Fall Guy (10 page)

"You messed that up big time." My voice wobbles and thumps. The
cellphone
in my pocket lets out a soft tone, the alarm that marks the end of our five minutes.

Winch pulls me closer
, and the entire world funnels into the space between the two of us
. "It was chicken-shit of me to want to be slick instead of honest.
But I'm glad you gave me a second chance to be
honest with you, Evan, even if being honest might have fucked it all up. You deserve honesty. And I wouldn't rush this under normal circumstances, but I respect that you might beat it now that I got my five minutes. I'd never forgive myself if I didn't at least try."

His hands run up along my neck, and he tips my face to his. I can smell the sharp tang of his aftershave and the underlying salty sweat that marks his long day of work in the sun. I snake my arms around his waist, and my knees wobble when he locks his hips to mine. He nuzzles my neck, sucking gently and breathing deeply, and I press against him.

He pulls his mouth up my neck, across my cheek, and finds my lips with a desperate press that shocks me and knocks a moan out of my mouth and into his. The fingers of his one hand slide
through my hair and his other hand dips down to the small of my back, pulling me tighter and locking me closer.

My mouth opens and his tongue slides in, and his kiss
isn't
the mix of lazy and confident I was sure it would be. It's all crazy passion and definite possessiveness, like he knows that if
he
snares me with a kiss I can't forget, I won't be able to walk away after
our
five minutes
is up
.

The alarm on my phone tones its reminder again, but all I can think about is the hungry pull of Winch's mouth, the strong cage of his arms, and the fact that even when I set my own alarm and it is ringing right in my ear, I'm powerless against a bad boy and his hot kisses.

I don't know if I ever kissed any girl the way I'm kissing Evan, like a maniac, on the curb in the middle of Savannah. I can hear her damn
cellphone
alarm beeping, and I'm scared as hell she's going to turn and walk out of my life, maybe for good. Not that I'd blame her. I acted like a
douchebag
, and I deserve whatever she wants to throw my way.

I usually hold back when I'm with a girl. I'm usually thinking about the whole entire situation, analyzing, paying attention to making it good, but also making sure that I have half an eye on everything going on around me.

This is nothing like that. I t
hink a bomb could have gone off
next to us, and I wouldn't have noticed. She tastes better than I could have imagined she would, sweeter and darker, with the unexpected bite of her teeth on my lip that makes me yank her closer and kiss her deeper.

When I pull back, her eyes are wide, icy circles and her lips are fat and bruised from my mouth on them. I want to say something suave, something to convince her not to leave.

I have nothing.

She opens her mouth and says, "Do you want a hamburger instead of pizza?"

Maybe I should be worried
she isn't more into the kiss, but I'm just happy she isn't going anywhere. I rush around to get her door, drive like crazy to the nearest Five Guys, and feel like I don't breathe until she's standing at the register with me, eyes squinted at the menus overhead, one hip slanted close to mine.

"I'd like a bacon cheeseburger, lettuce, tomato, grilled onion, grilled mushroom, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard...and relish. No! No relish. Please. And thank you." She looks over at me like she's going to ask a question,
then
looks back at the poor guy behind the counter. "And a bacon cheese dog. And Cajun fries, please."

"I'll have what the lady's having, and we'll need two sodas," I tell the guy, who is tryin
g to call out the colossal order
to the girl cooking the food. I pay, get the receipt, and follow Evan to the fountain, where she's getting a root beer. "There's
gonna
be more topping than burger on your burger."

"Yours too."
She dunks a straw in the soda and swirls it around to get rid of the foam on top. "You ordered the same as me."

She clicks the lid on her soda and depresses all the flavor indicator buttons.

"I didn't want to cause mass confusion in the kitchen. I figured it would be easier if they just had to remember one crazy order twice." I get a Coke and lead her to a table. "Plus that, I'm not picky about food, and I have a feeling you know how to order a good meal."

"One of my many talents."
She sits back in her chair and smooth
e
s a piece of long, dark hair between her fingers. "I'm not sure we should be on this date. I'm not sure this is such a good idea."

"It's not." I watch her eyes and lips shift down.

She balls up her straw wrapper and flicks it across the table at me. "Why are we here then?"

"We met in court. I don't think we qualify as good decision makers."

I'm trying to keep things light, but she looks more and more restless,
and I realize this date is still on serious probation, no matter how crazy
-
amazing
our kiss was.

Before I can pull together
something to show how our being together on this date makes sense
, o
ur num
ber gets called and I
bring
our heaping piles of food back to Evan, who's wriggling with excitement like a little kid.

Lala
, my ex, smoked and chewed a lot of gum, which tended to translate into her never being hungry. That was true for most of my exes, so I'm not really prepared for Evan's undisguised
enjoyment of this monstrous burger.
Or how much it turns me on.

She closes her eyes and chews slowly, moaning a little around her mouthful of food.

"Oh. Oh my sweet baby Jesus. Even if we never go on another date, I will always remember this burger fondly."

The
way she relishes every bite of this food makes it hard for me to take my eyes off of her
and pseudo distracts me from the fact that she maybe said we wouldn’t be going on any more dates
.

"Seriously?
All it takes is one burger to make a horrible date with me worth it?"

"It's an amazing burger. But I have a food history with them anyway." She points to the burger, gushing ketchup and mayo and all kinds of vegetables out of the bun, and shakes her head. "My dad has a gambling addiction. Whether his horses won or lost, he always took me out for a burger. At first, it would turn my stomach if it wasn't a win. But, after enough losses, I figured out that I'd tear my stomach to shreds if I worried like that. So all I concentrated on was the burger. Now it's one of those foods I can eat no matter how awful I feel."

She takes another huge bite and keeps her eyes on the napkins she has balled in her fist.

I imagine her wolfing down burgers as a kid, first all nervous, then with stubborn determination. A weird kind of pride jumps to life in me
at the thought of her being that incredibly courageous in the face of what had to be a pretty shitty situation with her father
.
"Alright.
I get that. In a screwed up way, it makes a lot of sense."

She leans her head to the side and narrows her eyes at me.
"Really?
Because I think it's kind of weird."

And, because I've fucked up so much on this date, I take a big step forward and loosen the disguise I wear for everyone else.
Because she makes me want to strip away the stupid mask I hold
up for everyone else and just
be
honest.
Be myself.

For once.

"It's my thing to be cool,
"
I start.
She gasps out a laugh, biting her lower lip to stop it in its tracks.
"Alright, smartass, not in front of you
, obviously
.
But, generally, I keep my cool. I...handle things. When shit gets crazy, gets out of control,
I step in and sort things out
. So I get exactly what you're saying. Sometimes I
gotta
drink when I'm not thirsty or stay up when I want to sleep or laugh with a big group of idiots when I want to sit in a dark room and just think."

Saying it is like ripping the curtains down and throwing the windows open in some hidden, secret room I've been trapped in for years. My heart runs crazy laps around my chest.

"Are you a secret agent?" she demands, wiping a smear of ketchup from her mouth with a napkin and leaning across the table, close to me, her eyes laughing.

I think about how what I do was part of what made
Lala
and all the girls before her so hot for me. I wonder if it would turn Evan on if she understood more. Or if she'd run the other way as fast as she could.

I crumple up my hamburger wrapper.
"Uh, no."

She dumps the fries out on a spread of napkins in front of us.
"Super hero?"

"You met me in court." I drag a few fries through the ketchup and watch her chew and wonder.

"A misunderstood super hero?" she asks between bites. When I don't say anyth
ing, she presses, "Like Magneto?
"

"You like the X Men?" I try to tone down my total shock.

I'm aware that there are tons of girls who do like the X Men, but none of my ex-girlfriends ever did.
Evan is completely different than any other girl I’ve ever been with in every possible
way, and I love it.

I’m shocked just how much I love it. I thought I knew exactly my type when it came to girls, but it winds up I had no idea. Or maybe I just don’t have a type; because I can’t imagine anyone else like her, and I can’t imagine wanting to be with anyone but her.

She looks legitimately surprised.
"Of course.
Everyone
likes the X Men." I remember
Lala
whining through the last X Men movie we watched and choose to ignore Evan's inaccuracy and listen to her maniac explanation instead. "Magneto will never be a villain in my eyes.
Never.
What happened to his mother, what he went through, it made him who he is, and excuses his crimes, I don't care how extreme they are."

It's a comic book. She's talking about a comic book, not me, I remind myself as I wrestle with the urge to grab her face and kiss her hard. I can hardly stay in my chair.

"So you think people can do bad things for good reasons?" I press, and I'm relieved she doesn't seem to notice how suspiciously anxious I am for her answer.

"Of course."
She pauses, fries held in midai
r, thinking
it through
. "Yes." She nods, more convinced every second
. "It happens all the time. And I'm in no place to judge. I'm always doing stupid things for stupid reasons, and I should know better."

I'm twisting her innocent confession and making it into something that applies to me a
nd the idiot decisions I've been making
for the last few years. Th
e on
es even I can't really come to terms
with. She's talking about Magneto and her little accidental foray into arson.

This has nothing to do with the lifestyle I live and the sacrifices I have to make and keep making.

She won't be able to reconcile with them because even I have a hard time with it, and I have no choice
but to do what needs to be done, like it or not
.

Guilt and hopeless
frustration rip through me like a wild dog pack on the scent of a kill.

"You ready to get
outta
here?" I ask, and she wordlessly sweeps the few scraps of leftover food and garbage into a pile, I throw it out, and we head to the car.

"Is this date over?" she asks when I have her door open.

Her feet hang half off the curb and she rocks back and forth, an inch away from me and then into the car interior, an inch closer and
then
back
again
.

"Completely your call."

I hold still, one hand on the car door, one on the roof, every nerve tensed to keep from kissing her right into the car, into the backseat, kissing her until it goes a lot damn further than kissing, to a place we can't get back from.

She s
ucks her bottom lip in and chews
on it, and I have to hold back a groan, because I want to suck on that lip. I want to suck on her.

"I want to stay with you longer." It's so blunt, she can't possibly mean for it to be a come on, but I'm so turned on, I'm about to make a dent in my hood from gripping it so damn tight. "I have to be home by midnight or my grandparents will freak out. But that's hours away. Can we go somewhere?"