“And I’m afraid for Andre, you know?” I add, even though I know I’m just being an irrational ass. Evan nods and I keep talking, filling the silence with all my usually-bottled-up confessions. “Why the hell didn’t he take the damn money? He’d be in art school now, not suited up for boot camp. He’s tough and all, but I don’t know if he’s cut out for all of that.”
“I hear you.” She wraps an arm around my waist and squeezes.
“And I’m scared for Benelli. Ithaca basically told us all how she had some guy, someone she loved that she gave up on. What if he’s the one, you know? I can’t imagine giving up on the one. I’d be lost without you.”
Evan rubs her face on my arm and kisses my bicep, sighing deeply.
“Am I crazy for worrying about all this?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “You worry because you care about them. You care because you’re an amazing person. But I think you should have a little faith in them. You guys are strong people, you know? And you all have to fight your own battles. No one could have done this for you, Winch. You had to decide to fight for us and your future, even though it was hard. Your brothers and sisters will all have to make their own decisions, too. And live with them.” She nestles down next to me. “And I’ll be around. I can always stop by and help if anyone needs it. I’ll keep an eye on them.”
Her saying that makes my heart thump kick-drum loud in my chest. Even after all the hell my family put her through, Evan still offered to help them. For me. I love her for that. I love her for a million reasons, but I especially love that.
“I love you, you know that?” I turn and kiss the top of her head.
She moves closer to me. “You better,” she says around a long yawn. “I love you, too.”
She’s asleep before I can communicate any more worries, so I just let them all run through my brain, sharp and real, sad and bittersweet. And, even though it hurts to do it, I’m glad. I’m glad I can feel it all and let it go, let it move on and not control my life.
I glance down at the phone balanced on my thigh. It doesn’t ring anymore. I had the number changed and, for a while, I just didn’t give it to anyone. By the time I leaked it out, the people who’d tried to call while I was unavailable found other sources, and my family had already been informed that I wasn’t available to respond to their every beck and call anymore.
The end of that life isn’t easy to accept. It had been mine for so long, it had become comfortable to me. I understood who I was and how I belonged, even if I didn’t like it.
Now?
There’s so much risk, so much to lose. I’m not the one who’s going to fix everything, I won’t be the hero who comes by and sweeps up everyone else’s messes. My life as a fall guy is getting put further behind me every single day, and it’s time I live on my own terms, make and clean up my own messes, have my own adventures.
It feels freeing and, at the same time, a little fucking scary to live without any more excuses. To live freely. To live my own life, my own way.
Evan lifts her drowsy head when we’re ten minutes away from my new place. She looks around sleepily and says, “It looks like the ghetto.”
My laugh is nervous in my own ears. “I have to live on a pretty small amount of money for a while.”
“Why didn’t you just take the money your parents offered you?” she asks, no accusation in her voice.
I flip my eyes from my GPS to the half-falling-down street signs that mark the roads. “Youngblood money always comes with strings attached, Evan. You know that.”
When we pull up at the apartment, she inhales in a sharp, worried breath. “Winch. Are you sure about this?”
I get out of the truck, walk around to open her door, and let her step into my arms. I kiss her forehead, then move my mouth down to her lips. “Just for a little while,” I say, low, just for her ears. “Just til I get a good job. I’m gonna do it, you know. I’m gonna move on and up before you know it. I swear.”
“I know that,” she says, her lips close to mine. “I believe in you.”
That’s all I need to hear.
I keep those words in my head as we open the door to my apartment and notice the scuttle of small brown bugs. Evan screams and pushes me back out into the street and we drive to the closest hardware store and pick up roach spray, scrub brushes, rubber gloves, buckets, soap, a whole bunch of cleaners, and lots of bleach.
When we come back, Evan starts to go to work like a maniac, scrubbing and spraying every surface she can reach, opening all the windows, and double scrubbing when she’s done. I bring in box after box and admire the sweet curve of her ass as she scrubs low down by the avocado fridge.
“Are you checking out my ass?” she asks over her shoulder.
I’m kneeling down to open a box, but I turn towards her. The place is so small, the kitchen is pretty much located in the living room, blocked by one long counter with chipped laminate. I move her way, until I’m right behind her, hands on her hips, bent low to kiss her neck. The sound of her moan rattles through me.
“I’m totally checking out your ass,” I assure her. “I’m always checking you out.”
She glances at me over her shoulder, her eyes wide and her lower lip caught between her bottom teeth. My hands go tight on her hips and I press closer to the curve of her ass.
“So, is all this ‘woman scrubbing your house on her hands and knees’ turning you on?” Her eyes narrow, and I see the spark of passion that I love so much in her.
“I like my woman to know her place,” I tease, and, when she tries to turn and slap at me, I slide my hands up her shirt, along the soft, smooth skin of her stomach, and under the sweet swell of her tits. I lean over her, my chest pressed to her back, my lips brushing up and down her neck.
“You’re a chauvinist pig,” she says, her voice hitched on a gasp.
“I’m your chauvinist pig,” I correct. “Would you like to christen this apartment with your chauvinist pig boyfriend?”
I pull down on the lacy fabric of her bra until her nipples poke out, hard under my fingers. I press tighter against her and she turns in my arms, kissing my mouth.
“This apartment is still filthy,” she says, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not doing it on this floor.”
Her hand runs down the front of my pants and rubs my dick through the fabric of my jeans. I grind my teeth and work my hands faster, unclasping her bra, pressing her shirt up, flicking open the button on her shorts and yanking the zipper down.
“There must be somewhere clean enough.” I kiss her neck and down her shoulder, stretching her pressed-up shirt to the side.
“There’s nothing, Winch. The only things I cleaned so far are the cabinets and the counter. We didn’t even bring the mattress in or go over the bedroom at all.”
Her body against mine makes my brain go cloudy, and all I can focus on is the word ‘counter.’ I lift her up so her legs are snug around my waist, and drop her on the scrubbed-down countertop.
“Winch,” she whispers, glancing around and biting her lip. “We can’t just do it on the counter.”
I’m busy kissing her perfect neck, working her thin shirt over her head, throwing her bra to the side. “It’s super clean,” I answer. “I watched you scrub it down with, like, eight different cleaners.”
“It’s not the cleanliness thing. It’s just…oh. Oh, please do that…again.”
I’m not sure if she’s talking about the way I just sucked her nipple into my mouth or the stroke of my thumb against the wet slide of her clit, but I do both again because she asked so sweetly and I love making her happy. She wraps her arms tight around my shoulders, moaning and breathing heavy for a minute, before she backs up and rips my shirt over my head, then reaches down to undo the button on my jeans, her breathing quick and raspy.
I pull my hand out from the leg of her shorts and she whimpers in protest. “I thought you didn’t want to do this,” I tease her.
She sucks a quick breath through her teeth and l
ifts her hips so I can slide her shorts and tiny thong down her legs.
“Um, shut up and ignore what I was saying.” She shivers when her skin touches the countertop. “It’s cold.”
I pull her, naked and so damn beautiful, to the edge of the countertop and closer to me.
“No worries,” I say low against her ear before I press a trail of sucking kisses down along her jaw. “I’ll warm you up.”
My hands run up her thighs, and she reaches down to grab my dick and pull with long, smooth strokes of her hand. I slide my fingers up until I’m in her, wet and hot, and she moves fast against my hand, slick and ready for me.
She presses one hand hard between my shoulder blades and tugs me to her until we’re an inch away. I grab for the back pocket of my jeans, falling off my hips fast, and tear out a condom.
“I want you now,” she pants, legs spread, the hand on my back digging into my skin.
“Right now? Right on this countertop?” I ask, fitting myself against her.
She opens her half-closed eyes and pulls my mouth down to hers. “Anywhere. Everywhere. Whenever. Just you. Always you—ooh…” Her words chase a moan because, with one quick thrust, I’m deep in her, pressing against her, holding her close, kissing her so I can taste her and catch the vibration of the jumbled words she’s moaning and calling out.
“Evan,” I say, my voice low, my hands dragging across her soft skin. “Come for me, baby. Come on me.”
She bites her lips and arches back, and I slide my fingers against the wet, ready bead of her clit in a light, quick press-and-pull until her breathing turns to gasps and she gets hotter and wetter against my dick.
“Come for me,” I tell her. She lifts her hips and pulls me closer with her long legs, until our bodies are pressed tight and she’s grinding against me.
“Now,” she moans. One hand flies to my chest and she braces against me as her back arches and her legs squeeze tight. “Now, now, now, Winch now!” She shudders against me, her face pressed hard into my neck, her hands fisted in my hair.
I rock against her a few more times, and it’s all I can do to hold on that long before I let go and free fall, losing it all with her.
“Evan, goddamn, Evan, I love you so much,” I manage to get out, and then I switch to Hungarian and say all kinds of things that I want her to know.
That I love her, that I want her, that I’m never going anywhere, that she and I are going to last. That this is real. That it’s forever.
She takes a few shuddering breaths and pulls back slightly, her lips grazing my cheek.
“Why do you do that?” she asks.
“Do what?” I take a deep breath, enjoying the smell of her skin and sex over the harsh stench of bleach.
“Speak another language. During sex. You always do it during sex.” She runs her hands up and down my neck and rubs her nose against my jaw, breathing in with long, deep breaths.
“I, uh, say the things I don’t know if you’re ready to hear yet in Hungarian. All the things I feel about you, but, you know, I don’t want to scare you with them. So I just say them in Hungarian.” I pull back gently and take the condom off, get my pants back on, and hand her her clothes.
She hooks her bra, and I take one last look at those perfect tits before they’re covered in all that lace.
“So, what did you say tonight? I don’t mind you speaking Hungarian. Honestly, it’s pretty damn sexy. But I want to know everything. There’s no way you can scare me away, Winch.” She hops into her thong and shorts and pulls her shirt over her head.
“Just plans. For us. For our future.” I keep it vague, because I know I can do it, but it scares the crap out of me sometimes. How much I want. How much it will suck if it doesn’t happen. If I can’t make it happen.
“Tell me,” she coaxes, pressing hard against me and wriggling, just like she knows will drive me crazy.
“Not yet,” I tell her, kissing her hard. “But soon.” And I hold her in the middle of my new place just before I start going to school to learn my new trade, where I’ll get a job I’m going to be good at and a new chance at a future I assumed was doomed just a few weeks ago.
Finding Evan turned every single thing in my world around. I think I’ll always be a fall guy, but I’m only falling with her, for her, into anything she wants because I know I can trust her with my future, with our future.
I just need to find the guts to say all that in English to her.
I’ll do it. I know I can do it.
“So, what do we do about this dump?” I ask her, mostly to get my mind off of the fear of everything I need to make work in the next few months.
“Clean it,” she answers. “Then we put all your stuff away, then we get in bed. And don’t sleep. Because it will be a while before we see each other again after this. So I want to take every opportunity to get in your pants.”
She grins at me and pushes me away from the counter before she attacks it with a scrub brush.
“You just cleaned that,” I point out.
“Um, yeah, and then we had wild sex on it. Not very sanitary.” She glances up and raises one eyebrow. “I appreciated all your, um, hard work before, but that doesn’t excuse you from doing the moving-in business. Get moving. I want to have some time to get it on tonight before we crash.”
“It’s sick how much I like when you boss me around,” I tell her as I lug another box in from the truck.
“I’m a good boss.” She puts her hands on her hips and looks around, and it’s hard for me to imagine a girl looking sexier than she does right now, her shirt stuck to her with sweat, her hair in a messy ponytail, her skin flushed from all her energetic scrubbing and our recent sex. “The kitchen is officially scrubbed down. I’m going to start on the living room.”
The next few hours fly by, and by the time the place is spotless, most of my stuff is unpacked, and we’ve christened the shower, Evan lays by my side on my bed and looks around the echoing, overly-white space. “It’s spooky how empty it looks in here,” she whispers.
“It’s not empty. We’re here.” I link my hand with hers in the dark and fit her close to me on the mattress.
“What about when I leave?” Her voice shakes a little, and I pull her tighter to me.
“Then I’m here, and I wait for you.” I press my chin on the top of her head, still damp from our shower.
“And when I’m done with school?” Her voice is so quiet, I can just barely hear the question.
“Then I come see you at school every chance I get. And when I graduate, I find a place by you and seduce you into moving in with me.” I run a hand up and down her body, shoulder to hip, over and over.
“And then?” she asks sleepily.
I’m about to switch to Hungarian, but I don’t. I don’t because I know how to let go, how to fall into the perfect goodness she brings into my life.
So I just say it, in English, to the girl I love, fear be damned.
“And then I save up for a ring and ask you to marry me. And then, if everything goes the way I want, you agree. And then whatever you want. As long as you’re with me, I know things will be alright.”
I feel her go stiff in my arms, and I wonder if I should have just stuck to goddamn Hungarian for that round. She’s got her whole life ahead of her, and, love me or not, she may not be ready for all the things I want from her and with her. The last thing I need is for her to feel like she has to compromise on anything for me.
She sits up, and I feel my heart lurch in my chest.
“Do you mean that?” she asks. “Do you really mean what you just said.”
Fuck.
“Yeah. Of course I mean it. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. But I understand if you—” I sit up next to her, ready for her to say she’s not ready, she’s not going to rush this, that she needs time, that she’s—
“I love you. I love you. And I know you didn’t ask yet and don’t have a ring and don’t know when this will all happen, but my answer is definite
ly ‘yes.’” She throws herself into my arms so hard it knocks me back on the bed, and she winds herself around me and kisses all over my face, quick and furious. “Yes to everything. Yes to anything you think or want. Yes to us. Always. Yes. I love you.”
Her kisses invite mine, mine inspire more of hers, and I let go. I fall into her, into her crazy love, into the promise of our future, into every scary, unbelievably amazing thing I was ever nervous to dream about and now get to hold in my arms. I fall into this love, no matter how scared out of my skull I am that I might mess up or she might need space and leave me or we might face challenges together that test everything we want and grip onto.
I’ll spend the rest of my life falling as far and deep and hard as my heart will let me go in love with this perfect, crazy girl who taught me to let go and hold on. I know in that minute I’ll be Evan’s fall guy until the day I die, and my future, for the first time in my life, is an always I can’t wait to fall into.
Acknowledgements:
This is the coolest section in a book, because it’s where an author gets to give smooches to all the people who helped her along the way and let those people know how appreciated they are! I’m very smoochful, and know how lucky that makes me.
Thank you to my husband and daughter. I always promise I’m going to write during school/work hours and be fully present at all other times. I break that promise daily, and they love me anyway. And feed me and nudge me towards the shower and help with the chores I always mean to do but forget because my characters are distracting me! They are my heart, and I don’t know what I’d do without them.
Thank you to my amazing fam who always pitch in to cheer me on, act like I’m more famous and wealthy than I’ll ever be, and give me crazy help and advice anytime I need it. Or don’t. But that’s the beautiful thing, isn’t it? I love them more than I can express. And I’m a wordy, expressive girl!
To my sweet, loving friends who read and tell me what’s good and/or crazy in my book. Particular love to Steph, who has to put up with me because I won’t go away; Katie, who has to put up with me because we’re sisters; and Tamar, who has to put up with me as payback for all the years I tortured/loved her in college.
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