Fall Guy

by Liz Reinhardt

“Winch,” I say and stick my hand out. “We’ve never really introduced ourselves, right? Everyone calls me Winch.”

  She nods and smiles, then grabs my hand and gives me a handshake that would make any hardcore CEO proud.

  “Evan. Nice to meet you.”

  I don’t want to let go of her hand. It feels tiny in mine, and the skin is ridiculously soft. I’m dying to know what those hands would feel like in places I better stop thinking about if I’m going to make it a few more hours with her.

  And suddenly I realize the full extent of how stupid I acted. Because I never managed to just keep my damn cool, I went from kind of hitting on her to being a total tool. And now we’re at some kind of shaky friend level when the only thing I needed to do was keep things distant.

  So much for that plan.

  “Winchester.” I love the sound of my name from her mouth. “I’ve never met anyone with Winchester as a first name.”

  She perches her fine painted ass on the ladder and slides the paint brush along the edge of the ceiling with careful, even strokes.

  “My grandparents made their money in illegal arms dealing.” I finish the wall I’ve been working on and move to the next one.

  I expect the mandatory girly scoff or for her to ask if I’m serious, but instead she says, “My family made most of their startup money during Prohibition.”

  My lips tug up at the corners in reaction to what I know other people probably don’t notice about her.

  “Evan Williams Black Label is my mother’s favorite bourbon,” I tell her and watch the color slide over her cheekbones and up to the roots of her dark hair.

  “Yeah. That.” She laughs, a cool, loose sound. “I tell people Evan is a family name, and it is. But it didn’t come from my grandma. It actually came from what my dad poured for everyone in the waiting room when I was born.”

  Swapping family stories is a fucking slippery slope, and I know better. But the words slide out before I can remind myself of all the reasons why I should hold them back.

  “It’s a good bourbon. My mom always says it’s under-appreciated, and she knows her whiskey.”

  Her smile is warm and smooth as a shot kicked back on a hot night, and it loosens my tongue the same way the drink would.

  I tell her a little piece of my history I’ve never shared with anyone outside my family before. “My mother said she stared at my father’s Winchester revolver the entire time she was in labor, and thought about getting it off the wall and shooting him with it a few times. I was a ten pound baby.”

  Her laugh this time is brighter and a little too loud.

  “Ten pounds! Your poor mother. No wonder she wanted to shoot your dad. How did they get a gun into the hospital?”

  She moves a shiny, dark strand of hair away from her face with the back of her wrist.

  “I was born at home. All of us were. My family is kind of old school that way, and they all hate hospitals.”

  I’m done painting this wall, but I have a really nice view of her back and the curve of her neck. I have a weakness for girls’ necks. Evan’s is perfect, long and graceful, and I have this insane urge to bury my nose at the crook and breathe in deep. I wonder if she’d moan if I kissed her there.

  “All of you? How many Youngbloods are there?”

  She looks over her shoulder and gives me a smile that’s less toothy than the one she tricked the officer with and way wider and sweeter than the one she threw me a little while ago. It knocks the wind back down my throat.

  I recover in time to strangle out an answer.

  “The world is crawling with Youngbloods, and all the worst ones are related to me. But as far as siblings go, I’m one of five.”

  “Five.” She tilts her head to one side. “Are you the oldest?”

  I shake my head.

  This is detailed. This is already more than I tell anyone outside our circle. But this community service is only a few weeks long at the most. Evan and I don’t cruise any of the same places or have any similar friends. The only place we’ll ever connect is at this site, so why not? Why not let her get a peek behind the infamous Youngblood family curtain? I’m so used to protecting this information at all times, it feels traitorous to share. It’s also a little like a weight’s being lifted off my back, like I’m not burdened with every single asinine family secret they demand I keep.

  It feels good.

  “I’m second oldest. Remington, my brother, is a year older. Benelli, my little sister, is two years younger than me, and the twins are Colt and Ithaca. They’re five years younger.” I roll extra paint on the wall that’s already completely coated. “You?”

  “I came after three miscarriages, one stillborn, and probably a good half a million in fertility treatments. Once they had me, they called it quits.” She wipes her hands on her jeans absent-mindedly, leaving light blue finger smears at her hips. “Um, it looks like we’re almost done in here. Wanna look busy when the officers come around and stretch this out?”

  She takes a little pot of lip stuff out, spreading it on her sexy lips with the tip of her finger, using slow strokes that make my mouth dry up.

  Did I want to spend all day in a sweltering little government building painted dirty-sky blue, smelling paint fumes so strong they were making my head spin?

  If Evan Lennox was with me, then answer was a clear and definite ‘hell yeah.’

  Evan 3

  I had a hard time falling asleep the next Friday night.

  That was never a problem before I moved in with my grandparents, because I was usually so blitzed after beginning my Friday drinking binge during last period study hall, that, by the time night came, if I was even aware that it was night, I was so out of my mind sleep wasn’t a conscious thing. I knew I’d fall onto some couch or bed or pillow on the floor and black out until I woke up to a huge hangover, cured by a long day at the beach wearing dark sunglasses, nursing Bloody Marys while I got a nice, toasty tan, and letting the crash of the waves dull my pounding headache.

  But I’d cleaned up my act after the arrest, and now my Friday nights are all about laundry, homework, painting my toenails, cleaning my room, cleaning underneath my laptop keyboard with Q-tips…if I didn’t deserve every boring second plus a million more, I’d feel pretty damn sorry for myself.

  But there is one bright spot in my week.

  The irony of my situation doesn’t escape me. The girl who used to be the life of the wildest parties, now excited to go to community service?

  But, of course, it’s not nearly as wholesome and simple as it sounds.

  I get out of the shower early Saturday morning and dress in a hurry. I pull out the pair of jeans with the blue backside, turn them in my hands, and contemplate the person I’ve been looking forward to seeing all week long.

  The crackling paint is a dirty sky blue, so far from the deep blue of Winch’s eyes, it seems impossible they’re in the same color realm. No amount of scrubbing would get that paint out, and Gramma is completely perplexed about why I don’t just toss them.

  “Sweetie, they are useless. I wouldn’t even want you to work in the garden in them.” She shakes her head and clucks her tongue at the stain Winchester Yougblood delivered with his paint roller while I run a hand over that crackly blue dried paint and resist the urge to smile like a fool.

  I pop a kiss on her cheek to hide my grin.

  “Gramma, when do I ever work in the garden? I’m doing this community service thing for weeks, though. It’s probably not a bad idea to have a pair of work pants for next time.”

  Even work demands style, as far as my Gramma is concerned.

  “Bad enough they have you doing all that work when we pay taxes to feed and support the incarcerated while they laze around like they’re living in the lap of luxury. They should be giving this heavy labor to the criminals and letting you kids volunteer with the arts or at schools or religious institutions. It’s ridiculous. And if you have to go, you can at least look clean and neat.”

&nbs
p; Her silver bob sways forward and backward with her nod of conviction.

  I put on a clean pair to mollify her, kiss her and Granddaddy, and fly to my car, ready for the day, eager as a kid at athe beach ignoring the burn of the hot sand on her feet in her haste to get to the waves.

  Eager for a day of muscle-tiring, bone-deep, ache-inducing labor in some old dump.

  With Winch.

  Brenna texts me.

  Brenna: Ready for your date with criminally hot McHottie?!?! Get it?! It’s a pun! Get it?

  Me: You’re such a dork. And don’t be a halfwit. I told you about the guy at the park.

  Brenna: I can smell a lie, miss! Are you rushing to see him NOW? Sweaty palms? Butterflies in your stomach?

  Me: Can’t text. About to drive.

  Brenna: LOL!! I KNEW IT!!

  I pull in at the dilapidated building that is looking much less dilapidated with every hour of work we chisel into it, and I feel puffy-chested with pride. I’d accomplished things before; written papers, completed projects, aced exams. But I’d never worked with my hands, turning something ugly into something gorgeous using my own sweat and talent. Well, using a ton of criminals’ sweat and my very limited-but-slowly-increasing talent.

  When I walk in, the officer in charge, Officer Rannick, points me in the direction of one of the rooms we’d painted last week.

  “They refinished the floors and the precinct had some file cabinets sent over. Unfortunately, they tipped some of the drawers out. They’re letter labeled. You just need to fish though the files and put the correct ones in, back in order.”

  “Okay.” So today will be an easy day compared to the grueling grind of last week. I go through the door and my eyes nearly evacuate their sockets. “Oh shi…z,” I amend as Officer Rannick frowns.

  “Go ahead. You can handle it.”

  She opens the door wider, and I stumble into a roaring, heaping, sliding typhoon of papers that goes up to my knees and has absolutely no rhyme or reason that I can decipher. My eyes race a circuit around the cluttered, paper-filled room, and I feel like I’ve been buried in sand up to my neck, weighed down by the millions of individual grains.

  But, if I’m going to be balls-to-the-wall honest with myself, this never-ending deluge of paper spiraling in every direction isn’t what makes my heart drop.

  Winchester isn’t here.

  I edge a pile of documents aside with my toe and consider that he might just be late. I put my back to a huge filing cabinet and push off with my feet to move it and rationalize that maybe last week was just a fluke. There is no reason to expect we’d be assigned together every single time.

  The cabinet slides against the wall and gives me a tiny square of space to work in, and I pick up a few manila folders and put them back down, shuffle some papers into a heap, and stare at the never-ending, impossibly overwhelming whirlpool threatening to suck me down. I put my hand to my mouth, praying I won’t turn sissy, cry my eyes out, and make all my lovingly applied eye makeup roll down my face.

  A light knock at the window glass makes me jump and skid on the files and folders, and I can’t help the upswing in my heart when I see his face, all soft blue eyes and wry smile.

  I throw up the sash and say, “Hey, slacker. You having a picnic out there?”

  “I’m on weeding duty.” He leans in and looks around, making an eyeball pitstop on me that fine-tooth-combs from the top of my hair to my glitter-red-painted toenails. “I thought I had it bad today. They stuck you with some crazy pile of shit.”

  “I agree. At least I’m not in the heat.”

  Not that the stuffy little room with its tiny, rusty fan is much better than being outside under the blistering sun. And not saying I wouldn’t be happy to sweat under said blistering sun if I had Winchester Youngblood to keep me company.

  After our paint fight last week, the hours we spent together slipped by too fast, and by the end, I felt like a little kid regretting the dip of the sunset at the reluctant end of a perfect day.

  It was clear he was attracted to me, sneaky as he thought he was with all those long looks he threw my way when he assumed I wasn’t looking, like he was a big bad wolf and I was some fairytale character flouncing on his path. But I could also feel that he was pulling back, trying to stomp that out. And that’s why I let my temper cool when he acted like such a lowlife douchebag. Once I thought about it, I realized it was all an act and wondered why.

  And the only answer that makes sense is that he felt a spark between us, and it scared him.

  But nothing scares me. Not since I fucked every single thing in my life up anyway. What do I have to be scared about?

  Well, maybe he scares me a little. I have a shitty track record with guys, and there is this gnawing fear that this is just another potential disaster, which is why I lied to Brenna. Or tried to lie to Brenna. But that little prickle of fear isn’t enough to keep me from hurling myself towards this whole potential craziness with complete abandon.

  It feels scarily good to freefall when I’m with Winch. I’ve been treading carefully for months now, and it goes against my natural grain. Winch is someone who makes me happy to attempt dipping my toe into crazy waters of possible romance again.

  “I don’t mind working out here.” He jerks a thumb at the ground, choked with weeds. “I’ll hammer this out in no time. My grandfather used to make us weed as punishment when we were kids. I got pretty damn quick.” He glances around at the hills and valleys and oceans of paper and files on every surface of the floor. “You’re gonna be swamped. Wanna hand when I’m done?”

  “Are you implying that you need to do my work and yours?”

  I lean out the window, and our faces are so close I can see the starbursts of navy around his pupils.

  He twines a piece of my hair around his finger. He tries to look nonchalant, but the tight draw of his lips hints at all the tension he’s working to hide. His voice drops and he leans his face so close to mine, I can smell the sweet mint on his breath.

  “I’m implying that if I have to kill myself to get through this damn weeding so I can come inside and spend the day with you, it would be cool if you’d let me.”

  And there it is. The pull that always dances my way and yanks me tight after any push. Last week started out all about distance but eventually slid us closer, and this week seems to be about nothing but closing until there’s no space left between us at all.

  I take the reins and hold tight so my voice doesn’t flutter too much.

  “I will be cool and let you, as long as you don’t get in my way.”

  He takes a ballcap out of his back pocket and pulls it low over his eyes, and I tip the bill up with my finger and watch the smile commandeer the bottom half of his face.

  “Work fast,” I whisper.

  “Will do. And I’m not making any promises about staying out of your way. I never had any fun at these community service things before you came around. You can’t ask me to avoid the only person I actually like hanging out with.”

  He picks up a rake that someone left tossed on the ground and leans against it, the pull of his tanned muscles setting my mouth to water.

  But it’s his words that make my heart boomerang. It’s all casual right this minute, but maybe it’s the first taste of something more, something exciting.

  “You know, you don’t have to go breaking the law if you want to spend time with me. Most guys just ask me on a date. Not that I always accept.”

  I prop my elbow on the sill and hold my chin in my hand, batting my lashes with intense suggestion.

  His spine snaps up and the dark blue of his irises deepens closer to black. “I better get to work or I’ll be out here all day.”

  I watch him rush toward the far end of the plot he needs to weed, as I smother the huff of indignation pressing against my lips.

  I pick up a few files, and determine that I will tackle one paper at a time, no matter how long, hard, and grueling it is. While I sort Abbots from Babcocks, I a
lso work very hard to keep my mind from wondering why Winchester didn’t take me up on my offer.

  I tend to be the kind of girl who lets whatever’s on my mind explode out and ignite whatever’s around me, which accounts for some of my recent trouble. I just can’t let things sit. I could sooth my ego and tell myself that he was just being shy, but a guy as good-looking and charming as Winchester Youngblood doesn’t have a shy cell in his brain.

  I glance out the window. His shirt is already getting soaked with sweat and clings tight to his shoulders, showing off the lean curl of his back as he heaves weeds out of the dirt with rapid, almost frantic yanks.

  Because it’s hot outside and he wants to finish quickly.

  Or because he wants to finish quickly and come in to help me.

  Then why the hell not ask me on a date? I sort through a whole slew of Babcocks with half an eye before I find some Conways and make a neat stack, A, B, C. Maybe I misread the signals, as usual.

  Suddenly I wonder if the most obvious reason is getting tossed to the side like mental junk mail: maybe he has a girlfriend.

  That would be a game stopper because I would never even run my finger over home-wrecker territory. My best friend, or the-bitch-I-thought-was-my-best-friend-before-I-met-Brenna-and-realized-what-that-term-actually-means, screwed my ex-boyfriend just before he and I broke up.

  I slam the few files I’ve culled into the drawer with a crash that shakes the entire metal structure and wonder if I still hate her more than I realize. I caught her and him together, and seeing the two of them having sex made it feel like she drugged me, cut my heart out with a scalpel, took a bite, and sewed it back in. Rabin was such a bastard, and I was almost waiting for him to crush me. But Mackenzie? I’d opened up to her more than most people in my life.

  Letting her get close had been one of my biggest mistakes, but I refuse to let the way she hurt me shape how much I open up to other people. Brenna helped me get over what Mackenzie had done and wound up being one of the best people to ever come into my world.

  I believe in jumping over past hurts and letting love in. I try to believe, anyway, and am trying, even as images of Mackenzie and Rabin flash through my head and cause me to slam another drawer closed.