Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book)

by Reinhardt, Liz

  "As good as you’ve had with anyone else you've been with?"

  The question buzzes quietly in the night air between us. She unwinds her legs from around my body and swims away from me, her feet kicking together under the water like a mermaid's tail. I watch her dive, and when she comes back up, she's smiling.

  But it's not a smile I completely believe in.

  "Do you want to race me? I bet you're slow in the water. Like a manatee." She winks at me.

  I am a slow swimmer. I learned to swim in the ocean where it made sense to always take my time, do things at a speed that ensured I wouldn't wind up in the middle of a rip-tide, half-drowned with no way back to shore.

  "You wanna answer my question?"

  "Don't."

  The one word weighs heavily between us.

  I try to let it go. It's just that this one night we have right now rocked me to my core, and even though we've made a silent pact to live in this moment, I want to know there are going to be more. Many more.

  I shouldn't be asking for anything more from her. But it doesn’t stop me from wanting more than I deserve and more than I have a right to. I want it all with Evan.

  "Why not?"

  I swim after her, slow and steady, and manage to catch up even though she darts around fast, because Evan ricochets in seven different directions while I keep one focused course.

  "You said you wouldn't. This isn't the time. I don't want to talk about it. You said it didn't matter, and if it doesn't, seriously, you wouldn't be asking."

  All her reasons tumble out as she trails her fingers through the water, leaving ripples that will eventually touch me.

  "Are we doing this all wrong?"

  My words make her lift her eyes, wide and light with shock.

  "Are we?" She leans back, and her naked, wet body stops every thought that was previously making the rounds in my head. She cranes her neck to look at the smattering of stars in the night sky. "When I was in middle school, I used to play this game with myself. It was called Never, Always, Sometimes."

  She tilts her head back, and her dark, silky hair pools on top of the water in twisted circles.

  I let my body float closer to hers.

  "Did this game have rules?"

  "Yep. I would choose three things I really wanted. And then I would force myself to put each thing into one category." She dips her face down until the water is right underneath her nose, and her eyes reflect the lights shining from the walls of the pool. She pulls back up. "Wanna play?"

  "Probably not." I reach out for her, but she backs away. "Alright. How do we play?"

  "We'll each pick three things for each other. Then we just put them in the right slot. Ready?"

  I nod, but I'm so far from ready, it's unreal. I have a feeling this is going to end very badly. The expression on her face is apologetic for a flash, then it goes hard with grim determination.

  "Three things you love." She holds up three fingers, then folds down her middle and ring finger, leaving up her index finger. "Your family." My heart picks up its pace. She's playing with fire and she knows it. She raises her middle finger. "Church." I wonder if that one's my freebie, and hold my breath, waiting for the next option. Her ring finger goes up. She opens her mouth, blinks slowly and says, "Friends."

  I know it's just a reprieve, and I know the point of giving me these three options is to prove just how hard it is even when it's down to three relatively easy choices.

  "Family is my 'always,'" I say, and I catch the tight jerk of her head as she nods, lies on her back, and floats in the water. The way the little droplets run from her nipples down the heavy swell of her tits makes my mouth water. "Uh, friends is my 'sometimes.' And, don't you dare tell my grandmother, but, church would be my 'never.'"

  I run one finger from the top of her big toe, down the bottom of her heel, and she gives a shiver.

  "You just give up on God like that?" She pulls her foot back with a splash, bobs to a vertical position, and swims a few feet away from me, asking over her wet shoulder, "Never? You would never set foot in church again? This game only works if you really think hard about what never means. Could you go your whole life never going to church? Christmas, Easter, nothing. Not when someone you love dies and there’s a big funeral, not for your daughter’s wedding. Never."

  I watch her curves under the clear blue water and try to think about, really think about...church. Right. Thinking about church. I swallow hard and swim after her.

  Church is a big part of my life, despite the fact that I'm not necessarily the most devout guy. I believe in fate. I believe in a higher power. And, even when I'm sweating my ass off, I like those hours of quiet in the shadowy interior of the church. Plus, I'd be excommunicated if my family even caught me thinking I could skip a mass, let alone a funeral. It would never happen.

  "You thought this game up when you were in middle school? This is a pretty depressing game for a middle school kid."

  She doesn't seem to mind that I skirted her church point, I know because she's probably packing something heavier in her bag of tricks.

  Her shrug lifts one slim, tan shoulder out of the water, then back down into it. She bobs by the pool ladder.

  "I was a troubled kid. Lousy parents, lousy supervision, into things no kid my age should have been into. You can fill in the blanks."

  Her jaw is stuck out far, the way it gets when she's making a point that she'll claw your eyes out to defend. I'm not about to be on the receiving end of her temper.

  "Do you want me to give you three?" I ask to change the direction of this conversation.

  She dips her face low in the water again and nods slightly. She's drifting away, away from the hot, close place we were locked in when our arms were around each other, when I was deep inside of her, when she was wrapped around me and moaning my name. I want that back, but I don't know if I can have it.

  "Okay." I squint at her, willing a smile, a laugh, anything, but she gives me nothing. "Outfits."

  A frown tugs down on her lips and she paddles a tiny bit closer. "Outfits? Like clothes?"

  "Yeah." I can feel the wicked grin on my face. "So the first option is clothes. If 'clothes' is your 'never,' you gotta make do with one outfit, clean and all, but no changing. Ever."

  "What about for my wedding?" She narrows her eyes at me, her dark hair stuck to her cheeks.

  I wish she'd let me closer, but she keeps a constant two foot radius around herself at all times, circling me out.

  "Weddings, parties, community service, school. One outfit."

  The smile I crack her way is meant to loosen whatever went tight between us, but she repels from me, despite smiling back.

  I don't know if we're going forward or backward.

  "What if it means I'd get kicked out of school? You can't just show up without a uniform at my school."

  She bites at the side of her mouth, willing a second smile away, and I get my first surge of pure hope for better.

  I shrug. "Sorry. A year's worth of detentions for you. One outfit only."

  I float a little, trying to focus on being happy to just hang out in a pool with the girl I love, no matter how complicated it might be, and I let the worries about my family life take a welcome backseat in my brain for once.

  She takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh. "What are my other two?"

  "Hamburgers." I watch her lips pull tight. "Your parents."

  Her eyebrows press down, dark and furious over her light eyes, and I feel a grip in my chest. She looks like she might pull herself up out of the pool

  "It's fair," she finally gripes. "Except mine don't exist without each other."

  "No one's choices exist without each other. That's the point." We're still lobbing softballs at each other. We haven't even moved on to hardball, and this whole thing already stings. I open the escape hatch. "It's a game, Evan."

  "It is," she agrees. "And it isn't." She starts to dip her face down into the cool liquid of the pool water, then lifts
it back out, the defiant line of her jaw dotted with droplets of water. "My parents? Never. Hamburgers? Sometimes. Outfits? Always."

  "If you never had your father to worry about, you wouldn't need hamburgers, right?" I don't respond to the obviously shocking anti-parental aspect of her list.

  She leans back, her hair billowing behind her. Stretched long, her foot reaches out and brushes against my leg. That single second of touch shocks her vertical.

  "That night we went out for hamburgers? I needed one because of you."

  I shut up. I shut up and will this stupid game to stop with my cool, carefully-managed disinterest. We're at the point where anything we say is just another barb in the wire going up fast between us. I'm not even positive why we're at a point where we're fenced off from each other, but it brings all my defense mechanisms to the forefront. I go icy.

  "Fair enough. At least hamburgers is a 'sometimes' for you. So that means I get to hang around you once in a while, right? I mean, I'm cool with not being an 'always' in your life."

  Evan's eyes go wide for a split second with a quick stab of hurt before she shrugs. "'Sometimes' is all we really have anyway, right? Nothing is 'always.'"

  She looks up at me, smiling with her mouth, but jabbing at my heart with her eyes.

  She brought this on. She pushed me away and asked me to play a game that amounts to emotional Russian roulette, she asked me not to talk to her about her history or our present. I refuse to accept the blame for this crash and burn.

  "You're right,” I agree, even though I don’t agree at all. “That's why we should enjoy tonight. Right? Cause maybe that's all we're gonna have."

  There's no sound but the lapping of the pool water. And I feel like an idiot. Here I am, naked with this girl who I love, but who doesn't love me back, and I feel like I should get the hell out of this pool, get my damn clothes on, go home where I know my place, and stop going along with all my crazy feelings.

  Maybe there's a damn good reason I've always done what I was supposed to do.

  Maybe the reason is that it was always the right thing to do.

  Maybe everyone in my family thinks this thing with Evan is all wrong because it's all wrong.

  Because I felt changed. I let go and opened up and dove headfirst into every gut-wrenching, confusing-as-hell thing I was afraid of, and what did I get for it?

  This awkward uncertainty.

  I roll my neck on my shoulders, pissed that this night, this chance I wanted to take so badly, wound up being such an ultimate disappointment. I swim over to the ladder with slow, sure strokes.

  "Where are you doing?" Evan's voice is hedged with nervous fear.

  I turn back and pull myself out. "Checking my phone."

  "Winch?" Her voice echoes in the water. I stop, but don’t turn to look at her. Her words are quick and tight. "Your family, your future, me?"

  I'm naked. I'm chilled. I miss her before I'm even out of her sight. I don't want to know if my phone rang while we swam. I want to have sex with her again, fall asleep tangled around her, and wake up with her at my side. I want this swim to have been all about her and me doing crazy shit with no one or nothing worrying us.

  I want her to tell me she loves me back.

  The last thing I want is games. Especially the kind she's playing.

  "I can't answer for those." I tighten my hand into a fist at my side.

  She ducks low in the water, so quiet, I figure that's the end, and start to walk back.

  "Answer," she orders, the beginning of the word bubbled from under the water.

  "I can't." My brain is frozen on those three choices.

  "Why?" She swims over to the concrete edge, her arms and legs cutting smooth in the pool's icy blue water.

  "Because I can't." I shake my head slowly. "I could have, a while ago. But now things aren't what I thought. They're...things aren't the way they...It's compli--"

  I stop stuttering and look right at her, her face damp and anxious. "You." She grips the edge of the cement hard. My voice is low, just for her. I have to tell her the truth, even if it kills me. She needs to know how I feel, even if it isn't mutual. "Always." She presses her lips together. "My family? Sometimes. My future?" That one gets a laugh that isn't remotely funny and the word that's final as a gavel on the judge's bench. "Never."

  I'm ready to leave. It's done, out there, and it feels like hell, but what else was I supposed to do? I can't fake anything anymore. She changed everything about the way I think about life and love and what I want.

  "Winch!" I turn to look at her. She pushes the hair off both sides of her face and chews on her lip. "Don't go. I can't let you go. Until you hear me out. Hear me out?"

  I haven't moved or made a single sound. I stand still and wait.

  She swallows hard and looks up. "I, uh, I...love you, Winch. I love you."

  Evan 12

  I love him.

  Of course I love him.

  Even when I'm playing stupid games, of course I love him.

  I want him to get back in the pool. I want him to take me into his arms. I want him to tell me he loves me again, and I swear on all that's holy, I won't be a coward this time.

  But he only nods and walks back inside. It's inappropriate for me to feel such total lust mixed in with the heart-squeezing sadness while I watch him walk away, but I do.

  But the lust is fast overpowered by howling, black, ceaselessly pricking regret.

  I'm such a coward. I pull myself out of the pool and shiver and feel embarrassingly exposed, but there's no towel to cover myself with, and I don't feel like going inside to get one. I sit on the edge of the pool and dip my feet in, the water only slightly cooler than the air, but it makes vicious goosebumps prickle stiffly up my legs.

  I wonder if they called him. If he'll go. If he'll come back and say goodbye first. If he does come back, will he tell me he loves me again? He doesn't have to. This weirdness, this badness is all my fault. I'm to blame. For every stupid turn the night took, I'm to blame.

  I never expected him to be so honest, so fearless. I didn't think he'd strip down and make me blush and have sex with me like he was born knowing exactly how to make my body race, then jump headfirst into the pool and my games and professing his love.

  I never, ever expected him to put me in the 'always' category.

  Even if it is only a game.

  Even if it isn't real.

  But isn't every game somewhat real?

  I hold my head in my hands and feel miserable, chilled, slow, low, lonely, used, a million and one empty, clanking adjectives that don't quite put a finger on my loss and sadness.

  The sliding door opens, and I grip the pool edge, waiting. His footsteps come close, and a towel covers my shoulders. "Come in. You look cold."

  "No one called?" I clutch the towel to my chest and crane my neck to look at him.

  "I have no idea. I didn't check." He's dressed, but barefoot, his hair still wet and shiny from the pool water, but lying neatly on his head. "Come in. We can watch TV."

  "I don't want to watch TV," I say, the petulance in my voice immature but unstoppable.

  He's silent. I can see his shadow, cast from the porch light. I can see he's stuck his hands in his pockets.

  "What do you want to do?"

  His voice is calm and even, Winch all buttoned-up again. I had him loose and free, and now I've pushed him back to buttoned-up and unattainable.

  I kick my feet under the water and hold my leg out, stiff and hip-high in front of my body.

  "I think it was that water, that cold water. I think it froze my heart a little. I think that's why I was such a raging bitch."

  "You weren't a bitch."

  Winch always says the right thing, the polite thing. Like a diplomat or something. I wish he'd argue. Growl. Grab me and kiss me hard, because I'd messed up so badly but he loves me. He does. He said it.

  I let the towel slide down off my shoulders and hear the intake of his breath. I know it's just Winch app
reciating my skin, but it makes me feel better. I close my eyes and wish he'd yell at me for being so awful before. But I know that when Winch is really hurt, he goes cold.

  And it's feeling pretty frosty out here.

  "I was a bitch. And I'm sorry. And I'm sad." I tilt my head back and look up at him.

  He looks down at me, and his smile is indulgent, but guarded. He steps forward so his feet are on either side of my body. "Why are you sad?"

  "Because you're dressed." When his smile turns into a chuckle, I push my luck. "But if you got undressed and got in the hot-tub, I'd be warm, so less bitchy, and happy, since naked is kind of a requirement for hot-tubbing."

  "You're that desperate to see me naked?" He moves closer to my side, then sits next to me on the damp cement.

  I walk my fingers to his hand and squeeze. "I may have played down just how spectacular you look. Naked. And otherwise."

  "You freak me out a little when you're being nice, you know that?" He leans forward, and I half-pucker, sure I'm about to be kissed, but he swipes a fingertip gently under my eye and holds it up for my examination. "Eyelash."

  I nod and choke back my raging disappointment. My fault, my fault, my fault. I asked him to open up, he did, I smashed him where he was most delicate.

  "Or, you know, TV would be okay."

  "Blow it." I raise both eyebrows into my hair, and his puzzled look twists into a chuckle. "Uh, not that. The eyelash."

  It’s a little embarrassing that I’m half disappointed.

  "Blow it?" I repeat.

  He holds his finger closer. "Off the tip of my finger. And make a wish."

  I level that little poke of black hair a dubious glance. "You want me to wish on a fallen eyelash? I never would have pegged you for such a romantic."

  "You should stop trying to peg me at all." He gestures with his finger again. "And it's more superstition than romance. Blow and wish."

  My dirty literal interpretation of his suggestion makes the blood run hot and fast all through me. I clutch the towel tighter to my chest, lean forward and pucker for the second time in these last few minutes. I close my eyes and wish, with everything in me, that this night will weave some kind of lasting magic. That we'll wake up with everything figured out, and we'll survive as a couple. That our relationship won't be a tug-of-war or bumper cars or a roller coaster or any other kind of fairground/theme-park analogy my brain can concoct. I blow, but before I can open my eyes, Winch's hand is covering them and his voice softly instructs me to blow again.