Fall Guy (43 page)

Evan stalks the two or three feet between us and sticks her beautiful face so close to mine, I can see every curling, black eyelash around her blue eyes. "No."

"No?"

I can smell her skin, I know what her lips feel like, and I want to jump over everything and kiss her, hard and long, so I can forget this all, finally.

"No," she repeats. "Tell them
‘
no.
’
"

"Did you not just listen to what I said?" I ask. "He'll lose custody of
Alayah
. No one will be able to see her."

"Good," she says, grabbing me by the shirtfront. "Stop buying into their bullshit and think about this like a rational person for once, Winch. Does your brother deserve custody of that little girl?"

Obvious as it may seem, the thought never occurred to me.
He’s my brother.
Alayah
is his daughter. They’re both my blood. T
he word is out of my mouth before I have a chance to process.

"No."

"Tell me what needs to happen, Winch. Not what your family is telling you to do. What needs to happen?"

Her hands
unfist
from my shirt and she wraps her arms around me.

I cup her shoulders with my hands and squeeze. "Remy needs help."

"Okay. Like what?" she asks.

I take a deep breath and say what needs more than just to be said. I say what needs to happen.

"Remy needs rehab or counseling or something. Or he's
gonna
kill himself. My parents need to stop covering for him.
I need to stop covering for him.
"

"Okay. Good. So h
ow do we do this?" Her
words
are
soft and sure.

"Do what?" I'm lost in the smell of her, the feel of her curves,
the
sound of her voice. How can I miss someone so badly when we're in the same room?

"Get Remy into a rehab? Stage an intervention? Get you fired from your position as Youngblood family fall guy?"

She tries to ask it all with bravado, but she swallows so hard, I know she's afraid of what I'll say.

And I want to thank her. I want to rewind time. I want to hold Remy's breakdown off, just so I could have a few days of living out the dream of all those fantasies.

"Evan, I know it seems like it should be that easy, but it's
compli
--"

"Shut the fuck up!" she yells. Shock presses my words back down my throat.
"Fine!
Fine, you want this to be goodbye? You
wanna
end this, Winch,
then
end it with me. But if you think this is the worst that will happen with your family, you're delusional. Remy is going to kill himself, and maybe his daughter or girlfriend or someone else in the process. He's out of control, and you know it. If you don't step in, maybe you deserve to do time. Because you're as good as guilty for anything he does."

"Evan--" She's snapped and is right back to the rage that propelled her off the bed and straight at my jugular before.

"Don't! Don't try to rationalize! I tried ignoring it! I tried accepting it! I tried letting you
handle it! Nothing worked and nothing will until you're ready. And if you're not ready to do this, you're sure as hell not ready to be with me and fight for us!"

She straightens her shoulders and juts her chin out, her rage tampered and replaced by something way sadder.

I realize she's about to steal my goodbye.

And I have a second.

A split second where my life can continue to careen out of control while I sit back and watch.
I'll keep my family happy, in a way, but lose Evan, and, most likely, Remy.

Because she's right, of course.
He's going to kill himself, and I might as well be holding the bottle or the steering wheel or the knife or whatever it's going to take to finally break him.

"Fine," I say, and she pulls her bottom lip in and chews, ready for this to be it, after one long hell of a fight.

But I'm a Youngblood.

We don't give up that easily.

"So what do you
think,
smartass? How do I do this intervention shit?" I reach for her hand, and her eyes fly up to my face, surprised and ecstatic.

"Winch!"

She pulls me into her arms, and I kiss her, scared as hell, but ready to change the path that's been running me to nothing good way too fast. I'm ready to change my path with her, even if it scares the shit out of me. Even if I know it's not going to be pretty.

"First we need allies. We need your family on board."

I feel like suggesting we run away, hop a plane to anywhere, start a whole new life over in some foreign place,
because
starting completely fresh seems a thousand times better than facing
down my family and what's sure to be their ultimate shunning and refusal to hear me out or let me go.

But Evan looks so
hopeful,
I trick myself into thinking, for a minute, that it all might work out. And then she says the one thing that really matters.

"No matter what, I'm here for you."

So I get ready to let go and free-fall in the scariest jump of my life. But she's with me. So I swallow my fear and do it.

This is only the second time I've even been to the Youngblood house, but there's this feeling of foreboding I can't shake. Like maybe this is the last tim
e. I know, deep inside me, that
whatever goes down tonight, things are about to change in a huge way. My palms are slicked with sweat, and I feel a dizzy, light-headed rush in my head when I look at Winch. I can tell he's nervous, too, and I get why. His family is huge and beyond intimidating.

But I'm here for him. And I'm going to fight for him. If he falls, I'll be at his side to pick him up. It may be the first time anyone's ever bothered to do that for him. I kiss him before
we go in, and he pulls me
close, deepening the kiss until we're creeping into the kind of territory it won't be easy to rebound from without some serious backseat action.

"Winch.
Are you nervous?" I ask, pulling away, my lips sore and desperate for more of what they can't have.

Well, can't have right now.

He shakes his head, but doesn't say anything to me. We get out of the car and make our way to the house, taking the steps one at an excruciatingly slow time. When we get inside, his family is seated around the huge, food-laden dinner table. There's no one besides his siblings and parents, which I know is pretty unusual since, according to Winch's stories, the dinner table at their house is usually a meeting place for just about everyone in their entire extended family. It's part of what's made it easy for him to slip away on mandatory family dinner nights to come and see me.

Everyone looks up when we walk in. Mrs. Youngblood pulls her napkin off her lap and places it on the table when she stands.

"Winchester, you should have called before you brought your friend over. I'm not prepared to entertain tonight."

Her eyes, the same navy blue as Winch's
,
snap and crackle with a savagery that shocks me. Every single set of eyes looks at the colossal assortment of food spread on the table in front of them,
then
every set of eyes focuses on his or her respective plate.

It's just a tiny thing.
Hardly worth noticing.
I've been snubbed by nastier people in ruder ways. But there's something about this whole scenario, this entire put-down that's being disguised by a huge lie as plain as the banquet on th
eir damn table, and I've had it.

"You are full of shit," I announce.

Winch, who I felt tense and
sensed
was about to speak up on my behalf is shocked. The eyes of every member of his family swing up
at me, and all six mouths drop
open. If I turned around, I bet I would see Winch's mouth hanging open, too, his eyes popped unnaturally out of their sockets.

I should shut up. I should shut up and let Winch handle this and let the chips fall where they may and all that.

But I'm so sick of it all. So sick of putting
a sock in it, so sick of watching this family's lies mutate
and infect Winch and my chances with him. I've tried to be a lady. I've tried to keep my mouth shut and not judge and play the cool card, but it's so not me. I'm not any of that. Whatever happens today, it's going to get messy. Gloves off, no holds barred messy. I might as well jump in the mud pit and get my slinging in.

"Excuse me, miss?" Winchester's father half stands, but his wife puts a hand out on his arm. He shakes it off and points a finger past me at Winch. "This is the kind of foul-mouthed company you keep when you're running out on your own family? Yo
ur mother and I raised you
to have more respect than that."

I snort before Winch can get a word in edgewise. "More respect?
Really?
You're going to
talk to Winchester about respect? Respect for what?
The law?
The truth?
Each other?
Because I've never seen a damn thing but lies and disrespect as far as this family is concerned."

Mr. Youngblood's face is a shade of scarlet I didn't imagine human skin was capable of turning. But it turns. If steam blew out of his ears and fire came out of his eyeballs, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

"You have a lot of nerve, coming into my house and speaking to my family this way. Winch
ester
, show your guest out.
Now."

His father has both hands on the table and he's breathing like his lungs are a set of giant bellows.

"No."

The word, clear and steady from Winch's mouth, brings a gasp from every person at the table.

"Excuse me? I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear that. You take that girl back where she came from, and your mother will be waiting on your apology when you get back."

Mr. Youngblood's face has gone to
granite,
and his eyes narrow to slits.

Mrs. Youngblood has her cloth napkin pressed to her mouth.
Benelli
is wide-eyed and white-knuckled. Ithaca's red-rimmed, cried-out eyes look bright with surprised glee. Colt is gripping the edge of the table and shifts his mouth back and forth nervously. Remy leans woozily in his chair, either completely drunk or entirely uninterested in what's going on. Or, most likely, a little bit of both.

"I said no." Winchester's voice is clearer,
then
he half-chuckles, and it's a sound that isn't remot
ely humorous. "What Evan said i
s true. And it's about time someone in this house told the truth. I kind of expected the roof to fucking cave in."

"Watch your goddamn mouth!" Mr. Youngblood sputters. "I had a feeling this whole thing was a bad idea. I had a feeling letting you get tangled up with an outsider would bring us trouble, and n
ow here it is." His glare focuses on
me, vicious and hard, before it settles back on Winch like a blood-curdling dare. "I'm
gonna
remind you of something. Family is forever, Winchester. You were born a Youngblood and you'll die a Youngblood. Whether or not this trash stays with you--"

Winch rushes
past me and throws over a chair lunging at his father. I grab him behind one elbow, and
Benelli
jumps up and
grabs his other. Colt half-stands, but gets pushed back by Remy, who smacks the flat of his hand on the table. Mrs. Youngblood and Ithaca jump at the sound, and everyone turns to watch Remy sway and try to collect his words.

"She's good people,
Pop
." He turns his bleary eyes to me. "She's...you can't do this to Winch.
Can't.
Cannot."

He's clearly drunk and about to be dismissed by their father.

"Remington, sit the hell down before you pass out. This isn't about your brother's love life. This is about our family and your daughter. One wrong move coul
d cost us everything."

He directs
his attention back to Winch, who's breathing heavily, but keeping it all together.
Barely.

"He'll go to jail," Remy argues. "He'll do hard time.
Kidnapping.
That's what they'll slap him with." He sits on the chair with a hard thump and goes a little green. "I need to go to court."

"This isn't a joke, Remington!" Mr. Youngblood's patience is extinguished. "You understand? Look at yourself! You're half a man at best. You won't be able to stay sober for court, and you sure as hell won't make it in jail. Winchester is smart, capable. He's a survivor. He can do this."

"
I
can do this," Remy says, his voice low and so forlorn it borders heavily on pathetic.