I pull out the red handkerchief Cormac gave me, the one I carry around all the time. I thread it through my fingers over and over and I decide to say what I need to say to the only person who can truly understand the one thing I’m scared as hell to utter out loud. “Winch?”
“Yeah?”
“Sometimes…sometimes I want to run away. Forever.”
I hold my breath once the words are out, maybe like I’m expecting the world to open up under my feet or a for a tsunami to jump from the lake and crash over our heads, but there’s nothing except the sound of my brother’s calm breathing and the plop of the bullfrogs, oblivious to our problems.
“It makes sense.” He scoops up some pebbles in his left hand, takes one in his right hand, shakes it three times, throws, and repeats. It’s calming.
“How does it make sense?” I demand.
“How does it not?” He throws four more pebbles before he says another word. “You are the glue, Benelli. More than Mama, maybe, because you bridge the old world she lives in with the new world Pop has to maneuver. And you have to hold the entire universe together. Which is fine when all the pieces are in place. But when they rip apart, the glue has to work harder to hold it all together. And it can’t.” He drops his pile of pebbles and looks right at me, his eyes mirror images of mine. “You can’t. So stop being the glue.”
“Like you? Like how you ran off and left us?” I ask, a cyclone of furious sadness and rage charging through me. “I can’t just give up everything. I can’t just leave the family.”
“I agree.” Winch doesn’t even bat an eyelash over the fact that tears are pouring out of my eyes faster than I can wipe them away, that I’m shaking and on the verge of breaking down.
“What do you mean you agree?” My voice echoes in the quiet night, like the cry of something startled or wounded.
“I mean, I left because leaving what what I had to do. I was a crutch. My staying was allowing Remy to get weaker and weaker, but still play at living. The only choice I had was to stop being the crutch.” He runs a hand over his jaw. “I don’t think you should leave. But I think you’re done being the glue.”
“I don’t like when you talk in metaphors,” I grumble, just to be contrary, just because my head is spinning and I have a feeling my brother, who I secretly thought was a runaway coward, may be the wisest of all of us.
He reaches a long, muscular arm out and drags me close, so I’m wrapped up in his clean, clover smell. And it’s so nice to feel a strong, smart Youngblood man who’s not falling apart, I cling to his shirt and bury my face in his neck.
“Winch, how did it all get so fucked up?” I gasp out.
He pats my hair with one hand and clutches me close in this other arm. “It got fucked up when we played by our parents’ rules. Benelli, there’s no one smarter than you. You’re gonna be the gamechanger this family needs. You hear me? You’re so used to being stuck in the role they put you in, you don’t even see yourself anymore. You know who you are.”
Who I am.
A little girl in a hoodie running away?
A cool-hearted, dolled-up lady during the day and a love-sick sex fiend at night?
Someone who knows lies, someone who keeps secrets, someone who’ll trade happiness for a ring and a promise that may never get fulfilled?
Obedient daughter on the outside, explosive runner on the inside?
“Do you think Pop cheated? Do you think there was anyone else?” I ask, my eyes prickled with a batch of new tears, my breath coming fast.
Winch ducks his head and looks me in the eye, and I know, innately, that I can trust my brother to tell me the truth.
“Our father can be a real bastard. I’ve seen him do heartless things, Benelli, things that changed the way I looked at him forever. But he loves Mama. He loves her with his whole heart, and, as far as I know, he’s never cheated. Never.”
I have so many things to worry about, this should be the last thing I would even contemplating inviting on my plate, but my shoulders, my heart, my soul sags with relief at Winch’s pronouncement.
“Winch, Abony told me that Pop bartered her for connections. He made her a mistress to some powerful guy he pissed off, and sent her to college when he was done.” I bite the inside of my cheek so hard I taste the metallic backwash of blood.
He nods and blows a breath out. “I don’t doubt it. Benelli, there’s a lot of dark in our family. Pop has shielded you from as much as he could, but I think it’s good for you to know. Because a lot of people know shit and bury their heads in the sand. You know I did for years. But you’re stronger than that.”
Winch’s absolute confidence in me is the opposite of reassuring. We walk back from the lake in relative quiet, and I feel knee-jerkingly shaky. I realize what a huge deal my brother leaving was, and I feel like an idiot for blaming our family’s problems on him.
“Benelli?” Winch’s voice shakes me out of my reverie. We’re almost to the coffee shop. He’s looking down at the cobblestones, like he can barely say what he needs to say. After the particular set of confessions this evening, I wonder what could be making him worry. “About the marriage thing?”
I wait while he attempts to collect his thoughts. He looks through the window and we both see Evan, her hand curled around a mug of coffee, her eyes fixed on her phone, the blue light of the screen making her perfect face look, somehow, even more gorgeous.
“You know how you asked about Pop cheating?” Winch says, his eyes never quite leaving Evan. I nod. “Well, I’ve lost a lot of respect for him about a lot of things. But the way he loves her? That’s probably what’s saved him from caving into to every other dark thing in this life.” He rips his eyes away from Evan to look me in the eye, right in the eye, big brother stare-down style. “I don’t know much about how to not fuck up. I’ve fucked up so much. All I can tell you for sure, with no regrets, is that I love that girl. I love Evan every day, every second, and she makes me keep working hard to be a better person, a better man. If you’re gonna be able to do what I think you will for this crazy, fucked-up family, you need somebody. Somebody who’s not a spoiled, entitled, Hungarian mama’s boy, okay? Don’t rush this marriage thing.”
“The business—” I start to object but Winch cuts me off.
“Fuck the business, Beni.” He leans close, his eyes flashing with something I don’t see all that often in my cool and calm brother’s face. It’s passion. “If you never listen to a word I say for the rest of our lives, listen now. Choose love. Don’t take the easy way out. Choose someone who will push you and challenge you. Okay? Do that because that’s what you deserve.”
He kisses my cheek and swings open the door to the cafe. Evan’s head pops up at the sound of the bell’s jingle, and I see a look on her face that squeezes my heart. Her eyes are wide and dark, her lips are curled in a knowing smile, and her entire face and body screams, “I love you! Come over to me!” Winch beelines back to her, and I wouldn’t have been remotely surprised to see sparks ignite between the two of them. The way they touch, they connection they have, the gorgeous perfection of the two of them together makes me want the one person who wants nothing to do with me right now.
I keep walking through the town, and, when I get to Cormac’s apartment, even though I swore I wouldn’t wind up there, the room is dark. It’s too early for him to be asleep, so I know he must be out. This town is small enough that I could find him.
But I’m not that desperate.
I’m not. Nope. Not at all.
Plus that, he’s probably working. He winds up staying with me until all hours of the night, and I know it’s taking a toll on his work. He told me he’d nodded off during notes several days in a row. If he doesn’t keep up with his workload, they’ll cut him loose.
Just when my guilty conscious is making me shake, my phone beeps and I hope it’s Cormac.
It’s not. Exactly.
I read Lala’s text twice: ‘Your pet is off his leash. His tears are a buzzkill and hes
a cock blocker. Save me.’
I rush to the bar where, a few weeks ago, Cormac battered his fists defending me from Akos, and I fight through the bulldozing, elbowing, maddening mid-week crowd to find him, half hanging off the bar, a shot glass about to roll off the side and crash to the floor at his feet. Lala, a grimace spread across her face, throws a casual hand out to catch the glass before it plummets to its doom.
“Thank God you’re here. Please do something about him.” She’s jostling one knee and her left index nail is missing. She follows my sight-line. “I gave up cigs, but I went back to nail biting. Good god, were you jogging again? I need another fucking drink before my fun, rebellious youth dies in front of my eyes.”
She turns back to the bar, and I approach Cormac, who’s studying his shoes with fixed intensity, his skin a particular shade of green usually reserved for movie zombies.
“Hey.” I sit next to him, and his automatic manners solder his spine and force a smile on his face.
“Hello,” he says woozily, his green eyes rolling in his head. “I’m a bish…a bitch…I’m a little drunk.”
“Can you make it home?” I put one hand on his cheek and he closes his eyes and nuzzles my palm, humming softly.
“I think…I could sleep…here.” His head goes heavy and I tip him back onto the bar, noticing the bartender sending a scowl in my direction.
Lala notices, too, and she darts in front of us and uses her breasts to their best, most distracting advantage. It works like a charm, and I have time to text the only person I can think of to help. It sucks that that person happens to be the very last person Lala would want to see. In the chaos of Lala’s intense flirtation with the bartender and my attempts to keep Cormac from rolling off the barstool and cracking his head on the floor, I don’t get a chance to warn her.
Winch walks in and, though he never says a single word, people part on either side for him. My brother’s always had this effect on groups of people; it’s what made him so amazing at keeping our older brother as inline as he managed to keep him for years on end in all kinds of crazy social situations.
I know the instant Lala sees Winch. Her throaty laugh catches in her throat, and the bartender repeats his suggestive question about where she’s staying tonight twice, louder each time, because she’s ignoring him completely.
Winch nods to her once, then comes directly to me and Cormac, even though Lala’s eyes follow him with a mixture of hope and resignation.
“This the professor?” he asks.
My heart skips about nine beats. “How do you know?” I hiss.
“Lala said something in front of Ithaca, and Ithaca’s friends with Evan, who told me. This is a tiny town, little sister. You can’t really expect to keep something like this a secret for long.” He turns his attention to Cormac, laughs, and shakes his head. “If this is gonna be your guy, you need to teach him to handle his liquor, Beni. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone this drunk before.” Winch tilts his head to the side and slaps Cormac’s shoulder. “Hey! Hey, man! Can you hear me? We gotta go home! C’mon.” Winch slides one arm around Cormac and hoists him to his feet.
I run to the other side and try my best to help, but I’m about five inches shorter, so I’m not doing much good. Lala gets up to help, but I shake my head at her to let her know we’ve got him. She flicks a look at Winch, her eyes wide and her mouth tight, then nods. When I look back, she’s leaned over the bar, and the bartender has handed her a cigarette and is holding out a lighter.
The cool night air seems to revive Cormac. He groans. “‘Scuse me, mate,” he slurs. “I need to just go to this side for one quick thing.”
He sits awkwardly on the curb and shakes his head a few times, then squints up at my brother. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“He’s my brother, Cormac. You’ve seen his picture in my room.” I glance at Winch nervously, but he’s not passing any judgment on why Cormac would have been in my room looking through my pictures.
“Ah!” Cormac nods, then holds out a hand. My brother shakes it. “I’m the guy who’s madly in love with your sister, but we need to keep it on the downlow. It’s a first priority secret.”
My brother is attempting not to double over and die of laughter. “Right, man. I got it.”
Cormac stands, not quite straight, but completely unaided. “Thank you.” His voice is semi-sober and sincere as he addresses Winch. “I’m an idiot, and I appreciate you saving me before I poisoned my liver. If you ever need a favor, I am in your debt.” Winch laughs and shrugs, at a loss for words. Cormac turns to me, his green eyes gorgeously bleary and sad. “And you? I drank and drank in a desperate attempt to forget your face. And when I saw it again, I realized that I don’t care how terribly this blows up on me, Benelli Youngblood. I never want to live a day without seeing your face. Do you hear me? Do you understand me? I love you.”
The words shock me. They shock me cold and quiet and stick right in the back of my throat so I can’t swallow or breathe, and I can’t even think.
“And now, my beautiful girl, I’m going home,” Cormac announces.
As he steps of the curb and nosedives.
Winch manages to leap over me and barely catch him before he hits the street.
“Whoa. You almost bashed your brains in!” My brother is having a riot fest.
Cormac looks shaken. “Where the hell did that curb come from?”
“Lead the way, Beni. We need to get this guy home quick.”
We make the slow journey back to Cormac’s, and Winch half-hauls him up the stairs and shoves him on his bed.
“You got this?”
I nod, looking at Cormac’s eyes, half-rolled back in his head.
“He’s cool, you know. I like him.” Winch hesitates in the doorway.
I raise an eyebrow and look down at Cormac, snoring lightly as he nearly rolls off the mattress. I catch him by the shoulder and haul him back toward me.
“This guy?” I point down. “You, Winch Too-Cool Youngblood, think he’s cool?”
“Okay, not like cool like in the obvious way. But he’s straight-up funny. And honest as hell. And…this is weird enough for me to say, considering I’m your big brother and all, but when he looks at you? Beni, that’s love. That’s crazy, stupid, out-of-his-damn-mind love, and it’s got nothing to do with whatever Hungarian moonshine he drank tonight. That’s all about you.”
And, just like that, before I can answer him or ask him a single question or argue or agree, Winch is gone, and I’m left with a seriously drunk guy I might be in love with and the wisdom of my very smart brother’s words in my ears.
In his sleep, Cormac throws an arm out, and his hand lands on my leg. He rubs up and down my thigh and half smiles in his sleep. “Mmm. Benelli,” he murmurs.
My heart jumps cliff dives into the whirpool that is my stomach when I realize the fact I’ve been attempting to ignore, but can’t anymore. I love him.
I straight up love this stupid, crazy, funny, sweet, perfect guy.
I run my fingers over his short, dark hair and wonder what it would be like if he was the one. He’s definitely smart enough for business. He’s loyal enough to stick with my family. He’s hardworking and charming and…
Goofy. And crazily in love with books and reading and translations. And dreamy. And poetic.
My family’s business would hatchet every romantic piece of him and feed the bloody bits to the wolves. He would never survive a Youngblood business deal, even the ones that are completely clean. This business takes a certain knack, a certain disposition, and Cormac doesn’t have it. Not at all.
I get up because I need to keep busy or my thoughts are going to drive me insane. I pull off his shoes and socks, unzip his pants and tug them down, leg by leg. I pull his shirt over his head and admire him in all his lean, muscled glory.
The bright blue numbers on his alarm clock alert me to the fact that it’s late. I should be home in bed, because my parents are coming by in the morning. W
e’re supposed to have a breakfast together.
I lie down on the mattress next to Cormac and run the back of my hand over the scruff that’s starting to grow beyond five o’clock shadow.
“I think I love you,” I whisper. His mouth hangs open and he snores and moans a little.
The image of Winch kissing Evan by the lake flashes through my mind. I want that. I want it so badly.
He got it by turning his back on our family, and now I realize why.
Now that being a Youngblood is forcing me to choose between the family I love and the man I love, I know exactly what my brother felt and why he made the decisions he did.
Why he did what he had to do.
“What kind of family does that?” I ask Cormac’s sleeping form out loud. “How can they love me so much, but not know me? How can I love them so much but be petrified to tell them the one thing I want?” He rolls on his side, his hands searching me out, his arms pulling me tight even in the depths of his drunkenness. “You. What I want is you, Cormac Halstrom.”
It’s late at night, and in a few hours, it will be past the time when I can make it back to my bed undetected. I can stay awake and try to steel my will, keep up my conviction to turn my back on the family I’ve always cherished for this one singular shot at a possible something with Cormac. Or I can do what I have to and go back to the people who’ve done nothing but love and care for me since I was a little girl. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know who to turn to or who to trust or what to think, and I’m scared out of my mind to make a decision either way. And then I realize there’s another option.
I can just fold myself into his arms and sleep. The time will pass. The sky will lighten. And, when day comes, the decision will have been made.
I’ll start my life with Cormac.
I lie down, my back spooned to his chest, and he throws a strong, long arm over my ribs and tugs me tight, so I’m fitted against him, spine to ribs, hair to mouth, feet entwined, netted and woven.
Perfectly Unmatched (A Youngblood Book) Page 17
