Fall Guy (11 page)

"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. S
o, 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.

Nothi
ng 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 fi
re-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 soun
d 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 k
eep 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, o
f 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 drunk
er 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 remem
ber 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 aw
ay from mine and rubs her
lips on my neck, drag
s them along my jaw, and brushes
them
against
my ear, where she wh
ispers, "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
need
s
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 i
s
nothing but a long
-
shot 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 g
oing 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.

"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 s
ocial life.

"He's a ghost. I
f
he even has an account,
he's unse
archable,
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 coll
ege.
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?"