Fall Guy (6 page)

"Evan. Nice to meet you."

I don't want to let go of he
r hand. It feels tiny in mine,
and the skin is ridiculously soft. I'm dying to know what those hands would feel like in places I better stop thinking about if I'm going to make it a few more hours with her.

And suddenly I realize the full extent of how stupid I acted. Because I never managed to j
ust keep my damn cool, I went
from kind of hitting o
n her to being a total tool. And now we're at some kind of shaky
friend level when the only thing I needed to do was keep things distant.

So much for that plan.

"Winchester." I love the sound of my name from her mouth. "I've never met anyone with Winchester as a first name."

She perches her fine painted ass on the ladder and slides the paint brush along the edge of the ceiling with careful, even strokes.

"My grandparents made their money in illegal arms dealing." I finish the wall I've been work
ing on and move to the next one
.

I expect the mandatory girly scoff or for her to ask if I'm serious, but instead she says, "My family made most of their startup money during Prohibition."

My lips tug up at the corner
s
in reaction to what I know other people probably don't notice about her.

"Evan Williams Black Label is my mother's favorite bourbon," I tell her and watch the color slide over her cheekbones and up to the roots of her dark hair.

"Yeah.
That."
She
laughs,
a cool, loose sound
. "I tell people Evan is a family name, and it is. But it didn't come from my grandma. It actually came from what my dad poured for everyone in the waiting room when I was born."

Swapping family stories is a fucking slippery slope, and I know better. But the words slide out before I can remind myself of all the reasons why I should hold them back.

"It's
a good
bourbon. My mom always says it's under-appreciated, and she knows her whiskey."

Her smile is warm and smooth as a shot kicked back on a hot night, and it loosens my tongue the same way the drink would.

I tell her a little piece of my history I’ve never shared with anyone outside my family before.
"My mother said she stared at my father's Winchester revolver the entire time she was in labor, and thought about getting it off the wall and shooting him with it a few times. I was a ten pound baby."

Her laugh this time is bright
er
and a little
too
loud.

"Ten pounds!
Your poor mother.
No wonder she wanted to shoot your dad. How did they get a gun into the hospital?"

She moves a shiny, dark strand of hair away from her face with the back of her wrist.

"I was born at home. All of us were. My family is kind of old school that way
, and they all hate hospitals
."

I'm done painting this wall, but I have a really nice view of her back and the curve of her neck. I have a weakness for girls' necks. Evan's is perfect, long and graceful, and I have this insane urge to bury my nose at the
crook and breathe in deep. I wo
nder if she'd moan if I kissed her there.

"All of you? How many
Youngbloods
are there?"

She looks over her shoulder and gives me a smile that's less toothy than the one she tricked the officer with and way wider and sweeter than the one she threw me a little while ago. It knocks the wind back down my throat.

I recover in time to strangle out an answer.

"The world is crawling with
Youngbloods
, and all the worst ones are related to me. But as far as siblings go, I'm one of five."

"Five." She tilts her head to one side. "Are you the oldest?"

I shake my head.

This is detailed. This is already more than I tell anyone outside our circle. But this community service is only a few weeks long at the most. Evan and I don't cruise any of the same places
or
have any similar friends. The only place we'll ever connect is at this site, so why not? Why not let her get a peek behind the infamous Youngblood family curtain?
I’m so used to protecting this information at all times, it feels traitorous to share. It’s also a little like a weight’s being li
fted off my back, like I’m not burdened with
every single asinine family secret they demand I keep.

It feels good.

"I'm second oldest. Remington, my brother, is a year older.
Benelli
, my little sister, is two years younger than me, and the twins are Colt and Ithaca. They're five years younger." I roll extra paint on the wall that's already completely coated.
"You?"

"I came after three miscarriages, one stillborn, and probably a good half a million in fertility treatments. Once they had me, they called it quits." She wipes her hands on her jeans absent-mindedly, leaving light blue finger smears at her hips. "Um, it looks like we're almost done in here.
Wanna
look busy when the officers come around and stretch this out?"

She takes a little pot of lip stuff
out, spreading it on her sexy
lips with the tip of her finger, using slow strokes that make my mouth dry up.

Did I want to spend all day in a sweltering little government building painted dirty-sky blue, smelling paint fumes so strong they were making my head spin?

If Evan Lennox was with me, then answer was a clear and definite 'hell yeah.'

I h
ad a hard time falling asleep the next
Friday night.

That was never a problem before I moved in with my grandparents, because I was usually so blitzed after beginning my Friday drinking
binge
during last period study hall, that, by the time night came, if I was even aware that it was night, I was so out of my mind sleep wasn't a conscious thing. I knew I'd fall onto some couch or bed or pillow on the floor and black out until I woke up to a huge hangover, cured by a long day at the beach
wearing dark sunglasses, nursing Bloody
Marys
while I got a nice, toasty tan,
and letting the crash of the waves dull my pounding head
ache
.

But I'd cleaned up my act after the arrest, and now my Friday nights are all about laundry, homework, painting my toenails, cleaning my room
, cleaning underneath my laptop keyboard with Q-tips
...if I didn't deserve every boring second plus a million more, I'd feel pretty damn sorry for myself.

But there is one bright spot in my week.

The irony of my situation doesn’t escape me. The girl who used to be the life of
the wildest parties, now excited
to go to community service?

But, of course, it’s not nearly as wholesome and simple as it sounds.

I get out of the shower
early Saturday morning
and dress in a hurry
. I pull out the pair of j
eans with the blue backside,
turn them in my hands
,
and c
ontemplate the person I’ve been looking forward to seeing all week long
.

The crackling paint is a dirty sky blue, so far from the deep blue of Winch's eyes, it seems impossible they're in the same color realm. No amount of scrubbing would get that paint out, and
Gramma
is completely perplexed about why I don't just toss them.

"Sweetie, they are useless. I wouldn't even want you to work in the garden in them." She
shakes her head and clucks her tongue at the stain Winchester
Yougblood
delivered with his paint roller while I run a hand over that crackly blue dried paint and resist the urge to smile like a fool.

I pop a kiss on her cheek to hide my grin.

"
Gramma
, when do I ever work in the garden? I'm doing this community service thing for weeks, though. It's probably not a bad idea to have a pair of work pants for next time."

Even work demands style, as far as my
Gramma
is concerned.

"Bad enough they have you doing all that work when we pay taxes to feed and support the incarcerated while they laze around like they're living in the lap of luxury. They should be giving this heavy labor to the criminals and letting you kids volunteer with the arts or at schools or religious institutions. It's ridiculous. And if you have to go, you can at least look clean and neat."

Her silver bob sways forward and backward with her nod of conviction.

I put on a clean pair to mollify her
, kiss her and Granddaddy
, and fly to my car, ready for the day, eager as a kid
at
athe
beach
ignoring the burn of the hot sand
on her feet in her haste
to
get to the waves
.

Eager for a day of muscle-tiring, bone-deep
,
ache-inducing labor in some old dump.

With Winch.

Brenna texts me.

Brenna
: Ready for your date with cri
minally hot
McHottie
?!?! Get it?!
It's a pun! Get it?

Me
: You're such a dork. And don't be a halfwit. I told you about the guy at the park.

Brenna
: I can smell a lie, miss! Are you rushing to see him NOW? Sweaty palms?
Butterflies in your stomach?

Me
: Can't text.
About to drive.

Brenna
: LOL!! I KNEW IT!!

I pull in at the dilapidated building that is looking much less dilapidated with every hour of work we chisel into it
,
and
I
feel puffy-
cheste
d
with pride. I'd accomplished
things before; written papers, completed projects, aced exams. But I'd never worked with my hands, turning something ugly into something gorgeous using my own sweat and talent. Well
,
using a ton of criminals' sweat and my very limited-but-slowly-increasing talent.

When I walk in, the officer in charge, Officer
Rannick
, points me in th
e direction of one of the room
s we'd painted last week.

"They refinished the floors and the precinct had some file cabinets sent over. Unfortunately, they tipped some of the drawers out. They're letter labeled. You just need to fish though the files and put the correct ones in, back in order."

"Okay." So today will be an easy day compared to the grueling grind of last week. I go through the door and my eyes nearly evacuate their sockets. "Oh
shi
...z," I amend as Officer
Rannick
frowns.

"Go ahead. You can handle it."

She opens the door wider, and I stumble into a roaring, heaping, sliding typhoon of papers that goes up to my knees and has absolutely no rhyme or reason that I can decipher. My eyes race a circuit around the cluttered, paper-filled room, and I feel like I've been buried in sand up to my neck, weighed down by the millions of individu
al grains
.

But, if I'm going to be balls-to-the-wall honest with myself, this
never-ending deluge of paper
spiraling in every direction isn't what makes my heart drop.

Winchester isn't here.

I edge a pile of documents
aside with my toe and consider that he might just be late. I put my back to a huge filing cabinet and push off with my feet to move it and rationalize that maybe last week was just a fluke. There is no reason to expect we'd be assigned together every single time.

The cabinet slides against the wall and gives me a tiny square of space to work in, and I pick up a few manila folders and put them back down, shuffle some papers into a heap, and stare at the never-ending, impossibly overwhelming whirlpool threatening to suck me down. I put my hand to my mouth, praying I won't turn sissy, cry my eyes out, and make all my lovingly applied eye makeup roll down my face.

A light knock at the window glass makes me jump and skid on the files and folders, and I can't help the upswing in my heart when I see his
face, all soft blue eyes and wry smile.

I throw up the sash and say, "Hey, slacker.
You having
a picnic out there?"

"I'm on weeding duty." He leans in and looks around, making an eyeball
pitstop
on me
that fine-tooth-combs
from the top of my hair to my glitter-red-painted toenails. "I thought I had it bad today. They stuck you with some crazy pile of shit."