Fall Guy (36 page)

"Yes, sir."

My piss-ant neighbor squirms und
er my look, and I'm sure there're
a thousand things he wants to tell me to stick a thousand places. But he doesn't.

"You mess with my man Andre
again,
I'll beat the piss out of you.
And your gang.
And I don't give a shit
who
your daddy is. Now get the hell out of my sight, and I better not hear a wo
rd about you being a little asshole
again."

I dismiss him with a shove, and they scuttle away, muttering shit under the breath and throwing looks over their shoulders when they're far enough
away
that I can't catch any of them.

"
Dre
!" my sister wails and fl
ings herself at her beat-up hero
.

His arms hang by his sides, his eyes fixed nervously on me. I let go of his arm and nudge him forward, feeling weird about seeing my bab
y sister wrapped around
some hooligan.

And I know the kid's a hooligan because it takes on
e
to know one. The fact that I like him off the bat is a bad sign.

He runs a hand over my sister's hair, untangling pieces and
pushing them
away from her face. "It's okay, babe. It's fine. I could have taken them."

She raises one hand to his bloodied nose and cut lip, and chokes on a sob. I seriously have no idea what to think of this whole scene.

Evan walks over to me, the back of her hand brushing the back of mine. I thread my fingers through hers and hold tight. Her face turns towa
rd mine, and she flashes a secret
smile.

"Young love?" she asks lowly.

My sister is throwing herself at the kid, who's gently pushing h
er back and eying me with an anxious
look that, I'm sure, is
his attempt to communicate that
he doesn't want any part of her
PDA.

Not in front of me anyway.

"Too young.
And that kid isn't good enough for Ithaca." I narrow my eyes and Andre puts both of his hands on my sister's shoulders and speaks to her in low, urgent tones.

"Stop scaring him." Evan chuckles. "Look at them.
So in love.
Do you remember your first love?"

She leans her head on my shoulder and I can smell the sweet burned candy smell.

I pull her into my arms and look her in the eye. "Remember it? I'm living it right now."

She jerks back and crushes her eyebrows together, like she doesn't quite believe what I said.

"Your ex?
The one your family talked about like you guys were engaged?"

"I've loved one girl. That's you, Evan Lennox."

She steps back, looking at the ground and shaking her head like she can't put into words whatever it is that's running through her head.

Andre clears his throat loudly. I look away from Evan and see that my sister is seriously pouting.

"Um, I think it would be a good idea if Ithaca went back to class. She's worried about me making it home okay. Could I maybe get a ride with you guys?"

"I am
not
going to sit in class with those assholes. I'm telling my mother that I want to switch schools." Ithaca wipes the last few tears from under her clear green eyes. "I want to go with you."

Andre murmurs something to her, but she shakes her head and stamps her foot. "No! I'm tired of sneaking around, Andre! I don't care anymore. I don't."

Evan looks at me with raised eyebrows, and I sigh. I was looking forward to a long day rolling around in bed with my gorgeous girlfriend. It figures the one time my brother manages to stay out of trouble, my baby sister jumps waist-high into some damn star-crossed love fiasco.

"Go to school," I tell my sister. "I'll take him home, make sure he's got an icepack on his face and takes a few aspirin. He'll be good as new before you can sneak out with him again."

I nod at A
ndre, who looks a little anxious
, but tries to brush it off and act tough in front of my sister.

"I'm not going." Ithaca plants her feet and squares her chin, and I have to bite back the world's biggest sigh. She's a stubborn, spoiled brat, and she's about to unloose all her aggravating mule-headed stupidity on me; I'm getting the beginnings of a migraine just thinking about how this will go down. "Why isn't
she
in school?
"

"
She
has a name," I bite back, not about to let her little tantrum make Evan feel like shit.

My wildly rude sister backs down. "Sorry. Why isn't
Evan
at school?"

"Mine and my girlfriend's plans aren't your business," I counter. Ithaca kicks the toe of her dressy little shoe into the dirt with ferocious energy. "Look, you're in hot water. You should be begging me not to tell Mama all this, and don't even get me started on our old man. You know the rules."

Her kick moves past ferocious and onto borderline criminally insane.

"I
hate
the rules! I
hate
them! I'm not marrying s
ome stupid guy from Hungary Pop
knows we can keep some dumb company in the family. I'm tired of all of our family's idiotic rules." Her eyes are wide open, rolling wildly, and her hands are balled into fists. "I love Andre. I love him and there's nothing anyone can say about it."

Andre looks like he's ready for the ground to open up and suck him deep into it. I try not to
freak out over hearing my little sist
er declare her love for this guy
. It's all dramatics, as usual with her, and I know the best thing I can do is just ignore it.

"Alright, alright."
I hold up a hand. "Go wash up. Get to class. You can drop out and run away with your boyfriend tomorrow, alright? I'll take him home. He needs his rest after getting his ass handed to him." He makes a protesting noise, but I cut him off with a look he realizes means business. "I'll give you ten minutes.
Exactly.
In ten minutes, I expect
you," I point to Andre, "in my
car and you," I point to my sister, "better have your ass in class." She opens her mouth, but I cut in before she can argue. "Your other option is me calling Mama and Andre's parents. If he's not in the car in ten minutes, I get on the phone."

I grab Evan's hand, and we walk slowly back to my car. She squeezes my hand tight.

"You're a good brother."

"Don't count on that." I look at her sidelong and feel a lump in my
throat
,
because I have a feeling Evan isn’t going to like what I’m going to have to do to manage this situation
. "She's too attached to that kid already. I'm sure he's a nice guy and all, but she's not ready to be that serious. And he would never be accepted by my family." Evan's mouth swings open, but I push ahead, dragging her along. "I know it's harsh. But I can see how this will all pan out. I
gotta
do what I do."

"Wha
t is
that again?" Her voice is low and accusatory.

She tries to pry her hand away, but I hold tighter.

"I do what needs to be done."

I don't want her to see what I'm about to do, because I know it's going to look cruel, but in the end? In the end, it's a quick, painless way to do away with something that would otherwise drag on to its
inevitably
bitter, painful end.

"What needs to be done?" She turns her head, her dark hair whipping into her face with the
rising wind. "They're two kids in love. What exactly needs to be done?"

"My family won't approve. They'll drive Andre away, and it will wind up a big, messy thing. Ithaca will wind up hurting more. Even if my family did approve, the girls in my family don't date until the parents allow it. Ithaca has to focus on school and her future. Not this guy."

Evan looks at me, her eyes bright with fury.

"This
guy?" she repeats, throwing my
words back at me. "So, if someone doesn't meet the Youngblood standards, they just get thrown to the side?" Her voice shakes, and she twists hard to get away from me.

"Evan." I pull her close, run a finger along her
jaw and try to meet her eyes, b
ut she keeps them to the side. Her nostrils flare from her deep, angry breaths. "This isn't about me and you. I don't care what they think of you, okay? We're different, okay?"

She shakes her head, whipping her dark hair.

"No. Not okay. Not okay at all. How, exactly, am I different than Andre?" she asks, her voice a knife staking in my ribs over and over with every bitter word. "I mean, I'm a little older. A little more refined. Maybe I'm the right color?"

"It's not like that," I grind out. "Remy's daughter is half African-American. We have no problems with that..."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know," she cuts in. "I didn't get the Youngblood handbook. I have no idea what's good enough for you and your family. I would assume I'm not. Andre's not. Who meets your standards anyway? And who the
hell
are all of you to have these standards?"

I try to slow her down, quiet her, but she slaps my hands away and points a finger at me.

"No! No, I will
not
be quiet about this! Last night, I thought for a few minutes t
hat we could be together in spite of
your
crazy
family. That maybe we had a chance. But no one has a chance, do
they? And I get it, okay, I get it! Andre and Ithaca are just kids in love. They'd probably break up in a few months over something dumb anyway. That isn't my point." She gasps a breath in and bites her lip. "That isn't my point." Her words come out shaky and sad. "What chance do we really have? Tell me
the truth, Winch.
Because I love
you so much.
I do. But is this just you dragging out the inevitable? Because if you know we won't last anyway, tell me and we'll end it now."

She looks back at Ithaca and Andre, twisted around each other, kissing like it's the last time they'll ever see each other.

And I choke on that thought. Because I realize that my sister knows me. And she probably realizes, somewhere deep down, that this
is
the last time she'll see this guy she thinks she loves
so completel
y
.

"Evan, you're overreacting. You and me--"

"Is there?" she interrupts. "I thought there was. I think there is. And then there's not. This entire time, you and me, we've always just been a pipedream, haven't we, Winch? Tell me." Her voice is thick and her eyes are full of tears.

"No." I hold her at the shoulders hard. "We're not. We're different."

She shakes her head. "Impossible." She points back at my sister and her boyfriend. "Tell me. Tell me your super sensible plan for those kids."

I swallow hard, ashamed again about what being me
entails. About the decisions I have to make.

But
I have to.
I have to make these decisions, and they’re not
easy, and I don’t always like to do any of it
, but I have to.

"I'll offer him a couple thousand, enough to make life easy on him for a while, and then tell him that he's banned from seeing her again. He won't want the money,
cause
he's a good kid, but I'll
make him take it for his mom or grandma or whoever he cares about. He'll feel guilty. He'll be scared. If he comes around
again
, I'll scare him off. He'll leave her alone, and my parents will find someone who will make her happy in the long run."

She's shaking her head, her eyes squeezed shut.

I
reach out to her, but she
smacks my hand away.

"I know,” I plead
, begging her to understand.
“
It seems harsh. It seems mean. It's what's best, Evan. It's how my family does things."

"It's the most disgusting thing I've ever heard," Evan says quietly
, her head bowed, her arms crossed tight over her chest
. "You've lived around it for so long, it's the way you think now. You don't even question it. But you justify an awful lot for them. There's no way..." She looks up at me, her eyes brimming with tears that spear at my heart. "There's no way you actually believe this is a good thing. Are you
that
brainwashed?"

I hate that Evan is quietly crying. I hate that my sister is looking across the field, her hand
pressed to her mouth. I hate that
Andre is walking towards me like a gladiator about to enter the arena
,
and I'm the monster he's got to fight.