Fall Guy

by Liz Reinhardt

  “A misunderstood super hero?” she asks between bites. When I don’t say anything, she presses, “Like Magneto?”

  “You like the X Men?” I try to tone down my total shock.

  I’m aware that there are tons of girls who do like the X Men, but none of my ex-girlfriends ever did. Evan is completely different than any other girl I’ve ever been with in every possible way, and I love it.

  I’m shocked just how much I love it. I thought I knew exactly my type when it came to girls, but it winds up I had no idea. Or maybe I just don’t have a type; because I can’t imagine anyone else like her, and I can’t imagine wanting to be with anyone but her.

  She looks legitimately surprised. “Of course. Everyone likes the X Men.” I remember Lala whining through the last X Men movie we watched and choose to ignore Evan’s inaccuracy and listen to her maniac explanation instead. “Magneto will never be a villain in my eyes. Never. What happened to his mother, what he went through, it made him who he is, and excuses his crimes, I don’t care how extreme they are.”

  It’s a comic book. She’s talking about a comic book, not me, I remind myself as I wrestle with the urge to grab her face and kiss her hard. I can hardly stay in my chair.

  “So you think people can do bad things for good reasons?” I press, and I’m relieved she doesn’t seem to notice how suspiciously anxious I am for her answer.

  “Of course.” She pauses, fries held in midair, thinking it through. “Yes.” She nods, more convinced every second. “It happens all the time. And I’m in no place to judge. I’m always doing stupid things for stupid reasons, and I should know better.”

  I’m twisting her innocent confession and making it into something that applies to me and the idiot decisions I’ve been making for the last few years. The ones even I can’t really come to terms with. She’s talking about Magneto and her little accidental foray into arson.

  This has nothing to do with the lifestyle I live and the sacrifices I have to make and keep making.

  She won’t be able to reconcile with them because even I have a hard time with it, and I have no choice but to do what needs to be done, like it or not.

  Guilt and hopeless frustration rip through me like a wild dog pack on the scent of a kill.

  “You ready to get outta here?” I ask, and she wordlessly sweeps the few scraps of leftover food and garbage into a pile, I throw it out, and we head to the car.

  “Is this date over?” she asks when I have her door open.

  Her feet hang half off the curb and she rocks back and forth, an inch away from me and then into the car interior, an inch closer and then back again.

  “Completely your call.”

  I hold still, one hand on the car door, one on the roof, every nerve tensed to keep from kissing her right into the car, into the backseat, kissing her until it goes a lot damn further than kissing, to a place we can’t get back from.

  She sucks her bottom lip in and chews on it, and I have to hold back a groan, because I want to suck on that lip. I want to suck on her.

  “I want to stay with you longer.” It’s so blunt, she can’t possibly mean for it to be a come on, but I’m so turned on, I’m about to make a dent in my hood from gripping it so damn tight. “I have to be home by midnight or my grandparents will freak out. But that’s hours away. Can we go somewhere?”

  “Yeah. Yes. Of course.”

  I should kiss her. I want to, but this moment is damn close to perfect, and I don’t want to mess with it. So, instead, I get in the car and we go.

  The beach is half an hour away. I’d take her to my family’s rental, but Remington has been stationed there in a Jack-and-pot coma for weeks.

  She interrupts my thoughts, “My grandparents have a house right on the ocean.” I nod and she programs the address in the GPS for me, then warns, “As long as we don’t get crazy, we can hang out there.”

  “I’m not the fire-starter,” I point out, and regret it instantly.

  Nothing like setting everything to rights just to potentially piss her off a second later.

  Her laugh starts out low and deep in her throat and bubbles through the whole car.

  “Accidental fire-starter, asshole.” She punches my shoulder and gives me a glare that’s offset by a wide grin. “At least, lighting the orchard up was an accident.”

  The sound of her laughter makes me comfortable enough to ask. “So, what were you lighting up that night?”

  She presses her hands over her eyes and moans, “It’s too embarrassing.”

  She’s kicked off her boots and peeled off her socks, and now she puts her little feet with their glittery-red-painted toenails on the dashboard.

  I usually have a set-in-stone rule that no one puts anything on my dashboard, especially feet. But, for this girl, I’m willing to make major exceptions.

  “Tell me. I won’t laugh at you,” I promise, watching as she gathers her hair up on top of her head and makes this messy bun.

  “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she singsongs, letting all that hair swirl around her shoulders in long, sexy pieces that brush into the deep v-neck of her shirt and the soft press of her tits.

  “Mine?” I push the pedal to the floor, speeding past the clumps of marsh grass and white sandy dunes, then let up and relax. I need to keep cool, keep my head, but it’s not easy with her around. “Mine isn’t exactly mine. It’s complicated.”

  She picks her foot up and points at me with her toes, making the glitter sparkle.

  “Everything with you is complicated.” I try to smile, but it’s panicky. She really has no idea just how true that is. “Well, I’m an open book. I was burning a pile of crap from my ex-boyfriend. He spent the summers with his grandparents, so I wanted him to see the bonfire and me and really get a handle on what a dumbass he was and what he lost when I dumped his sorry ass. I know, it was totally melodramatic, but I was a little bit drunk and really emotional that night, so I’m not apologizing for it. Anyway, of course, I forgot that he was partying with his stupid friends since he just got out of jail and all. So it was just his grandparents, but his grandfather had put all this pesticide down that morning, and apparently it was super flammable. And I might have been a wee bit drunker than I felt, so I wasn’t any help in putting it out.”

  She covers her face completely with her hands and rolls her head back and forth on the seat back.

  I imagine those old proper biddies waking up in the dead of night to this gorgeous drunk maniac lighting their orchard on accidental fire, and I can’t help laughing, and she laughs behind her hands, and then she drops them and looks over at me, and we’re both laughing like two idiots. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.

  We pull into the driveway of her grandparents’ beach house, and I’m still laughing when I get to her door. She jumps out and half falls into my arms.

  I love the feel of her against me, the long line of her back and the soft curve of her ass.

  Suddenly we’re not laughing anymore.

  “Your eyes are like blueberries,” she says and brushes her fingers over my eyebrow.

  “Do you write sonnets?” I test pulling her closer, and she moves my way, standing in her bare feet on the toes of my boots.

  “I’ll write one for you. And come to your window. And read it underneath. Where do you live?”

  Her voice is a hushed whisper, tugging at something wild in me that I’ve been keeping on a tight leash up til now.

  “I…it’s complicated,” I fumble.

  She pushes her mouth close to mine and runs her hands up and down my back, first on top of my shirt, then underneath. My skin jumps under her hands and my breath holds fast in my lungs.

  “What isn’t complicated with you, Winchester Youngblood?”

  Her mouth reaches up to mine, and the taste of her kiss is as slow and hot as a long swig of grappa. My hands are at her waist, a safe place to stay while her tongue twines with mine in a rhythm that makes me want to grind against
her.

  It’s safe, but I start to hate safe when there’s so much of her I want to know, need to touch. The burnt sugar smell of her makes my head spin and my entire body freak into overdrive. I try to keep it calm, but I’m powerless against the pull of her.

  I move my hands up slowly, matching the sweet slide of her tongue on mine, and my fingers dip in at the small of her back, climb along the indent of her spine, press through all her unbelievably soft hair, and rest on the twin juts of her shoulder blades, pulling her closer.

  She licks and sucks at my lips, and I back her to the outside wall of the house, pull her up into my arms, let her wrap her legs around my waist, and balance her with my hands spread under the curve of her ass.

  She pops her mouth away from mine and rubs her lips on my neck, drags them along my jaw, and brushes them against my ear, where she whispers, “Winch.”

  Her voice is a plead, a command, an invitation.

  I press my forehead to her shoulder and squeeze her tight, about to answer every single one of her needs and all of mine, too, when I hear the one sound I loathe.

  “Fuck me,” I mutter.

  “What is it?” Evan asks, her voice ragged from panting, and so sexy it’s a blitzkrieg on my nerves.

  The tone plays again. The Animals, “House of the Rising Sun.” Remington’s ringtone.

  “It’s my brother.” I can hear how flat and harsh my words sound, and I see Evan’s eyes widen in surprise.

  “You should answer,” she suggests, unhooking her legs from my waist and stepping out of the circumference of my arms.

  I bite my tongue, because fuck my brother. Fuck my phone. Fuck the fact that I have to call him back. She doesn’t realize that tonight’s over. This is over. She doesn’t realize how much I want her, and how impossible it is for me to choose her.

  It’s been a long time since I contemplated choosing anything over Remington, and there’s a bitter taste in my mouth over that fact.

  I stare at the phone in my hand until it goes quiet, then grit my teeth and say, “I’m so fucking sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am. But I have to take you home now.”

  She eyes the phone with a frown.

  “Okay. But maybe you should call him back. Maybe it’s no big deal? We’re all the way out here.”

  She gestures to the house with her hand, and I imagine what it would be like to throw my fucking phone into the waves and take her hand, go into that house, talk her into skipping curfew, peel her clothes off, make her moan and yell my name, stay with her all night, wake up with her in my arms.

  Maybe my plan for the night is nothing but a longshot and an overall pretty bad idea, but now that I know this date is irrevocably over, I let myself imagine the night the way it would have gone in my perfect world.

  Except my world is never close to perfect. Ever.

  I run my hands through my hair and try to explain, but there’s too much to say. “It’s com—”

  “—plicated,” she finishes for me. Her lips curve up in a smile, but her eyes are disappointed. “Can you drop me at my car?”

  “Shit. Your car is all the way back at the site.”

  I stare at the phone in my hand. As if it’s taunting me, it rings again.

  “Sorry. You could drop me at my grandparents’ house. It’s closer.”

  She crosses her arms over her stomach and shifts anxiously on her feet.

  “It’s not that. I just…this is our first date, and I’m not even gonna drop you at your door? Sorry. Can’t happen. C’mon. Get in. I’ll drop you at your car and follow you back.”

  She leans her head back and laughs, not an entirely happy sound.

  “Winch, are you serious? I’ve driven home by myself a million times. I appreciate it, but this date has been kind of fucked up. Let’s just let it end that way. And, seriously, it’s not that big a deal. Okay?” Before I can answer, my phone rings again. “And please answer. You’re ruining that song for me forever, and it’s a great song.”

  She slides into the passenger seat and puts on her big sunglasses, totally unnecessary since the sun is low on the horizon, but it masks whatever is going on behind her eyes.

  I take the call, my voice clipped and short on the greeting, and wince at the rushed, slurred words on the other end.

  It’s worse than I thought, and I have no business pushing my luck in this situation, but I have her in the car, and I have to see her home, then leave, much as it kills me.

  It’s going to be a long fucking night.

  Evan 5

  “And then what?” Brenna’s voice circles around becoming a scream of pure, sickening frustration.

  And it’s just about to get more screamy and frustrated, because the end of my story would make any rational person fly into a throw-down, fall-out tantrum.

  It’s the kind of crazy that makes me want to wrap my arms around her so we can scream together until our voices are hoarse, then split a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk and a bottle of something strong and sweet and brain-dumbing.

  “And then he walked me to the door, gave me this little peck, his goddamn, piece of shit, idiot-ass fucking phone rang again, and he told me he had to go.”

  I sigh and flop back on my bed. Perfectly made. My closet has been micro-organized. All my homework is done. I reorganized my freaking nail polish drawer. Because I need to keep busy. Because—

  “So he hasn’t called?” Brenna lets out some kind of adorably guttural sound that walks the line between a sigh and a vicious growl. “It’s been a week. Is he insane? Does he think you’re just going to sit around in your room waiting for his call?”

  “Honey, I am sitting in my room waiting for his call.”

  I pace over to my computer chair, fall into it, and twirl faster and faster, until I’m completely disoriented and woozy.

  “Can’t you go out? I wish we lived closer.” This particular lament of Brenna’s gets repeated at least twice a week, and I would kill for the ability to get into a time/space phone booth and whisk myself to her every time she says it. “We would have the most amazing girl date and wear our sexiest things and shake our fine asses…and we’d put pictures of our hot young selves all over Facebook! Still nothing on that front?”

  I stop spinning and pluck a picture of her and me getting ready to go dancing in Ireland off my vanity mirror. We look so carefree and fun-loving in our tiny, tight dresses and fuck-me shoes. I had no idea on that sweet summer night so many months ago that I’d leave Brenna and come back to some prim, stick-up-its-ass school brimming with bitchy girls I would never want to get to know, a criminal record, and a demolished social life.

  “He’s a ghost. If he even has an account, he’s unsearchable, and I have no clue how else I could possibly connect to him. I have no idea who any of his friends are, where he goes to school. Or college. Is he in college?” If pure humiliation could be expressed in a single sound, that sound would be my groan. “How do I always manage to get to the sticking-my-tongue-down-their-throat-stage without getting basic information first?”

  “Because you’re more of a romantic that you like to pretend.”

  “Or more of a slut,” I sigh.

  “Don’t call yourself a slut. It’s degrading. Plus that, a slut wouldn’t care who the hell she kissed and left. She’d be on to the next guy already. You, my love, are a romantic,” Brenna clucks, her voice marinated in triumph. Brenna is the patron saint of romance, and she holds herself proudly accountable for what she perceives as my conversion. “So, what’s the plan, babycakes? Because sulking is totally unacceptable. One thousand percent. Who can you call? Where can you go?”

  “No one. Nowhere.” I flick a chip of nail polish off my fingernail and let one tiny, baby, secret tear wobble in a makeup-tinged streak down my cheek. “This is what I deserve. I drove everyone crazy and got in trouble. I shouldn’t be cruising with some hot guy. So hot. So freaking hot.”

  Brenna’s laugh is the chocolate fudge, whipped cream, and double cherry on t
op to the sad vanilla boringness of my life.

  “Stop that right now. You got carried away, but you don’t have a mean bone in your gorgeous body, okay? I’m not going to hear you sulk. There must be somewhere you can go. I hate that you’re so sad…oh no! You’re in your school uniform aren’t you?”

  I actually swivel my neck checking to see if Brenna had some sort of video camera set up to spy on me.

  “School just got out a few hours ago,” I mumble.

  “Get out of that polyester horror! Now!” Brenna’s bark is all fashion-drill-sergeant-strict, and it kicks my ass into disrobing action. When I’m down to my underthings, I actually do feel better. Brenna’s voice dictates through the phone. “It’s like I can hear your mood improving already. Okay, you need a bitching outfit. Wear the stiletto boots. You know the ones. Pair them with something soft and sweet. And I don’t care what you do or where you go, but you need to get out!”

  She sighs, and I can picture her leaning her elbows on her windowsill, gazing dreamily at the road where her sexy boyfriend Jake will roar down in his big truck and take her…somewhere terrible like the bowling alley or on a hike. I’m instantly overwhelmed with guilt for crying over my sorry life when Brenna has to live in the backwoods of rural New Jersey.

  “Okay, hun. I’m laying an outfit for tonight on the bed right now. And, oh! I just remembered that Granddaddy asked me to come with them to some art gallery opening. I think it will be boring, and I was feeling too depressed to say yes, but I can get all dressed up and be fabulous for a little while, I guess.”

  The dress is made of silky panels of bright paisley, and I picked it up on a shopping trip in Venice with my mother just before she jetted off to her fabulous Cabo mansion with her new boyfriend.

  It stings that she isn’t around, but my mother had been perching right on the edge of leaving for good since I was about fourteen. Honestly, it’s a shock she lasted as long as she did.

  “You make my heart happy! Send me pictures,” Brenna trills ecstatically before letting me go so I can get ready.

  I let Granddaddy and Gramma know I’m coming along and try not to feel too pathetic about their incredibly joyful, lit-up-like-jack-o-lantern faces when they realize I actually want to leave the house.