Keeping Never (16 page)

“
Sounds hot,” Ty says as he strips off his gloves and glances over at the staircase. We've cleared it all the way up the top floor, but we haven't ventured any further. Ty is worried about the structural integrity of the building, or so he says. Honestly, I think that's a load of bullshit. I think that if I wasn't pregnant, he'd have dragged me up there right away, just to see the state of it. I mean, it's cute and all that he wants to protect me, but I've already told him twice that I am not going to break if he touches me the wrong way. I could probably get hit by a taxi cab and give birth to twins or some shit. “Did she make you stuff sea sponges up your cunt when you were on the rag, too?” I snort and wonder how the hell Ty gets these ideas in his head.

“
You're a weirdo.”

“
I read an article about it once. It's supposed to be real good for your kitty cat.”

“
Fuck off.” I follow Ty's lead and strip my gloves, toss them in the garbage bag and make my way outside onto the porch. The snow here is virginal, white and pretty as fuck. In the city, it's gray and slushy. I admire the contrast though I must admit that I prefer it here. It's quiet, it's serene, it's safe. I can see this house being perfect. I can imagine the fireplace roaring and Ty's hot body atop mine. I can even imagine holding a baby (though that's a bit of a stretch) on my lap while I enjoy the upstairs balcony that I haven't yet seen though Ty tells me has the best of views.

“
How about fuck on?” he asks me as he wraps his arms around my waist. I'm not complaining, but Ty's been extra clingy lately, very touchy-feely, like he can't get enough of me. It's a distraction technique, a tactic to forget his pain which is fine, but that which I know I can't nurture for an extended period of time. Still, how mad can I be with tortured, tatted, pierced bad boy McCabe nibbling my earlobe?

“
Maybe after you get me a cup of coffee,” I say as I stretch my arms above my head. I get more and more tired everyday. Beth says it's because I'm 'cooking' the baby in my belly right now, forming a whole human being out of a cluster of cells. She says it's actually not so bad later on. I don't believe her. Beth doesn't even have stretch marks. Never trust a mother without stretch marks. Ty kisses my shoulder and moves off the porch and into the snow, promptly falls onto his back and makes a friggin' snow angel.

“
Be spontaneous with me,” he calls as I tuck my woolen coat tighter around me and descend into the powdery white fluff that is too picture perfect for words. I lay down next to Ty, and he starts to talk.

29

Let's end this now, Nev. I am so tired of carrying this around. I want to get rid of my pain and break out of my cocoon, spread my wings and fly free. I want to be like one of the fucking butterflies that are etched into my skin. I want to change, to know that I'm different inside and out, and then I want to grow old as fuck with you. I want to see your face tell a story with wrinkles and know that you're just as beautiful then as you are now, maybe even more so because I know that every day I spend with you, I get more and more attached. Even now, the thought of being separated from you is un-fucking-fathomable. If you die, I die. Literally. I will slit my own wrists, do it up Romeo and Juliet style. Call me unhealthy or obsessed or whatever, but it's true, and I won't apologize for it. What I will do is tell you the rest of this story and be done with it.

So, I failed that girl in the worst way possible and ran to San Francisco with twenty bucks in my pocket and a broken heart in my chest. I thought about starting over there, but it wasn't long before necessity and old habits took over my better judgment and sent me back to the streets. The going was tough though, tougher than back home. There weren't as many people willing to pay for it, so I slept on a park bench for a few weeks until I had enough money to travel. Then I took a bus and got off at the last stop, right outside a university in a city I'd never heard of.

I started working the streets on my own, relying on men while I was young and then, as I matured, I found that many of them were less interested in me, so I switched back to women. I changed from prostitute to escort and back again, more times than I can count. I lived in beach side manors with ladies who had too much money to spend by themselves, whose husbands had hordes of their own mistresses. I was an emotional tool as much as I was a physical one. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I'd take a couple hundred bucks cash and I'd fuck chicks against alley walls, in the backs of clubs, bathrooms. I know you don't want to hear this, Never, but I have to tell you. And if you think about it, this story really does have a happy ending because I found you. Let me keep going because I'm almost done, and then I'll never speak of it again. I won't want to, and I'll beg you not to. If there's anything you want to know, ask me now because then I'm done with this shit. I'm going to forget it completely, let my mind heal over the wounds and scab. I want to forget the sounds that people in pain make when they're trying to escape. I want to forget about the day that I stopped taking money for sex, went to work at the grocery store, and continued to fail myself. I sought out girls that mirrored my own pain, ones that I actually found attractive for once in my fucking life, and I was a fucking dick to them.

I had a lot of one night stands and quickie flings. I made people cry, broke hearts that were weak, and I felt good doing it. Misery loves company, right? I'm not proud of it, but it's true. Even you, Nev. I spotted you from across that room, and I knew that you were a bomb waiting to explode, a girl whose past was hotter than hell, a burning abyss of loss and anger and pain. I went up to you intending to do what I always did, and then I saw your eyes. Maybe you don't believe me because I didn't act like it, but I was affected by your face, your mouth, your skin, the sprinkle of freckles on your upper back. Never, when I asked you to go dancing with me, I had no idea what words were coming out of my mouth. When you responded back to me, I could tell that you didn't feel the same way, that you still wanted to use me to satisfy your own aching, emptiness. That's why I rejected you at first.

Then I saw you at that convenience store and everything changed. I wanted to save you, to get to know you. Something inside of me called for something you had inside of you. Everything that happened after that, I consider a blessing because it brought us together. You were the reason I wanted to change myself once and for all. After we fucked the first time, I knew I could never touch another woman and be happy. I needed you. I wanted you. I still do, Never, and that will never change.

30

“
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 his 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 appreciated 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 notice 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 I 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?”

31

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 combined with a shorter duration of the horde and the fact that the upstairs is not full of garbage, merely stuff, makes taking over this place as our future home a real possibility.