.

  "What do you want?" My voice scratches out of my throat desperately.

  "You." He cups his hand under my chin and rubs the pad of his thumb along my bottom lip.

  "This is stupid."

  My sad little voice barely registers at a whisper because his thumb plus my lip equals debilitating brain chaos.

  "This is too fast."

  His other hand holds the side of my face, and he traces his thumbs in sweeping crescents over my cheekbones and around the curves of my ears.

  "We tried this, and it was worse than a royal fucking mess," I remind him and myself.

  I need a ruler slap to my brain, because I might be falling way too hard and fast under the wrong guy's spell.

  "Try again?"

  His mouth closes in on mine, and that single second before our lips meet spins out for an eternity. And it makes graphs and flow-charts and PowerPoints und
erlining all the reasons we should absolutely not be doing this.

  But we are.

  We so completely are.

  Winch walks me back to the bed and lays me down, his entire body pressed long and perfectly weighted over mine. He kisses me with gentle, coaxing pressure for a few minutes, like he's taking my temperature, gauging my heart rate, and determining if I'm in.

  I'm all in.

  I vice my arms around his ribs, clamping him close, and his kiss deepens, his tongue slides into my mouth and moves sweet and quick over my tongue and the inside of my lips before he pulls back and sweeps in again. I arch my spine and can feel how hard he already is against my thigh.

  His thumbs trip under the straps of my dress, and he pulls his mouth away so he can kiss my shoulders where the cloth was. His mouth follows up and down my shoulder and the curve of my clavicle. He presses his mouth to my breastplate and leaves a soft, warm trail of kisses up to my neck and back down until I'm digging my heels into the mattress and straining against him.

  His hands reach up to find mine, lock around my wrists, and twist my arms over my head, gently pinning me.

  His face is so close, I can see the olive black of his pupils, round and hungry, and the way his mouth is held tight, like he’s working hard not to lose control.

  "I promised we'd just talk." He swallows hard and licks his lips. "This isn't just talking."

  "We can just kiss."

  I want him to press his mouth back on mine. I want his hands under my clothes, I want to peel away everything he's wearing...but I know that's all sprinting when this is a marathon. It needs to be a marathon, because I feel a funny pinch of panic when I imagine that this will end up a repeat of last week, with Winch turning into a pumpkin with no contact information at midnight.

  He lets go of my wrists slowly and bends his head back down until our lips find each other, and this time it's a heart-hammering, blood-pounding, body-shaking tempo.

  "Evan," he moans, pulling his lips away and kissing my temple and the side of my ear.