Tasting, Finding, Keeping: The Story of Never (42 page)

“You believe me, don't you?” Ty asks as he rolls over and lays himself across my chest, presses his head to my breasts and breathes out a deep, deep sigh, one that I can tell he's been holding in for awhile. Tears are running down my face, hot and wet, and I have to dash them away before I address Ty, before I tell him that I love the fuck out of him, that there will never be another man for me, just him, always him. I think briefly about Noah Scott, but I know that if I had chosen him, I would've been unhappy, always pining for that bit of molten heat that Ty possesses, that inner confidence that gives his full lips sexy grins and makes my body go up in flames at the simplest of touches.

“Of course,” I tell him because I know he would never lie to me. We are way past that shit. Everything is out in the open now, and it feels so damn good. I would liken it to an orgasm of the spirit, this viciously peaceful awakening that makes the senses tingle and the world explode in light and color that washes away the darkness and lights up the earth with brilliance. “How could I doubt you after that?”

“I could be full of shit,” he mumbles, sounding sleepy, like he can't bear to keep his eyes open any longer. “I could be lying to you, telling you what you want to hear.”

“No,” I say firmly. “That's not true.”

“How do you know?” he asks me, challenging my affection, my trust, as is his right. I have tested him over and over and over and each time, he's passed with flying colors. What makes this any different? At least he's not pulling out an old flame on me, making me go on hikes with her, inviting her and her dog over to his family's house to hang out. I am beyond cruel. Poor Ty.

“Because,” I say to him as I push him off into the snow. “You never tell me what I want to hear.” Ty laughs and just lays there in his black coat and red scarf with his stupid holey jeans and signature combat boots. He looks like an ad for a winter catalog, a sexy one, one where the cover is the only page where the men are wearing clothes. I am one lucky girl. “You cuss too much, use my razor to shave your chest.” Ty starts to protest, but I hold up a hand to shush him. “You're inappropriate and dangerous as hell. You're exactly the kind of guy that mothers warn their daughters about.” I pause. “On the outside that is. On the inside, you have a soul that's desperate to love and be loved, to appreciate and be appreciated. You want to belong somewhere and you want to be something. We can all relate to that. You're not so different after all, Mr. McCabe.” He lays there silently for a moment and then sits up, scooting through the snow until our thighs touch. It's cold as hell out here but neither of us notices as snowflakes catch on eyelashes, ears, hair, as they float around like confetti and decorate our clothes with white polka dots. We're too busy staring at one another, readjusting, figuring out what it's like to be happy. When you live your whole live being miserable, it's a bit uncomfortable to switch gears, to stretch yourself open and feel something you've never felt before. Love sets broken bones, and yes, eventually, we will feel good again, whole, but for now, it hurts and that's okay. That is o-fucking-kay.

“Is there anything you want to know?” Ty whispers, dark eyes sliding away from me and over to the dumpster that holds the trash from the kitchen, the living room, and the bathroom. We have a long way to go in cleaning this place, but in a way, I like that. I'm putting elbow grease and time into a treasure that means something to Ty, that has the potential to make him happy, to make me happy. I think about Ty's question for a long while, certain that he's serious about closing the door on this case. If there is anything that I'm wondering about, that I need to understand, I better ask it now. If I don't, and I try to bring it up again, I will wound Ty in ways that even I will be hard pressed to understand. So I think and I think and I think. I think about asking him how many people he slept with, if it felt good, how much money he made, what that girl's name was … that, poor, poor girl. I think about asking him if he was ever raped on the streets, how he managed to stay sane, how he came to the decision to work at the grocery store. There's a lot there that's missing. It's like Ty's given me the outline of his life, and he hasn't written the book yet. I know though that as curious as I might be in the future, as much as I might want to ask for that manuscript, that I won't. There are some things that are not meant to be read, some secrets that are meant to remain buried, forgotten, lost. I let the door slam on Ty's past, and I like that some of it is still a mystery to me. It makes him sexier somehow, more interesting.

I smile.

“I have one question,” I ask him and he cringes. I move forward, straddle Ty's lap and wiggle until I feel his body respond to me, pressing hard and insistent against the heat between my thighs.

“Yeah?” he asks, voice tentative, afraid.

“What's your preference: girl or boy?”

Ty doesn't care if our kid is a boy or a girl and neither do I. Gender is irrelevant in the world of love. Love exists pure and perfect without expectations or rules or restrictions. People put them there sometimes, try to map out the path of an energy that is too pure and perfect to restrain. That's how they get themselves into trouble. Neither McCabe nor I will make that mistake. And we certainly won't repeat the mistakes of those around us. We won't emulate my mother's selfish, illusive tendencies or his mother's blind, single-mindedness.

This is the kind of stuff we talk about while we clean that house. We don't talk about ultrasounds or doctors or midwives or any of that shit. We discuss philosophy and poetry and politics and get deeper and deeper into one another. Elbow deep in muck and discarded kitsch, Ty and I grow closer and closer, open up wide like flowers in the sun and drink in one another's energy. Oh yeah. And we fuck, too. We fuck on the elevator at the hotel, in the stairwell, in the car, in the snow. By the time the week is up, I'm so sore I can barely walk and Ty's baby is cranky as hell, forcing me to drink fruit smoothies by the gallon and sit on a folding chair while he shovels old newspaper and empty tin cans. If I bend over, I puke. Period.

The downstairs is now mostly clean, and I have even penned my first poem. It isn't very good, but Ty likes it. He sing-songs the lines as he scrubs down walls, floors, counters. He doesn't complain as he does it either, seemingly rather joyous in his discovery that, unlike the horrible
Hoarders
show we've been watching at night in the hotel (postcoital, mind you), this house has survived. Ancient craftsmanship and sheer dumb luck makes taking over this place as our future home a real possibility.

I spend my days laughing and my nights listening to Ty's charcoal voice slither through the empty places in my being, warming them up, melting me, and reshaping me into the woman I want to become. I think we're going to get a happy ending, Ty and me. He's going to become a therapist for troubled teens and me, I'm going to do something reckless and artistic, something that makes no money, but it won't matter because I'll have my tortured bad boy and a baby and a dog. Oh yeah, and that orange tabby cat. It sits on the bottom step and watches us day in and day out. I told Ty not to feed it, so it would go home, but he didn't listen. Later, much later, we found a picture of it in a drawer, so we think it belonged to Ty's mom. He says he's naming it Chuck Norris, but we'll see about that.

We'll see about a lot of things, Ty and me, but that's okay, we have time. We have forever.

Never is too tapped out for this shit, so I'm going to take over. She just had a fucking, baby, okay? My baby. He's wrapped up now in blankets with butterflies, and he's the most beautiful creature I've ever seen – except for her. Except for Never Ross-McCabe, my wife. That's right, I had a JOP come down here stat, and he married us literally hours before our son came into the world. His name is Noah which was my choice, not hers. I can appreciate a man with a passion and as happy as I am to have won, I can't help but realize how much he might have been hurt by losing her. So Never and I have a kid named after her ex. It's kind of fucked, but hey, so are we. We've come a long way, true, but we've got a long way to go which is good because if there was nowhere else to go, life would get pretty boring pretty quick.

The Regali clan is going to come up and visit, throw us a housewarming party, so I hear. At least, that's what we're telling Never. I've got a lot of other cool shit planned. Remember that dress, that white one that she didn't want to wear? Well, I bought it and I'll be damned if I don't see her in our backyard under an archway of black, fucking roses.

You want me to give you a happy ever after or some shit? Am I right? Well, I can't do that. I can give you a happy for now because that's all there really is to life. We have to live in the moment and make the best decisions that we know how. What I can do is promise you that I will love that woman forever, that I'd rather die than do something stupid that could hurt her. I can tell you that she changed my life, and I think, somehow, I changed hers. We're good for each other, Never and me. Just two tortured souls tangled together for life. Just two, tortured fucking souls in love.

Dear Readers,

When I first published this book, this was going to be the end for Ty and Never, but I asked you to email me, let me know what you thought and what you wanted. The overwhelming response I received was clear: we're not ready to let them go yet. You wanted to see Never dance for Ty, wanted to see Ty holding his baby in his beautiful, ringed hands, and you got it. 'Never Can Tell' is available now and continues the story of our two, dark tortured souls. It is book one in a new series, 'Never too Late', which will feature the story of all the Regali sisters and our poor, brokenhearted Noah Scott. I hope you've enjoyed your ride so far and will continue to enjoy the ride to come. If you have anymore questions or suggestions or just want to send me a shout-out, shoot an email to
[email protected]
. After all, it's about living in the moment. You talk; I'll listen. And readers, one last note:

I heart the fuck out of you.

Here we are everyone, the fun part. The pieces that follow make up a collection of vignettes and stories that I hope make you smile and bring the story of Ty, Never, and her family to life. Each one falls on a different time line in the overall series, so I've included a note to help you figure out when each one is taking place. Each story has a different narrator as well, so get ready for some tales from Noah Scott, Ty McCabe, and Never Ross.

STORY #1: Tasting Never, Chapter 9.5

The first story in this collection is essentially Chapter 9.5 in Tasting Never. This scene takes place directly between chapters nine and ten. I decided to include this because, well, I just heart the fuck out of Ty McCabe and can never get enough of him and his dirty mouth. Apparently, neither can Never!

Never Ross

I'm going to a movie with Ty McCabe.

I don't know why, not really. I mean, I know better than to get mixed up with boys like this – at least on a semi-permanent basis. A little heat is okay but too much can burn. I glance up and see him moving down the sidewalk towards me. I can already feel my skin starting to boil, to melt, to slide off my body and leave me naked, just a mass of flesh and bones. As soon as I'm stripped clean, the world will be able to see my black, bloody beating heart. That is, if it's even still there.

I wrap my hands across my own chest, clutching my upper arms and trying my best to smile as Ty raises a ringed hand in greeting.
Not fucking fair,
I think as I fight a frown. A man can't be
that
beautiful and that freaking charming, not if I want us to just be friends. And that's what we're going to be, Goddamn it. Even if I give him the one chance that I have left – no, no
especially
if I do – then I really can't have sex with him. For me, sex isn't something I save for the person I care about. Hell, it's not even an animalistic bite of pleasure that I take for the simple purpose of satisfying biology. It's just … an addiction. A way to let go of that pain for a little while.

“Howdy stranger,” Ty drawls, winking at me and stopping too close. Way too close. Normal people don't get that far into their friend's space bubbles. But then, I've already figured out that Ty McCabe is not a normal guy. I think that's why I like him so much. Bad boys are a dime a dozen, but they don't all come with dimples and butterfly tattoos that memorize me at the same time they heat my flesh with goose bumps. They don't all wear rings and interrupt me in the middle of my lectures.

If Ty notices me scooting back a step, he doesn't say anything. Instead, he grabs a cigarette out of his pocket and sticks it between his lips, eyes traveling across the posters that line the outside of the building.

“So, what's on the agenda for today?” He retrieves a lighter next and ignites the tip of the cigarette. People scoot past us, some of them wrinkling their nose at the smoke, but nobody says anything. Pretty sure it's not legal to smoke this close to the entrance, but Ty doesn't care. It makes me like him more. Not because he smokes, but just because he doesn't give two flying fucks about the little things. Some people are way too fucking caught up on the details that don't matter. I once saw Beth throw a two hour temper tantrum over accidentally ordering the wrong size of shoes online. I'm not saying my eldest sister's a shallow person, just that Ty's as far from one as humanly possible.

“You didn't pick out a movie?” I ask him, raising an eyebrow. He glances back at me, his ebony hair swirled by a light breeze. His lip ring, eyebrow ring, and nose ring are all black today. He's matched them up with black and white striped metal bracelets and an assorted rainbow of rings – two on each finger of his right hand except for his ring finger. Four beautiful jewels grace that finger, glimmering like diamonds. Hell, maybe they
are
diamonds. Ty's not a rich man, but I don't know where he got these, if they were given to him by … someone. I refuse to think about the miniscule crumbs of Ty's past that he's dropped along the short path of our new friendship. “You're the one that invited me.”

He shrugs, and I can't stop a slight twinge of angst at the oiled perfection of the movement. Only men with muscles move like that. My stomach tightens and I have to glance away, watch the slow crawl of traffic nearby.

“Figured we'd take care of that part when we got here.” He grins around his cigarette and then pulls it from his mouth, flipping it around and offering it to me. I untangle my arms from around myself as he watches from that dark eyed gaze, heating me up from the inside out. I take a drag and pass it back to him, letting the smoke calm me as it poisons my lungs and promises pain later in life. Much, much later, of course. I have trouble thinking about tomorrow; there's no way I'm even contemplating what might happen ten, twenty, thirty years down the line.
If I make it that far.
I shake the awful thoughts away and smile back at Ty. After all, he's standing there grinning still, waiting for me, I guess, to come up with the movie choice for today.

I'm not sure if Ty sees something in my face, a smile that doesn't reach my eyes or what, but he reaches out and taps me on the nose.

“Chin up, buttercup,” he says and then turns to face the theater head on, eyes scanning the titles of movies on the screen behind the registers. I have a hard time keeping my heart from doing a strange flip-flop inside my chest.
Ugh.
The last thing I need to be doing right now is romanticizing Ty McCabe. Even though we're out to see a movie together, that doesn't make it a date. “As I see it, it looks like we've got three choices.” Ty pauses and glances over at me, raising his pierced eyebrow for emphasis. “'Cause I sure as hell ain't seeing anything that has to do with computer generated talking animals. That shit is fucked.”

I let out a snort of laughter and try to let my guard down, at least a little bit. For me, though, this is a hell of a lot harder than sleeping with a guy I just met. Stupid, I know, but that's my life. One, long note of fucking stupid mistakes and nameless faces.

“So. Chick flick, thriller with Liam Neeson in it, or a horror movie with a doll that eats people's livers.” Ty finishes his cigarette and turns around, so that he's facing the street. He pauses for a moment, bends down and scrapes the burning tip against the pavement. I try to keep my eyes off of his ass, but I'm only human. And a weak human at that.

“I'm leaning towards the doll. There's nothing that puts life in perspective like a flesh eating doll.” Ty rises to his feet with a warm chuckle and flicks his cigarette at a nearby trash can. Somehow, he manages to get it inside the metal container. “Nice shot.”

“Yeah,” Ty says as he stands and his bracelets clink together on his wrist. “I'm pretty much a certified grade A badass, huh?” My turn to raise my eyebrows.

“Huh.” He chuckles again and reaches out, grabbing my hand in his. There's a brief moment of panic that surges through me, convinces me that I should wrench my hand from his grip, turn heel and run. But I've been running long enough. My feet – and most importantly my
heart –
are tired, so even though this could turn sour, that Ty McCabe could very well let his pain rain down around me like liquid fire, I clench my fingers tight. I hold the rough hand of a beautiful boy and let him drag me up to the register, pull me to his side and let him whisper in my ear.

“I like your shirt,” Ty says and while that's not exactly the sexiest or the most romantic compliment in the world – and why should it be considering he is
not
a love interest, just a friend – the stirring of his warm breath against my hair makes me shiver. I look down at my T-shirt, at the glow-in-the-dark Bigfoot face smiling up at me, at the tattered hem I cut up with scissors. It's not the red dress I wore to the bar the night I met Ty, but it clings in all the right places. I have a certain style, always have, but as time wore on and I got further and further away from the Never I used to be, that style started to evolve. I'm not sure I could even dress myself without paying attention to the way my breasts looked, my hips, my ass. Everything I do is designed to attract the wrong kind of guy. I should be wearing paisley print dresses or cream colored silk with flowers, something to attract guys like Rick.

But I don't want Rick. Maybe I never did?

I smile softly as Ty releases my hand and tells the guy behind the counter that we need two tickets to
Death by Dolly.
I reach into the back pocket of my skintight jeans and fetch the last few bucks I have left. As I pull them out and try to hand them to Ty, he's accepting the tickets and telling the dude to have a nice day.

“Keep your money,” he tells me as he reaches for my hand again. I don't know that he's even aware that he's doing it. I stumble after him, into the darkness of the theater. The smell of overpriced popcorn assaults my nose, teasing my tongue with butter and salt that I sure as shit can't afford. Ty can't afford it either. That's why I get pissed when he refuses to take the cash from my hand.

“Ty,” I say, a slight warning in my voice. I don't know why it's there, or why this even matters. I guess I'm just sensitive to this shit.
It's not a date. We hardly know each other. I should pay for my own ticket.
I don't say any of that, just thrust the money at his chest, ignoring the firm press of muscles beneath his black and purple band T-shirt. I don't recognize the name of the group, but the graphic is cool. Who doesn't like a striped toaster with vampire fangs? “Here. Take it. Buy yourself a tub of popcorn.”

Ty smiles back at me, no dimples this time, and plays with his lip ring for a moment before answering.

“Why don't you buy
us
a tub of popcorn to share, I'll grab the drinks, and we'll call it even?” He leans towards me conspiratorially. “Larges come with free refills, so if you don't mind sharing, we can get one of each and swap spit.”

“You make it sort of difficult to stay angry with you,” I admit with a sigh, dropping my hand and letting the dollar bills rumple in my suddenly sweaty palm. What I don't admit, not to him and definitely not to myself, is that if we're going to
swap spit
that I'd rather do it with a kiss.
Not going to happen.
I sigh and shake my head. “You're disgusting, you know that, right?”

“So I've been told,” Ty tells me with a wink. He moves away and snags us a spot in line while I let my eyes travel across the other people in the lobby. It's a habit of mine, scoping the crowd. There's a guy over by the cluster of arcade games in the corner with a crooked smile and a full sleeve of skeleton tattoos. He's flirting with a girl, touching her shoulder, leaning in close. If Ty wasn't here, he's the one I'd go for. We'd end up in the bathrooms, in the back of his car, in the alley behind the theater. “Oh, Never Ross?” Ty's voice cuts through the thoughts and draws my attention back around towards him, towards his spiked hair and his dimples, his tight shirt and his dirty combat boots.

I'm glad he's here, that I'm not fucking some guy I don't know, that I'm trying for once in my miserable life to make a friend. Ty McCabe is a good friend, that much I know, even if we haven't spent much time together. The very fact that I haven't fucked anyone else since I met him is indicative of that.
I'm going to tell him.
I'm going to tell Ty my secret, how my family abandoned me for a murderer, left me for broken and never looked back. I'm going to give him my chance and see what happens.

But first, I'm going to watch a doll eat the livers of some very famous and ridiculously overpaid actors.