Fall Guy (19 page)

He shakes his head, and pulls me closer.

"Listen to me. You couldn't, okay? What your old man wanted to do, that was his business and you--"

"Could have stopped it," I slice into his excuse for me and shred it with a single, gentle slash.

"Don't do this to
yourself
," he warns, his voice frantic for both of us.

I'm about to drag us into danger, out of the natural orbit of our day-to-day. We're two cowards, living the same cowering ex
istence
.
We ignore the fact that life slips by while we’re busy
hiding out, unwilling to risk living if it means we might fall into a trap along the way.
We’re supreme cowards.

But I want to change that. I can do
it
. I can start the change.

"I could have saved my parents' marriage." I let the words march out and trample our stupid, delicate field of lies
, spoken and unspoken
. "I could have gotten him money. I could have picked the right damn horse every single time, Winch.
Every time.
It would have taken me less than a few hours a week. And we would have been living together, rich as thieves."

My voice shakes
around this one version of a fairytale ending that exists, bright and clear, in the deepest depths of my imagination.

He moves his lips in several shapes that look like they'll disagree,
then
his mouth snaps into
a frustrated scowl
.

"So why not?" His words lash out. "Why not make it easy, Evan? What did you gain? Daddy and mommy split. You got pushed out of your house, out of your life. The money is wasted. Your father is probably ashamed. Why do that?"

I let the trap engage and feel gravity release its hold on me as I'm jerked through the air.

There are four tears on my face, and I have to coat every nerve in steel to keep any more from falling.

"I did it because...the lie got too big," I gasp. I am swinging way out of my comfort zone, flailing and kicking for ground that's too far away to be my possibility anymore. "He was using me. He was losing himself. She was a shell. We were in trouble. And it was the only shot...it was the one and only shot to make things right. Attempting to save my family was absolutely worth that gamble to me. But in the end--"

One sob wrenches from my throat, like the bugle-loud cry of a wounded animal. "In the
end, neither one of my parents was strong enough to gamble on us. So it all fell apart."

I wipe my eyes with the back of my free hand, moving it with quick, vicious strokes. "My lucky eye doesn't work for me and the people I love. I couldn't see who would win when it came to my own family's fate, you know? It wasn't simple, like the horses. And I wound up getting slapped with what my dad must have felt." A long, shuddery breath cycles in and out.
"Total and complete humiliation."

I haven't even told this to Brenna. She would never, ever get it. Her family is so amazing and close. She'd do anything, anything at all to help them, and they'd do the same and more for her. And I'm genuinely happy that she has that. I would never want her to be in my shoes.

I thought Winch might get it, but now that it's splattered out between us and he's sitting like a boulder, it's clear I explode
d something that he'll never understand
and I can't put back now.

I never should have tried to pull us closer. I'm good at pushing. It's my specialty. I can push anything, anyone
,
far away with n
o hope of bridging back what I've
torn
all
asunder.

I push away from Winch, ready to joke about what a pansy I am, how stupid my pathetic life is, how right he would be to detest me and my disloyalty to my own damn parents. I'm swinging high above the ground, and I give up the fight and wait for the knife to slit my throat.

Only it doesn't.

"What you did?" Winch's voice trembles until I'm positive it's about to fracture. "What you did is so fucking brave. You know that? Not many people would have the guts to do what you did."

"My parents divorced. My life is ruined."

I shove those bitter counterarguments out under the glare of his judgment, only because I want him to strike them down.

And he does.
"Yeah.
So they did. So it is. But you took a chance. You saw that things were
wrong and you were brave enough to attempt to fix them. It's especially hard when it's your blood." He pulls me closer, until I'm pressed against him, his breath jagged rasps coming in and out of his mouth. "Trust me, your parents wish they were half as brave as you."

He's cut the noose and let me hop free, unharmed.

"Why?" I press, giddy a
t my own freedom, the lightness confessing brought me,
and
the sweet relief of Winch’s admiration
.

"Because they live with all
their
own
fears and weaknesses every minute of every day, Evan.
You set yourself free. That's...that's crazy. I've never heard of anything like that." His voic
e pools around me, and it’s like sinking into a bubble bath
. "I admire how brave you are. It's a pretty big turn on."

"Oh yeah?"

I stare into his eyes, hunting me, and I'm happy to be his prey.

I should be ashamed, considering I just spilled my deepest, darkest secrets. But I'm just plain old horny.

Winchester Youngblood is in my room, a few feet from my big queen bed. My eyes go to the plu
sh piece of furniture that dominates
the space
, calling to us, demanding us to roll around in the sheets
.
I want to. I want to so badly.

"My grandparents won't be home until morning. Why don't you work up the courage to ask me to fool around with you?"

For a split second, I expect him to pull back, tell me no, keep things clearly delineated between us. But then his arms snap around me
,
and he scoops me off the floor, walks me the few feet across the room, and plops me onto the bed.

I giggle for a minute, caught in the crazy jump of the bouncing mattress,
then
my giggle
gets lost in the dark of Winch's stare.

She's lying under me on the bed, and I have my arms
steepled
over her, a human bridge over the river of her body. I should be doing more than staring down at her. My mouth, my hands, my body should be acting out every crazy hot scenario that's be
en torturing me and keeping me awake every night for
all these
last few
weeks.

But something is driving a wedge between me a
nd the girl who I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since the day I met her
.

Her hands slide under my shirt and press in a long, smooth glide up the skin of my back.

"Winch?
Seriously, they're hours away. Even if they don't stay the night, they always call before they leave. We're so cool."

I push up on my arms and move to sit next to her, on the edge of her bed, and out of her immediate vicinity.

"No, I know it. I'm not worried about that."

I stroke one hand over her forehead, trying to press away all those little worried lines that pop up whenever we spend too much time together.

"So, what is it?" The lines furrow deeper.

"I feel like a liar, I guess." She knots her eyebrows over the bridge of her nose, and I explain, "
You told me things I know were
hard for you to put out there. And I got nothing."

Her lips purse into his perfect little sexy kissable shape.

"What does that have to do with you coming here," she smooth
e
s her hand over the spot right next to her on the bed, "and kissing me until I agree to all kinds of
other
bad things?"

"First of all, you know it's not going down like that." I run a thumb over her lips, she sticks her tongue out and swipes my skin, and I groan and try to keep a handle on my stupid, crazy urges.
"Secondly," I manage to get out, "I feel like a fraud. And I hate that. I always try to be honest with the people I care about."

She gives me a long, patient look,
bat
ting
her eyelashes at me
every now and then
until I'm having a hard time swallowing on my own,
then
finally
says, "So be honest with me."

"
It's
compl
--" I cut myself off before I use my cru
tch of an excuse, but her groan interrupts me anyway
.

"Just say it!" she cries. She sits up on the bed, knocking me back, and hugs her pillow to her chest with ferocious intent, her eyes humming with anger and frustration. "Just say 'complicated,' okay? Don't lie to me, because
that
I can't deal with. But don't be afraid if you can't tell me the whole truth yet. That doesn't make you a fraud. It means you have issues,
just like everyone else
. I didn't tell you my secrets to get you to tell me anything you aren't ready to share. This isn't Truth or Dare. This is you and me. We can go at our own pace.
Alright?"

A phalanx of orderly thoughts and ideas suddenly breaks order and starts civil warring in my head.

She's so beautifully honest.

And what she said? It's freeing. It makes me brave. It makes me want to be better, do better for her.

"Okay." I lie down next to her and hook our hands together. "I need to tell you some things."

She pushes her face closer, and her eyes are such a
glassy blue, I feel like I can
see through them.

"Remington?
My brother?"
I
stall,
she nods, putting me back in gear. "My brother has some fucked up shit going on in his life right now. He's got this girlfriend...I don't know if they're still a
thing or not, you know? She loved him. She's a real cool girl, but Remy? Jesus Christ, he could tempt a saint. And they have a kid, and he's been...unstable. It's all fine. Mom and
Benelli
watch
Alayah
when he's got her, you know, so there's nothing to worry about. But he's a mess.
A fucking mess."

It feels like all of that was pressurized inside me, like shaken soda in a can, and I just popped the tab and let the whole damn mess explode out.

Evan trails her fingers down the sleeve of my shirt and presses it up, up to my elbow. She lets the pads of her fingertips glide over the slightly raised skin and the black ink.

"It's beautiful." Her eyes flick t
o mine, asking without saying
a single word.

Giving me an out if I want to take it.

I don't. I can't. I need to tell her.
Everything.

"I got it for Remy." I study the midnight details of that ferocious black horse on my skin. "It's called a
pooka
. It's this animal, this creature that steals people and takes them on wild rides over the moors in Ireland. My brother has this thing for mythological crap, so he got a tattoo."

The rest is hard to come out and say.

Evan nods, and the motion of her head
on the pillow
messes her hair up, makes it bunch at a funny angle, so I reach up and pul
l the
hairband
out of her
ponytail. Her hair spreads over her shoulders and makes little dark waves on the blankets. She leans in to kiss me, her mouth hot and urgent against mine, a distraction from telling any more, from talking about the tattoo and what it means.

If I have to choose between confessions about my brother's stupidity or Evan's irresistible sexiness, the choice is obvious. My hands pull and press all over her, f
irst with the safety net of the
barely-there fabric
of her tank and tiny shorts
. Her tongue flicks in my mouth, and my brain
backfires.

I lose the safety net and run my hands under her clothes and along the soft, hot skin of her stomach, up along her ribs, to the lacy edge of her bra, and, before I put my hands under the cups, I pull back down her stomach. She whimpers in protest, but it turns to a moan when I get to the waistband of her shorts. The whimper comes back in full force when I stop again.

She rocks her hips up in an effort to move my hand lower, but I'm locked where I am, in no man's land, my palm just over the dip of her bellybutton.

"Winch?"

Her fingers are at the back of my neck, kneading a place that, for some reason, makes me crazy.

"Yeah?"