Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book)

by Reinhardt, Liz

  It takes us both a minute to catch our breath. His laugh is warm and low.

  "So, that's pretty much what I've been thinking about since the minute I left your bed last night. You?"

  I laugh back, breathless and high. "That, yeah. And more. Do you want to--"

  He shakes his head and the decisiveness of the gesture halts my question. "Let me take you out somewhere. Away from here. Because I can't slow down if I start."

  "I'm not looking for slow," I offer, but he holds a hand out and, gallantly, politely, helps me off the table where he was building me up to a perfect orgasm a few seconds before.

  "Not in a rush. Not like this." His voice is at once sure and full of command, and apologetically pleading.

  "So, if you're not planning to rock my world, what are we doing?"

  He waits as I lock the door and holds my hand as we rush down the white stone stops. I love the hint of a smile he attempts to hide when we're face-to-face, feet balanced on the curb.

  "Breakfast. And it will rock your world."

  He holds my door open and helps me in, perfect gentleman style, and this date has all the unexpected newness and excitement our actual first date was lacking.

  He pulls out and looks over at me, his hands curling over the steering wheel in a way that makes me think he's doing his best to keep them off of me. I roll the window down and Winch cuts the AC, delivering a satisfied smile my way.

  "What's that about?" I ask.

  "What's what about?" He smiles again, and there are a million secret thoughts I'm dying to unwind and reveal.

  "The look you gave me just now." I point at him and close one eye, shaping my fingers like a gun. "I notice everything, mister."

  "Or, like my mom, you think you see something when there's nothing there. My look was just a look."

  He's still teasing me, but his voice drops from lighthearted to serious faster than pennies out of a hole in a pocket.

  "Hmm. Maybe your mom and I need to have a talk."

  This time the look is a real Look, a whole panicked, terrified, furious mix and flash of a face. It lasts a single instant, but it was there, and he’s trying to hide it behind a neutral, calm, phony look, so I call him on it again.

  "You can't deny that look! It meant something; I just have no idea what. C'mon, I'm not an idiot, Winch. There's no way you can deny that something notable went through your head when you gave me that look. So tell me."

  He shrugs, and I can read that I'm wearing him down.

  "Tell?" I request nicely, and when he holds firm, I spread on the guilt. "Tell because you left me all alone last night and I didn't even whine about it all that much."

  He winds down a side street and pops out in a place that's both long-ago foreign and memory-filled familiar.

  He parks the car and announces, "I'll tell you after we eat, because I'm starving. What's the matter?"

  I shake my head and swallow hard, the ghosts of my mama and daddy in happier days shaking their chains just outside Clary's. I get out of the car and he's instantly around the front end, at my side.

  "I used to come here as a kid."

  His hand is cupped under my elbow for support, for comfort, for something to lean on if I need it.

  "Say the word and we'll leave."

  "Nah." I shake my head and look right into those blue eyes, like faded denim flapping on the line in the summer sun. "If I'm going to come back here and enjoy a peanut butter and banana sandwich, I want it to be with you."

  He locks eyes with mine, and I can read this expression perfectly. It's pleased possession, and it makes my skin go hot.

  "You eat the Elvis?" His lips tickle close to my ears.

  "No," I admit. "But my daddy always did."

  This time he loosens his hold on my elbow, and his arm is, instead, strong and sure around my waist as he leads me to a table in the back. A waitress hurries over and calls Winch "Mr. Youngblood." He's cool but polite, ordering two orange juices without asking if it's what I want.

  It is, but still.

  "You sure you're okay here? I'll have us somewhere else in three minutes if you want."

  He taps the menu absently on the wood table and bores a look into me like he's attempting to demolish my mental walls and read my mind for real.

  "I told you, it's fine. Really."

  I look around at the mismatched interior with the black-and-white tiled linoleum and the stained glass behind the counter, and it feels comfy, homey. If I block all the times my daddy came here so full of disappointment he couldn't walk straight, it's actually a very charming place.

  The waitress hurries back and Winch orders the sourdough French toast, and I get the eggs Benedict Florentine.

  "Good choice." He rearranges the little black box of sugar packets with quick fingers. "I think breakfast choices say a lot about people."

  "Funny. I think peoples’ very telling looks do. Since you already know what my breakfast choice is, let's analyze that weird look you gave me."

  I blow the wrapper from my straw at him and he blocks it with the palm of his hand like a ninja.

  "You're relentless."

  He looks up, I'm positive because he's praying the waitress will come back and interrupt this uncomfortable confession time.

  "I'm shamelessly relentless. A watched breakfast order never cooks. Attention here." I cup him under the chin and turn his face towards mine. "Now, spill. Why the weird look before?"

  "I barely remember what we were talking about," he evades with a lazy shrug.

  "You and your mysterious looks. And your mom."

  At the word, his shoulders go stiff and he drops all the sugar packets haphazardly into the container.

  He leans back in the chair, spreads his legs, and clasps his hands behind his head. Anyone who didn't know Winch would think he was comfortable as could be, but I notice the tic in his jaw and the incessant nervous tap of his toe. I notice, but I don't let them stop me from peeling back, layer by layer, the enigma that is Winchester Youngblood. I stare at him, eyebrows raised, mouth set, eyes fierce, just to let him know I'm not backing down.

  He lets out a dramatic sigh and feigns confusion again.

  "Okay, what are we talking about again? Oh, right. You and my mom and my looks." I nod for him to go on. "Okay. Alright. So you are a gorgeous, sexy, brilliant woman."

  He leans across the table and takes one of my hands. I try to yank it back, but he tucks it in his and kisses the knuckles.

  "Flattery will get you nowhere. Spilling your guts? Well that's the key that unlocks all kinds of interesting doors."

  I let my voice purr out with my best sexy feline persuasion technique.

  Winch blinks. "Okay. Spilling my guts and those interesting doors." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "My mother," he says finally, "is not an easy woman to get along with."

  "You'd be shocked how much parents like me. I'm not kidding. I've never met a mother yet who didn't immediately think I was great."

  Well, that's a partial lie. I'm pretty sure Brenna's mom thinks I'm an obnoxious, pushy pseudo-brat. I say it takes one to know one. Other than that, my record is fairly squeaky clean. I give off a good-girl vibe mamas just eat up.

  "But my mother is nothing at all like normal mothers. Nothing. At all. Okay?" It's like he's desperate for me to take his warning seriously. "She has really old-fashioned ideas. And she's so stubborn."

  "Okay."

  This actually doesn't bode well. My grandparents aren't very old-fashioned at all. They're very laid back, very open to suggestion. I'm not exactly sure they'd eat Winch up knowing his background and shady present, but they'd hear me out if I wanted them to meet him.

  "So, am I some kind of secret girlfriend?"

  The look on his face makes me feel like he suddenly popped me into the freezer and pressed the door shut; I feel the creep of a bitter chill and the dull horror of pitch black nothing. Where the hell can we go if I can never even meet his family when they obviously mean so much to hi
m?

  He opens his mouth to answer, but the waitress is bustling over us, placing our plates down and warning us about what's hot. I'm sure I murmur a thank you. I feel the fork and knife in my hands and make cutting motions. I love Eggs Benedict, but I have no clue if it’s good or not, because it's like I'm ice-coated inside.

  Winch doesn't pretend to enjoy his breakfast and keep up polite, respectable appearances. He reaches across the table and takes my wrist in his hand, leaving my forkful of egg and buttery, delicious Hollandaise sauce suspended in midair.

  "You are not a secret girlfriend. I'm proud to be with you."

  "So I'm just your girlfriend no one knows about?"

  I yank my wrist away and a few drips of yellowy sauce splatter on his white shirt. He doesn't even notice.

  "No one knows about you because the problem is them, not you." His grip tightens for one harsh second, then relaxes. I look up at him, a little shocked, and he releases my wrist. "I've never been happier than I am with you, Evan. But my family doesn't think you should be with people because they make you happy. Like I said, they're old fashioned. They'd judge you before they even got to know you, just because you're...not like us."

  "What does that even mean?"

  I continue to cut and eat my food, because, since I burned down a very influential family's orchard, I don't like to bring negative attention to myself and my family while I'm out. Even if I'm choking with undignified rage and upset, I try hard to put a high-sheen polish on any situation and always bust out my best company manners.

  "What makes your family so different? Are you in the mob or something?"

  I expect him to laugh, not because it's such a witty or original joke, but because not laughing implies there could be some possible crumb of truth.

  "Winch?"

  It's becoming nearly impossible to cut neat squares of food and eat them politely with the desperate need to know his answer tugging at my guts.

  He's sent his plate cruising to the middle of the table and is rubbing his temples, eyes screwed shut. When he finally sits straight and looks at me, there are a thousand shades of regret in his eyes and my bite of buttery, egg-soaked bread turns to an unswallowable lump in my throat.

  "Not the mob," he clarifies, but that only makes panic bob closer to the surface for me. "Not exactly one hundred percent above the law." He leans close and his voice drops. "We handle a lot of business. We make a lot of deals, and we have a lot of secrets that can't get leaked, you know? So we tend to not trust anyone outside our circle."

  Most of what's going through my head involves the bloodiest, goriest, Martin-Scorsese-directed monstrosity of gangster violence and mayhem imaginable. I want to get up and go to the bathroom, splash some cold water on my face, grip the sink tight and take deep, controlled breaths. But I just keep cutting my food and eating calmly.

  "Say something," Winch instructs.

  I look at him with one raised eyebrow and go right on eating, the only sign of my irritation the aggressive scrape of my knife on the plate.

  "Eat. Your breakfast is getting cold."

  My words come out frost-coated because Brenna was right. I was wrong. And I like him.

  I like him so much, he just told me his family is legitimately bad news, and I'm trying to think of reasons why that might not be such a big deal.

  He eats, looking up at me with nervously shifting eyes between bites. "You have a right to be freaked out. It's a lot."

  My plate is almost empty. I lay the fork and knife across the top edge and wipe my hands on the napkin.

  "I need to use the restroom."

  He gets up to follow, but I rush by too fast, my sandal heels clipping on the checkerboard floor. By the time I'm in the cold, shiny bathroom, I have to bite my bottom lip hard to hold the swell of tears back. I knock my forehead into the stainless steel stall door over and over.

  "Why did you have to prove me right, Winch?" I whisper into the echoing tiles.

  Winch 8

  Fuck this breakfast. Fuck this date, fuck this already long ass day following the shittiest night I've ever had. Fuck the truth, fuck believing in some fairytale happy ending. Fuck my responsibilities and fuck, fuck, fuck the fact that I just, no doubt, no questions asked, lost my shot at being with Evan Lennox.

  My appetite is shot to shit. I pay the bill and wait at the far end of the counter, my mood crap and my face probably one big fucking moody-ass glower that confuses the hell out of Lisa, the waitress who always chats with me.

  'Cause I'm always in a damn genial mood. 'Cause I know how important it is to keep up appearances, show off my best side, keep my emotions off my damn face.

  But all the rules get tossed and shredded when Evan's in the picture.

  I wait forever. I wait so long, I get worried, and, even though I know I'm the last person she wants to see, I crack open the ladies’ room door and rap it with my knuckles.

  "Evan?"

  I listen for sobs or a tantrum or the silence of an empty bathroom, but she answers.

  "I'll be out in a minute."

  Her voice is ice-rimmed and flat.

  Five minutes go by. Ten. The place starts to fill up with people. Women and little kids go in and out, but Evan doesn't make an appearance. I keep tabs on the frazzled moms and elderly ladies entering and exiting, and when the bathroom finally empties of extra people, I slip in and make my way down the row of stalls until I see those crazy sexy sandals with the tie thingies under a stall.

  "Evan?" I keep my voice low.

  She gasps. "Winch! Get the hell out of this bathroom."

  "Not without you." I run my finger along the crack in the door. "C'mon. You asked, I told. I knew you wouldn't like what you heard, but that's my truth. If it makes you feel better, I was picturing this exact moment in my head every time I wanted to pick the phone up and call you last week, so that's a big part of why I didn't."

  Her sigh stops short. "You predicted this?"

  "Not Carey's specifically. Not all the details. But you finally hearing about me, all about me, and wanting me gone, out, done? I knew that was coming. Because being with you? I thought it would probably be amazing, but I had no idea, you have no idea, how hard I've fallen for you already."

  I wait, but there's no sound except the cautious movement of her feet, edging closer to the stall door. I think I hear someone swing the heavy outer door open, but it's a false alarm. Someone will come in soon, though, and I'd love to get out of the bathroom with her before I cause a ruckus.

  "Every time I think I heard the worst version of your story, it gets even worse." One eye peers through the crack at me. I can hear her voice, clear and summer-creek-sweet. "I get that you're keeping me in the dark to protect me. But you have to stop. I have to know. Everything. All of it. Every piece. No matter how bad you think it is."

  I can see her fingers toying with the stall bolt. I want her to slide it open.

  "Alright. Full disclosure. I swear. But you gotta come out of there. I can't talk to you about this in the girls' bathroom. I don't need to get arrested for this."

  It's meant to be a joke, to break some of the deep, pitch black ice that's surrounded us, but she slides the lock over and steps out, her eyes flashing.

  "You don't need to get arrested for this. But you'll get arrested again, right? If Remy needs it, you will, and that's kind of okay with you?"

  I look down at my spit-shined shoes and think about the night before, Remy's crazed behavior, the neighbors I had to pay off, the family I had to reassure. He's running wild and wounded as hell, and it's only a matter of time before he gets his ass caught in a bear trap so big and sharp, no amount of money or apologies will manage to smooth it over for him.

  "I might."

  Her frown is the last thing I want to see, and I wonder how frequent that look on her face will be with me.

  "You wanted honesty." I take her hand in mine, pull her to the door and brace it open a crack. "C'mon. I'll let you play Twenty Questions with me, alright
?"

  The faintest glimmer of a smile breaks back over her face, and I go loopy at that look.

  "What if it takes more than Twenty Questions to figure you out, Winch?"

  Her dark hair brushes my arm as she leans with me to check up and down the hall.

  "Twenty-thousand Questions then. You happy with that?"

  It's all clear, so I pull her through, past the tables with plates left for the busboys and the mismatched, half pulled-out chairs, and out into the baking sun.

  "Twenty thousand?" She rubs her slightly pointed chin. "Will that be enough?"

  I shrug and twine my fingers through hers. "I think I'm pretty simple. But we can find out. Wanna walk and talk?"

  I'm edgy, nervous and a little excited to try and pull this off. I want her. I've never wanted anything so much, and I like a fight, a challenge. Maybe I can do this, keep her, let her know it all and still manage to win her over.

  "Sure." She nestles close to me despite how damn hot it is, and I think about the long litany of ‘fucks’ I listed outside the bathroom. Maybe they were all premature. She clears her throat.

  "First question: when do you plan to stop taking care of Remy so you can start your own life?"

  And maybe those ‘fucks’ were as warranted as I initially thought.

  I watch the cracks in the sidewalk as she practically skips by my side, waiting to see if I can pass this test. It was shitty of her to start with a trick question, but I still need to answer and do it honestly.

  "I'm gonna have a life and take care of Remy until he's back on his feet."

  I wish I had my cigs, but I've been cutting back since Mama found a pack in my bedroom and went on a screaming tirade about lung cancer and my Great Uncle Pepe and his voicebox.

  "I do work, Evan. It's for my family, but I don't just get handed a pile of money for sharing my dad's last name. I work long, crazy hours, and I get fair money for what I do."

  "If you didn't do what you do for your family, what would you want to do? For yourself?"

  A little bit of a breeze comes rushing down the street and lifts the hair off the back of her neck, exposing skin that's glistening with sweat.