Authors: Liz Reinhardt
"What's the worst thing you've done?"
I take a breath so deep, it feels like it starts at the soles of my feet and just works its way up to my addled brain. My fingers drum on her tanned skin.
"Can I ask you a question about your question?"
She wiggles her toes in her sandals. "Sure." Her knees rock back and forth slowly, a totally opposite rhythm from my rapid
ly
tapping fingers.
"Do you want to know the worst thing I've ever done from a legal standpoint? Like the worst thing I've done if all the stick-up-their-ass do-gooders had a vote? Or the thing I think is the worst, according to my conscience?"
I watch her eyes stretch wide and her mouth work into a perfect o-shape.
"Both." Her answer is greedy, but her face looks nervous, like she knows she's going to regret having asked once I tell her.
The sun is high up, but the only light hitting us is the speckled, diffused stuff breaking through the dense, dark greenery of the trees in the park. Even in the shade, the heat sticks to us, making our clothes damp with sweat. I want to ask her to leave, but there's nowhere to go right now.
The apartment I rented for myself got co-opted by some second cousin who just moved over from Hungary with a heavily pregnant wife, two little kids, no money, and less skills. He needed it more than I did, so I went back to my old set of rooms at my parents' house, and they're out of the question for me and Evan.
"Worst thing from society's viewpoint," I begin, and her attention is rapt. She even leans forward a little. "I broke a guy's femur."
She pulls her hands back and curls them into each other.
"On purpose," I add. Then I take it a step further, "And I wish...I really wish I'd broken his other femur while I was at it."
Her hands fly up to her mouth, and she gasps the question from behind her fingers. "What did he do?"
"Distributed child porn."
The horror in her eyes settles my conscience, not that even Evan's disapproval would make me feel
bad about what I’d done
. "I found out because I do sweeps of the company computers for security breech stuff. My father brought him in for some, uh, accounting things."
Since I was mid-story about breaking a guy's fucking femur, it occurred to me that adding in t
he detail that my family hired the
guy to cook the books probably wouldn't matter. Still.
"He was damn good at his job. Damn smart with computers. It took months before anything came up. Then I saw a bunch of it, and I swear to God right now, Evan, that asshole is
lucky all I broke was his femur, because I have never felt more justified about beating the shit out of anyone before."
She takes one hand down from her mouth and puts it back in mine. "Okay. That actually makes perfect sense to me. What is your personal worst?"
I squeeze her knee and avoid her eyes for a minute, because here's another story
buried in the Shut the Fuck Up,
Winchester Vault.
"I shot a horse."
"You shot a horse?" The tone of voice she uses is more confused than accusatory, which makes it easier to go ahead and get it out.
"I had to hang out with these assholes my father was doing business with, and they were always out in the wild, hunting and fishing. One day we were tracking deer. I didn't love being arou
nd a bunch of
jackholes
I barely
knew
anyway, and every one of them was
armed to the teeth with every weapon you could imagine. Anyway, they wanted me to bag a deer, and I was scared shitless.
Just wanted the day to be over with.
I saw this brown shape running, and, I swear to you, I was trying to miss. I'm not really into the whole hunter thing. But I guess I was a better shot than I thought.
Or worse.
Anyway, I hit it. But it wasn't a deer."
She grips the back of the bench so hard little flecks of old paint cake off.
"You killed a horse?"
The memory of it is a bitter bite at the back of my throat.
"Everybody thought it was hilarious. The guy who owned the horse said something about meaning to put it down for a while anyway
cause
it was old and crazy
. I had to laugh along, because that's my job. That's who I am. But I killed a fucking horse, and, I don't know, I wanted to feel shitty about it."
She bites her lower lip and something in her eyes drives my next point home.
"I realized how sick I was of hanging out with people who didn't think it was fucked up that this horse got killed and that we should maybe, I don't know. Maybe..."
"Be sad. Just be sad that something running and alive
the minute before
was suddenly gone." Evan stops peeling ch
ipping paint and puts her hand
on my cheek, her fingers so damn soft on my face. "That's sad. To always have to put on a show. To always have to pretend. Don't you get
really
sick of it?
Like sick enough to just want out?
"
"Yeah.
I do. But everyone gets sick of what they have to do sometimes. That's life, right?"
I close my eyes and just focus on the feel her hand, let
its
realness be all I focus on
for a minute. I feel good. I feel happy. I feel like I don't have to put on a show with her.
The sun is intensely hot. I unbutton the top button of my shirt and think about the beach. I haven't gone to the beach with a couple beers and the whole day spread in front of me in so long, I can't even remember the last time.
And then I think about Evan in a bikini. She's always got these cute ass outfits on, so I'm willing to bet her bikini is tiny and hot as hell.
"You
wanna
go to the beach today?" I ask, and Evan's whole face brightens to the point where it would be easy to forget about the sun, no matter how hot it blazes.
"Do you have a bathing suit with you?"
She reaches up and unbuttons the next button on my shirt, then one more.
"I don't even know if I still own one." I slide a finger along the golden-tan of her shoulder and down to the point of her elbow. "I bet you have a couple."
"Of course."
She bats those sexy long eyelashes.
"All of them itsy bitsy."
"So."
I don't want to ruin where this is going, but we've been flipping and flopping since
this morning and I want to know which direction we're taking now. "You were pissed about what I do and my
family,
and I get that. But, is it just that you seriously love the beach, or are you going on this date because you and me make sense somehow?"
She straightens up and takes a deep breath,
squints
her eyes at me, wrinkles her nose, and shakes her head, slowly, side to side.
"You..." She pulls her shoulders up and squeezes her eyes closed. "You make me crazy, okay? And I think what we're doing might be stupid. Correction: what we're doing
is
stupid. I don't want to get in a relationship with someone who's going to break my heart. But I can't stay away from you, Winch. I want you.
So much."
I lean my forehead on hers and curl my hands around her shoulders, resisting the urge to jump up and scream to every random person walking by, "Hey! This girl is mine! This girl wants to be with me!"
I hug her tight and smell her shiny hair, sweet with the scent of wildflowers.
"I will never break your heart. I will never hurt you. I might fuck up, I might not be perfect, but I'll never hurt you, Evan. You have my word."
No man in my family gives his word lightly, so, whether or not Evan trusts what I just said, I've made a vow as a Youngblood, and that's not something I can just go back on.
"So, we can
just be a normal couple on a date
going to the beach today?" Evan asks.
I nod and kiss her neck, lick the salty warm place where her pulse is beating hard.
"Yeah."
I say, running my hands up and down her back.
"And you'll be in half a
suit,
and I'll be in a tiny bikini?"
She rubs her nose on mine, some cute little Eskimo-kiss thing so
adorable,
I never would have expected it from someone as sexy as Evan.
"Yeah."
This time it's hard for me to get the word out.
She hops off the bench and grabs my hand, pulling me up and dancing a quick little jig like the one she did just for me in her room. We head back through the park, across the street, into my car, and get back to her house. She runs inside while I wait, my hands gripped on the steering wheel, and my heart pounds like I'm about to have an attack.
Or I think my heart is racing heart-attack fast.
Then I see her rush back down the stairs, and the only hint I get about what that bikini looks like is the two tiny red strings that go over her collarbones and tie behind all that shiny dark hair.
And as if my heart isn't already pounding out of my chest, my brain fast-forwards to the beach and slow motions through Evan peeling off that tiny black
coverup
, running down the sand
, jumping in the water, tanned skin wet and shiny, tiny bikini barely covering her curves, and my mouth dries out.
I get out and open the passenger side door for her, catching her against my body just before she slips in. "You're torturing me, you know that?"
"The beach is not torture." She leans up on her toes and presses her lips to the side of my mouth. "It's fun."
"Sand whipping everywhere.
No escape from the sun.
Sharks.
Sounds like torture to me." I smile as her lips move across my jaw and to my ear.
"All that terrible stuff.
Then me.
In a bikini."
Her words are a whisper right against my ear.
"More torture." I pick her up by the waist and my fingers pluck at the knot holding her bikini top on. "But I'm a glutton for punishment."
She presses her body to mine, and I'm enveloped by everything that's her, ready to free fall into whatever we're about to do, however we're about to do it, excited about a freedom I never
imagined.
Until the noose that's always around my neck gets tugged.
My phone rings.
Evan start
le
s and pulls back, her face relieved. "It's okay, right? It isn't 'House of the Rising Sun.'"
I pull the phone out of my pocket and stare, willing the call to go the fuck away
even when I know it won't. Evan’s
fingers
suddenly
half-cover the screen. When I look up,
her brow is furrowed.
"Winch?
It’s okay, r
ight? You can ignore it? We can go to the beach?"
"It's not 'House of the Rising Sun,'" I agree, but I tug the phone away from her hand. "It's my...it's someone I used to know."
The call goes to voicemail, and I make the decision to finally put it all on the backburner when a text beeps through.
I
open it and stifle a groan.
Y
r brother and 2 Murrays on 4th an
d
Little
.
Jimlo
is taking bets.
I have a serious urge to hurl this fucking phone onto the street
and run it over a few dozen times
.
I told her I wouldn't break her heart, and I won't. But I have to break our date and leave her, and that feels like the first step on the long road that will eventually lead to Evan's broken heart.
This morning has been like every other tangled, crazy, hot time Winch and I collide.
It's
strange how it's possible for me to go from thinking he's the only guy I'll ever want to be with, to considering slicing him out of my life completely and possibly punching him in the nuts as a sendoff.
But there's something about him that keeps me right in the eye of the storm, no matter how nasty it gets.
And it's just gotten rip-off-the-roof, flood-that-will-float-your-car-away nasty.
I snuggle in his arms, enjoying the clover and spice tang of his skin, my tiny bikini burning to have his eyes all over it (and his hands all under it) when his damn phone plays "She's Like the Wind."
My first thought is,
Who
the hell would he use that ringtone for?
My second thought, tripping right on the heels of my first thought, is,
It's
not "House of the Rising Sun
”!
My second thought is so overwhelmingly ecstatic, it blots out my first entirely, and I don't even have the urge to vomit over that cheese-
tastic
ringtone or grill him about who would have inspired it.