Finding Never (16 page)

“
Okay,”
she begins and then pauses like she wants to say something. I notice
how much prettier she looks without her makeup, how much younger. I
like her so much better this way. “Ty,” she begins, her
voice low enough that I know the boys can't hear. “He's pretty
cool.” And then she's turning away and grabbing Never by the
collar before she can dart out in front of a pickup truck.

I
walk over to Ty and stand above him, noticing that his eyes are
cracked open and he's got a cigarette in his mouth. He looks so
fucking gorgeous stretched out on the grass like that, long and lean
and hard. I want to straddle him, fuck the shit out of him right
then and there. My thighs clench tightly and I have to look away to
stop my heart from galloping away from me.

“
Have
a good walk, Nev?” he asks, and he doesn't sound pissy, just
curious.

“
Yes,”
I say as I resist the urge to lie down next to him and curl myself
against his side, feel his ringed fingers in my hair, his mouth on
mine. “You?” Ty takes the cigarette out of his mouth
and sits up.

“
Jade
and I had a nice talk. I think it was helpful. I've kind of decided
that I want to counsel people, like teens or something, you know?
People with problems. I think that's my life calling.” I
don't say anything because Noah is scrutinizing this conversation,
and I just don't feel like talking in front of him. “Seriously,
baby, I think this could be the start of a beautiful future.”
Together
hangs in the air after his words as he stands up and
gives me a smoky kiss smack dab on the lips. Noah watches silently,
and when Ty walks away, he grabs my arm. He unlocks the car with his
key fob so Ty, bitch-Never, and Jade can climb in giving us a second
of privacy.

“
Who
is this guy, Never?” Noah asks and in his words, there's a
judgment. He doesn't like Ty. Now, whether it's because he's just
jealous or because he senses something in him, I don't know, but what
I do know is that if Noah doesn't like Ty, he doesn't like me because
we're the same, him and me. Ty and I are two halves of a whole.
It's just a fact, a plain and simple fact.

“
He's
my … ” It takes me the longest moment in history to
answer this question. “He's my soul mate.”

22

Noah
takes us all back to the house and stays. My soul mate comment
actually seems to invigorate rather than discourage him from seeking
my affection. We play games and he sits really, really close to me,
laughs loudest at my jokes, touches me gently. Ty watches and says
nothing, sits across the room from me, frowns with an unlit cigarette
in his mouth, and makes my little sisters giddy with joy when he
agrees to play dress up with them.

When
it gets dark, Noah goes to leave and there's this awkward moment
where we don't know what we're supposed to do – kiss? hug?
shake hands? – so we do nothing and it's one of the tensest
moments of my life.

“
See
you soon, I hope,” he whispers as he disappears out the door
and Ty drapes himself over my shoulders. He's wearing a sparkly
tiara and a pink dress that my sisters have cut up for their fashion
show. It hangs in rags from his strong shoulders, bares his belly
beneath. I want to grab his hand, drag him upstairs, and explore his
body, but I can't. It's almost time for
dinner.
The dinner
where I'm supposed to find out everything about Jade and Luis and
whatever else happened while I was gone. I've already met Danny,
Maple's father, and that was bad enough. He was an uptight, suit
wearing piece of shit who could not have looked any less thrilled to
be picking up his child for the night. Guess my sister was good
enough to fuck but not worth enough to be pleasant to. He didn't
even say
hello
to her.

“
Thank
God,” Ty whispers, breath hot as hell against my ear. “I
thought he was never going to leave.” I try to pry him off of
me, but instead, he spins me around and keeps hold of my wrist,
places his other hand against my lower back and kisses me half to
death. Ty's lips are hungry and his teeth are needy, biting and
eating away at me while I do my best to keep from moaning and
collapsing on the floor in a puddle.

“
Never,
”
Beth hisses from the staircase, causing Ty to step back with the
world's phoniest
Who me?
look on his pretty face. Guess his
charm works on women of all walks because my sister smiles
coquettishly and reprimands only me. “There are children in
this house.”

“
Yeah,
okay,” I tell her, admiring the white dress she's put on for
our outing. Beth looks so pretty and grown up; I wonder when I'll
look like that, if I'll ever look like that. Maybe it's because she
had a baby? I don't know, but I'm not having one anytime soon. I
remind myself to pick up condoms while I'm out tonight, whether I
want to use them or not. When we go back to California, I'll get
some more birth control pills from the clinic. For now, I have to be
smart. Ty is a stud, and I have no doubt that he could get me
pregnant with a mere glance.

“
Get
dressed,” Beth commands, assuming I brought something more
appropriate for the snooty restaurant we're driving almost an hour to
get to. They have seven items on their menu. Seven. And they're
all over thirty bucks a plate. I wonder who's going to pay for it.
I imagine the clothing in my suitcase and know that what I'm wearing
is probably the nicest, most conservative thing I have.

“
I
think I'll just wear this,” I say, and she rolls her eyes at
me. It feels good, actually, to have Beth look at me like I'm just
another sister. I sort of love it.

“
Suit
yourself,” she says, flipping her short hair and yelling over
her shoulder. “India, hurry up, we haven't got all night.”

“
Hey,”
Ty whispers to me and reaches into his back pocket. He pulls out a
wad of cash and hands it to me. I stare at it and can't help but
wonder where it came from. If it's money from his whoring, I don't
want it, and not because I blame him for what he did or because I'm
judging him but just because I'm jealous. He senses this and smiles
softly.

“
My
last paycheck from the store,” he tells me. “The grocery
store.” Ty reaches out and curls my fingers around the money.
There's at least a hundred bucks there, conservatively. “Maybe
you can grab some stuff for me while you're out?” he says and
he's smiling wicked nasty at me. “And pay for dinner, too.”
I don't want to take Ty's money, but I don't have much of my own
left, so I stuff it in the pocket of my jeans.

“
Like?”

“
Like
Magnums, 'kay?”
Guess we're on the same page.
Ty
kisses me on the nose which is too fucking cute for a sizzling sex
addict like him, and spins away to intercept Darla who's giggling and
running with a fairy princess wand in hand. He growls at her and
grabs her around the waist, swinging her in a circle like a dancer
while she shouts and screams with joy. She likes him far better than
she likes me which is okay. It's hard not to like Ty McCabe.

“
You
can judge a man by how he interacts with children,” Beth
whispers as she walks by me and into the kitchen. “It's the
oldest trick in the book.” I roll my eyes. My sister can't
help herself. She's kind of old fashioned sometimes. Ty moves into
the living room with Lettie and Lorri and Darla, but I don't follow
them. I won't go in there, not yet. That's the room where my father
took his last breath, and I know that if I set foot in there now,
that I'll be bombarded with memories that I really don't want.

“
Ready,”
a voice says from above me, and I glance up to find Jade in a soft,
pink dress that flows like silk, hair up in a bun, makeup soft but
perfect. Beth.

“
She
dressed you, didn't she?” I ask and my sister gives me a real
smile, so genuine it could knock your socks off.

“
She's
being nice to you now,” Jade tells me as she comes down the
stairs and nearly trips on her own shoes. “But just you wait.
Once you're absorbed fully into the fold, she'll start in on you.”

“
Hey,”
India calls from the top of the stairs. “No complaining.”
I laugh, can't help it. “Oh shut up, Never,” she sighs
as she descends the steps like a cloud, all light, white fluff and
bows. It's the most deranged piece of fabric I've ever seen. Maybe
I wouldn't look like such a tool if I put on my red dress, the one I
wore the night I met Ty? A slut maybe, but not a tool.

“
Be
right back,” I say as I go upstairs and throw on my dress, pin
my hair up with a clip from my past, and smear on some lipstick. The
neckline might be a little low and the hem might be a little high,
but as I examine myself in the mirror I can't help but think I look
pretty good. Apparently, Beth agrees because she compliments me when
I come downstairs, giving my other two sisters something to exchange
an eye roll over. When Ty sees me, he smiles softly and pulls some
rings off his right hand. He jingles these around in his palm and then tries to pass one to me. It's the gold one with the ruby
setting.

“
I
can't take this,” I tell him, my heart threatening to break
free from my chest and go skidding across the floor for all my
sisters to see. They're watching this exchange with interest, and I
can't blame them. I mean, when a guy gives a girl a ring, it usually
means something pretty special. Now, Ty might not be asking me to
marry him, but he is giving me one of his mother's rings.

“
Please,”
he tells me, leaving his hand suspended in midair. “Don't make
me look like an asshat. Take it.” I laugh, as do Jade and
India behind me, and let Ty press the ring into my hand, curl his
fingers around mine, pull me to his lips for a kiss.

“
So,
are you guys, like, together-together?” India asks as Ty slides
his arms around me and just holds us in this space between now and
forever, this warm bit of bliss that has no name, that exists solely
for the two of us.

Ty
doesn't answer. He knows that I have to answer this question, that
this is my call to make. I touch his lip ring, slide my fingertips
up the side of his face, tug on his nose ring. Ty, the man with the
butterfly tattoos and an acidic past that burns hot inside of him,
has a hold on me that I can't resist. No matter what I say now, no
matter what I do, he knows that. Noah Scott or no, Ty is special,
and I would be one, stupid, fucking bitch not to see that.

“
Yeah,”
I say. “Yeah, I guess we are.”

23

In
the car, I have a hard time joining the conversation, partly because
I don't know anything about the pageant that Jade took part in last
summer and partly because I have a
boyfriend.
Ty is my
boyfriend. Except for Noah, I've never had one of those. I don't
know what to do with one.
Love it, keep it, treasure it.
Which
brings up another good point. Noah. What do I do with Noah?

“
So,”
I say, interrupting a fest of giggling that sort of makes me feel
like an outsider. “How are you guys so close to Noah? I mean,
after I left, I can't imagine why you would keep in touch with him.”
Beth goes silent for a second, and I think she's going to say
something like,
Oh, Zella dated him,
or something as equally
perturbing as that. The thought makes me jealous whether I want it
to or not. All these years, I've always kept Noah in the back of my
mind, earmarked as belonging to me, using him to compare any living,
breathing man against. And now here I am and he's a possibility, and
I can't keep my hands off of Ty McCabe.

“
At
first, we kept in touch with him just in case one or the other of us
heard from you. After awhile, when it was obvious you weren't coming
back,” Beth chokes on her words and gets tears in her eyes
again. Everybody else remains dry eyed. “He just started
coming around when we needed him. You know, to babysit or fix
something or whatever. And then, um … ” Beth pauses,
and I can feel that the subject is now out of her control. We're
waiting for someone else. We're waiting for Jade.

“
He
kicked Luis in the balls when he tried to rape me,” Jade
gushes, and when I look back at her, her face is in her hands. I
don't tell her this, but I'm glad that she calls Luis by his name. She
knows he's her biological father, but she doesn't call him Dad. “Um,
he was drunk off his ass, and he just fucking threw me down. If Noah
hadn't walked in … ” Jade begins, but she doesn't
finish. Nobody elaborates on this story which is fine by me. I know
all I need to know.

“
I'm
a sex addict,” I say and the words sound kind of stupid in the
darkness of the minivan. Nobody responds for awhile.

“
What's
… that exactly?” India asks, and I have to remember that
she's only sixteen, that she and Jade are virgins. I try to keep to
generalizations. My hands are sweaty and shaky, and I wish with all
my heart and soul that Ty was here, that I could wrap my fingers
around his ringed ones and squeeze.