Fall Guy (A Youngblood Book) by Reinhardt, Liz (knowledgeable books to read TXT) 📕

In the shadows, it's hard to make out his features, but my legs float slightly, and one foot lands on his thigh. He moves closer to me.

"Us. Coins. Us." I smile at his frown.

"I'm trying to make this work, Evan. You have to know how hard I'm trying."

His body goes from mirroring mine to paralleling it, and the heat of his skin on mine is identical to the heat of the water. We're all hot, warmed up, that frigid distance between us melting like I hoped it would.

"I feel like I'm balancing too much. More than I can hold up all at once," he explains.

"I get it." I lean forward and kiss the side of his mouth. "I don't want to make things harder for you."

He kisses back, his tongue pressing into my mouth in a slow, steady slide.

"I know that. But you do." I stiffen and try to pull back, but he pulls me forward. "Maybe that's exactly what I've been needing all this time. Things have been...my life has been on the same course since I was too young to remember. And my parents and family dictated a lot of it. I'm not very good at questioning the way they want things to be. But I've known I wasn't happy for a long time. It used to be just this pull...like this misery I got dragged along with. When I met you...things changed when I met you. Good changes. But things also got harder."

"So what do we do?"

We're side by side, and it feels good. But I'm not satisfied with just good, so I half-float, half-slide onto his lap, looking over his dark blue eyes, squinted in serious thought, bordered with the wet spread of inky lashes.

I wish one was loose under his eye, so I could offer him the chance to put his faith in a wish. "How do we balance all this?"

His hand moves over my face, pushing the wet hair back. And when it's all pushed away, he just keeps rubbing my skin. "I don't know if there is a balance."

I weave my arms around his neck and press against his chest, all the soft, needy places on me matched to his hard, bruised body. "Why?"

His hands grasp either side of my face. "Because you're young enough that you haven't fucked things up with your life. And I'm old enough that I should have started to think about these things a while ago."

I laugh softly. "Winch, we're four years apart. You act like you're in a nursing home and I'm graduating eighth grade."

I rub my nose along the bristly stubble on the side of his face.

"Four years can make a hell of a difference if you use your time wisely." He's so serious, it's almost funny. I kiss his frown. I kiss his jaw. I kiss his chin before I lay my head on his chest and listen to the jumping pace of his heart. "I'm willing to let you go if it means you get a chance to avoid everything I did wrong. I want better for you."

"The best I can possibly have is all right here." I lay both hands over his heart. "With you."

He sits up and pulls me closer, sloshing water over the sides of the tub.

"How did I get so damn lucky?" he asks, his mouth blanketing mine.

We kiss and touch and tangle until things are back where they were before the pool and the games and his question. And when my head is pillowed on his shoulder and all I can think about is him, forever, and never going back to real life, whatever that means, I say to him, "You're the best I've ever had. I don't like talking about the guys before you. Because, honestly, there were a lot. A whole lot. But it's never been like this, Winch. And I guess that messed me up."

I'm looking right at his hand twined with mine, half under the water, when I tell him this. Because I don't want him to see me blush and wince while I confess.

He strokes down from the crown of my head to between my shoulder blades with his free hand. "Shh. That was stupid of me to ask. It's none of my business."

"Well, it is." I would never, ever have said this to any guy I dated or had sex with before. That was the thing, the thing that kept everything else in line. My secrets, my feelings, my interests, were all mine. All mine. No sharing whatsoever. But, because I know Winch would never take from me without giving back, I want to share. "I want to be your business."

He doesn't say anything, but he crushes me close and we sit still and listen to the steady hum of the hot-tub, bubbling and insulating us from the clear, cool sounds of the night.

"Winch?"

"Mmm?"

I love how relaxed he feels and sounds. But I have to ask, no matter how it might tense up all those lax muscles.

"Is it really only going to be tonight?"

He doesn't stressed, exactly. But he does gather me tighter.

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes for this. For us."

I know he means it. I know he does. And, nervous as I was, I never really doubted that he'd say anything else.

But life has a funny way of conspiring to keep us from doing what we mean to do, despite our best intentions. And I never want to hold the attempt to do the right thing against him. Even if it blows up in our faces.

"What are you thinking?" he asks, his lips at my ear.

"I'm thinking about you and me," I whisper back.

He nuzzles my neck. "All good stuff, right?"

"Of course. What could be bad?"

We lose ourselves in the slow, sweet tumble of a kiss that ignites our passion, but also, mostly, runs away from the question I just asked that neither one of us wants to answer.

Winch 12

The phone rings. I let