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

stopped me, except he knew what a death sentence he'd just leveled on the next few years of my life. I was as good as gone, and one last night with Evan was all I was going to get, so he let me have it.

A pity-based consolation prize for the royal fucking my life was about to be subjected to.

Part of me felt like the guillotine fell a minute before I was ready to pull my neck out and walk away.

But even if a week, a month, a year or two had passed, this was a classic Remy/Winch situation, and I would have been summoned. And what could I say?

Throwing those shots back, I fantasized about exactly what I could have said. Say a few months had gone by. Evan would be ready to graduate. She'd be headed off for college, and, instead of watching her go and trying like hell to forget her burnt-sugar smell, the sound of her laugh, the icy pierce of her eyes, I could go, too.

Maybe apprentice to a stone mason. Maybe rig us an apartment, spend my nights kicking back, watching her gorgeous ass study from an open textbook while I reveled in the ache of muscles sore from a day of hard labor. Maybe get to fall into bed with her and wake up with the cling of her smell on my skin. Maybe start to build a life that didn't revolve around the buzz of my phone and a new set of crazy violent situations and court dates broken up by helpless fucking stretches of watching my brother wither into a blood-vomiting scarecrow while everyone kept their mouths shut and let it all happen.

And that string of fantasies is what broke my resolve to keep Evan out of everything. I just wanted...I needed one more minute with her. One more minute to hold her and tell her I loved her more than anything, wanted the two of us to be together more than anything, before I said goodbye for good and got caught up in something so dark, it more than trumped all the petty shit I'd been involved in up to that point.

Ending up naked in her bed, her sweat-slicked, slack-limbed body soft and sweet under mine, wasn't in the plan. But my plans have been getting fucked up left and right, so maybe this was inevitable.

I try to roll over to the side, but she pulls me back, her hands running along my back, her eyes raking over my face.

"Tell me. Tell me why you think you're leaving me again. Because you're not, you know. You're not leaving without me."

I kiss her, even though I should get up and leave. This has already gone further than it was supposed to.

"Evan...you have no idea how much I love you." I push the long pieces of hair tangled at her neck back, run my hands over the smooth skin of her cheeks, rub my thumbs over her lips, brush over her eyebrows with the tips of my fingers and watch while she closes her eyes and makes a noise that sounds kind of like a cat's purr. It's a noise that instantly works to turn me on, fast and hard, like I didn't just have the most amazing sex with this girl ten minutes before. She makes me crazy.

And I tell her. "You drive me nuts. In the best way. Believe me, if there was any way at all I could change things, make things right, I would do it, Evan. But I can't."

I don't know what I expect after that little speech. One more roll in the hay before she waves good-bye? Tears? Begging?

There are a few scenarios that go through my head, but none of them match the intensity of her response.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She sits up, half knocking me off the bed and glares, her icy eyes smoldering and pissed as hell. "This is it, Winch. This is it. This is the moment you step up and take control. Why does it always come to this? Why do you always back down at the last minute?"

"I'm not backing down," I explain, my voice calm and cool as I watch her yank her underwear back on and wrestle with her lacy little bra. "I'm stepping up."

"You're falling back," she hisses, yanking her dress over her head. "You're the fall guy, Winch. You're the guy they come to when no one else will stand up and take their medicine. And they come to you because you never make them stand up and take it."

She jabs her finger at me and rips a brush through her hair, pulling it into a high ponytail. I pull my boxers and pants on and wish that she'd just clasped her hands to her chest and cried silently as I walked away.

"You have no idea what I'm facing, what my family is facing."

"Really?" she challenges, and her eyes spark because she knows without a doubt that she has me completely beat. "Really? I don't know? I don't know what it's like to face my family getting split apart? Losing the home I grew up in? Getting kicked out of school? Watching my ex act like a disgusting pig and reveal himself as a worthless piece of shit in front of everyone? I don't know what it's like to go a little nuts when my entire world crashes around my shoulders, and instead of drinking it off or getting away with a slap on the wrist, I wind up with a criminal record? I don't know? Because I think I do know exactly what you're looking at and worse, and I'm calling your fucking bluff. You need to get a backbone!"

"I need a backbone?" The whiskey and sex and hopelessness and fear all swirl together and explode back out. "I need a backbone?"

The sound of my own yell shocks me into quick silence, but Evan doesn't cower or draw back. Her look of anger melts