Fall Guy (23 page)

"What makes your family so different? Are you in the mob or something?"

I expect him to laugh, not because it's such a witty or original joke, but because not laughing implies there could be some
possible
crumb of truth.

"Winch?"

It's becoming nearly impossible to cut neat squares of food and eat them politely with the desperate need to know his answer tugging at my guts.

He's sent his plate cruising to the middle of the table and is rubbing his temples, eyes screwed shut. When he finally sits straight and looks at me, there are a thousand shades o
f regret in his eyes and my bite
of buttery, egg-soaked bread turns to an
unswallowable
lump in my throat.

"Not the mob," he clarifies, but that only makes panic bob closer to the surface for me. "Not exactly one hundred percent above the law." He leans close and his voice drops. "We handle a lot of business. We make a lot of deals, and we have a lot of secrets that can't get leaked, you know?
So we tend to not trust anyone outside our circle."

Most of what's going through my head involves the bloodiest, goriest, Martin-Scorsese-directed monstrosity of gangster violence and mayhem imaginable. I want to get up and go to the bathroom, splash some cold water on my face, grip the sink tight and take deep, controlled breaths. But I just keep cutting my food and eating calmly.

"Say something," Winch instructs.

I look at him with one raised eyebrow and go right on
eating,
the only sign of my irritation the aggressive scrape of my knife on the plate.

"Eat. Your breakfast is getting cold."

My words come out frost-coated because Brenna was right. I was wrong. And I like him.

I like him so much, he just told me his family is legitimately bad news, and I'm trying to think of reasons why that might not be such a big deal.

He eats, looking up at me with nervously shifting eyes between bites. "You have a right to be freaked out. It's a lot."

My plate is almost empty. I lay the fork and knife across the top edge and wipe my hands on the napkin.

"I need to use the restroom."

He gets up to follow, but I rush by too fast, my sandal heels clipping on the checkerboard floor. By the time I'm in the cold, shiny bathroom, I have to bite my bottom lip hard to hold the swell of tears back. I knock my forehead into the stainless steel stall door over and over.

"Why did you have to prove me right, Winch?" I whisper into the echoing tiles.

Fuck this breakfast. Fuck this date, fuck this already long ass day following the shittiest night I've ever had. Fuck the
truth,
fuck believing in some fairytale happy ending. Fuck my responsibilities and fuck, fuck, fuck the fact that I just, no doubt, no questions asked, lost my shot at being with Evan Lennox.

My appetite is shot to shit. I pay the bill and wait at the far end of the counter, my mood crap and my face probably one big fucking moody-ass glower that confuses the hell out of Lisa, the waitress who always chats with me.

'Cause I'm always in a damn genial mood.
'Cause I know how important it is to keep up appearances, show off my best
side,
keep my emotions off my damn face.

But all the rules get tossed and shredded when Evan's in the picture.

I wait forever. I wait so long, I get worried, and, even though I know I'm the last person she wants to see, I crack open the ladies
’
room door and rap it with my knuckles.

"Evan?"

I listen for sobs or a tantrum or the silence of an empty bathroom, but she answers.

"I'll be out in a minute."

Her voice is ice-rimmed and flat.

Five minutes go by.
Ten.
The place starts to fill up with people. Women and little kids go in and out, but Evan doesn't make an appearance. I keep tabs on the frazzled moms and elderly ladies entering and exiting, and when the bathroom finally empties of extra people, I slip in and make my way down the row of stalls until I see those crazy sexy sandals with the tie thingies
under a
stall
.

"Evan?" I keep my voice low.

She gasps.
"Winch!
Get the hell out of this bathroom."

"Not without you." I run my finger along the crack in the door. "C'mon. You asked, I told. I knew you wouldn't like what you heard, but that's my truth. If it makes you feel better, I was picturing this exact moment in my head every time I wanted to pick the phone up and call you last week, so that's
a big part of why
I didn't."

Her sigh stops short. "You predicted this?"

"Not Carey's specifically. Not all the details. But you finally hearing about me, all about me, and wanting me gone, out, done? I knew that was coming. Because being with you? I thought it would probably be amazing, but I had no idea, you have no idea, how hard I've fallen for you already."

I wait, but there's no sound except the cautious movement of her feet, edging closer to the stall door. I think I hear someone swing the heavy outer door open, but it's a false alarm. Someone will come in soon, though, and I'd love to get out of the bathroom with her before I cause a ruckus.

"Every time I think I heard the worst version of your story, it gets even worse." One eye peers through the crack at me. I can hear her voice, clear and summer-creek-sweet. "I get that you're keeping me in the dark to protect me. But you have to stop. I have to know.
Everything.
All of it.
Every piece.
No matter how bad you think it is."

I can see her fingers toying with the stall bolt. I want her to slide it open.

"Alright.
Full disclosure.
I swear. But you
gotta
come out of there. I can't talk to you about this in the girls' bathroom. I don't need to get arrested for this."

It's meant to be a joke, to break some of the deep, pitch black ice that's surrounded us, but she slides the lock over and steps out, her eyes flashing.

"You don't need to get arrested
for
this.
But you'll get arrested again, right? If Remy needs it, you will, a
nd that's kind of okay with you?
"

I look down at my spit-shined shoes and think about the night before, Remy's crazed behavior, the neighbors I had to pay off, the family I had to reassure. He's running wild and wounded as hell, and it's only a matter of time before he gets his ass caught in a bear trap so big and sharp, no amount of money or apologies will manage to smooth it over for him.

"I might."

Her frown is the last thing I want to see, and I wonder how frequent that look on her face will be with me.

"You wanted honesty." I take her hand in mine, pull her to the door and brace it open a crack. "C'mon. I'll let you play Twenty Questions with me, alright?"

The faintest glimmer of a smile breaks back over her face, and I go loopy at that look.

"What if it takes more than Twenty Questions to figure you out, Winch?"

Her dark hair brushes my arm as she leans with me to check up and down the hall.

"Twenty-thousand Questions then.
You happy with that?"

It's
all clear, so I pull her through, past the tables with plates left for the busboys and the mismatched, half pulled-out chairs, and out into the baking sun.

"Twenty thousand?"
She rubs her slightly pointed chin. "Will
that
be enough?"

I shrug and twine my fingers through hers. "I think I'm pretty simple. But we can find out.
Wanna
walk and talk?"

I'm edgy, nervous and a little excited to try and pull this off. I want her. I've never wanted anything so much, and I like a fight, a challenge. Maybe I can do this, keep her, let her know it all and still manage to win her over.

"Sure." She nestles close to me despite how damn
hot it is, and I think about the
long litany of
‘
fucks
’ I listed
outside the bathroom. Maybe they were
all
premature. She clears her throat.

"First question: when do you plan to stop taking care of Remy so you can start your own life?"

And maybe those
‘
fucks
’
were as warranted as I initially thought.

I watch the cracks in the sidewalk as she practically skips by my side, waiting to see if I can pass this test. It was shitty of her to start with a trick question, but I still need to answer and do it honestly.

"I'm
gonna
have a life
and
take care of Remy until he's back on his feet."

I wish I had my cigs, but I've been cutting back since Mama found a pack in my bedroom and went on a screaming tirade about lung cancer and my Great Uncle
Pepe
and his
voicebox
.

"I do work, Evan. It's for my family, but I don't just get handed a pile of money for sharing my dad's last name. I work long, crazy hours, and I get fair money for what I do."

"If you didn't do what you do for your family, what would you want to do?
For yourself?"

A little bit of a breeze comes rushing down the street and lifts the hair off the back of her neck, exposing skin that's glistening with sweat.

I direct her around another uneven break in the concrete, using any excuse to drag her closer and keep my hands on the warmth of her skin.

"If I didn't work for my family?"

I watch two guys jog down the street in matching lime green spandex outfits. A group of college girls in flowery skirts with big sunglasses and shiny hair walks by and giggles. The breeze whips through again and flags clang on their flagpoles. I'm trying to answer these questions like I'm playing a game of chess, but my head is buzzing with the crowd of all these other things I see and hear.

I wind up just answering,
giving
this random answer that may not be totally accurate, but
it's definitely totally true.

"I don't know. I like to work with my hands.
Maybe stonework?"

Evan tilts her head and swishes all her hair over one shoulder, leaving the long, perfect line of her neck exposed.

"Stonework?"

She has the tiniest bit of an overbite, and it's more noticeable when she's trying not to laugh.

"
You making
fun of my dreams?"

I rub my thumb over the ridges of her knuckles, still being careful, but optimistic. This girl likes me. I can do this.

She squeezes my hand.
"Nope.
It just sounds really..."

She trails off and chews on her bottom lip, this time I'm sure to keep from laughing.

"What?" I bump my shoulder to hers gently. "Come on. I know you're laughing at me. My feelings are already hurt. You might as well tell me the joke."

"Stone work is, like, a really stereotypical mafia job." She tenses and relaxes her hand in mine, because we've come to another tipping point.

"Well, since I'm not in the mafia, I guess that little detail never occurred to me."

I drop her hand and wrap my arm around her shoulders instead, loving the way she fits nestled against my body like she was custom designed for me.

"Are you going to tell me why?"

She leads me off the curb without even checking for traffic, and we run to the nearest square, where she flops on a bench and I follow, collecting her against my side again.

"Why stonework?"
I clarify.

She nods and I pull her tight to me, gather her legs over my lap and glare at the old couple
who click their tongues at us as they dodder by. I lay my hands on the skin right above her knee, where they started this morning, in her grandparents' damn foyer. This time I keep them put and explain what I've never uttered out loud to anyone in my life.

"The job I do now?
For my family?"
She sits a little straighter, out of my hold, but I fold her back near me. She looks down at the glossy blue polish on her nails and waits. "The job I do is keeping the peace.
It's
lots of talking, arguing, finessing. I talk all day. I talk until I'm sick to death of the sound of my own voice. And I talk so much
bullshit,
I hardly ever go to bed without a couple aspirin and a shot of Jack."

She tips her dark, cat eye-
sunglasses down and purses her lips. "That doesn't sound good."

I can see like an x-ray that she's biting her tongue in her mouth, not saying more about it, even though she really wants to. Instead she tumbles to the next question.