Never Can Tell (2 page)

“Yeah,” he whispers, voice quiet, pitched low not just for the sleeping infant clutched in his arms, but also for me, too. Ty leans over and presses a kiss to my hair, all the while keeping his son's head supported with a handful of butterflies. I didn't think it was possible to love him anymore than I did before, but I think I do. Seeing him with Noah is like seeing an entirely different side of McCabe, and I fell for that, too. The bastard. “Come with us?” I nod and turn around, threading my fingers around Ty's bicep, sliding my nails over the wings of a blue butterfly. The sound of the rain outside and the jingle of Ty's bracelets are the only noises to be heard as we move as a unit down the hallway and into the shitty as shit room we've carved out for ourselves.

The bed, along with the rest of the furniture, belongs to me, all shipped up here courtesy of Beth. It's probably the nicest room in the house.

“Tomorrow,” Ty tells me as he lays Noah down in the center of the bed and climbs in after him. “I'm getting a job.” Ty says this everyday, but he never has much luck. Could be because I'm selfish and hardly ever let him go. I don't tell him this, but I'm afraid to be left alone with Noah. I don't have any motherly instincts, and I don't know what to do with him. I love him. Oh God, fuck yeah, I do, but I just don't understand him. I blame all of this on Angelica and that stupid son of a bitch, Luis. I had no parents, so I don't know how to be a parent. I keep telling myself that I'll get through it, that I'll learn how, but it isn't easy.

I ignore all of this and respond with a simple, “I love you,” as I climb in opposite Ty and find his ringed hand, tangling our fingers together while our breath mingles in the space above Noah's head. We kiss once, soft, no teeth, no tongue, and then we fall asleep. Life is hard, and it's not perfect, but we're together now and that's all that matters.

Why is there always something that has to come along and screw it up?

2

Despite his best intentions, Ty does not get up the next morning to go find a job. Instead, he lays pant-less and fucking sexy as hell on our bed next to Noah. My fault for not getting up with the baby last night. I watch him from my post next to the dresser and cross my arms over my chest. Everyday it seems there's a list of things that need to be done that never actually get done. Today, I decide that I'm going to take care of some of those before either of the boys wakes up. Might as well give it a shot anyway.

When we came here in December, I didn't expect to stay. Hell, when I left my dorm room way back when, I sure as shit didn't expect to get pregnant either. I thought I was going home to make peace with my family and break this cycle of pain that I've been living day in and day out since I was freaking five years old. That after I was done, I'd go back to school and Ty would come with. I thought we'd graduate magna cum laude and have a merry fucking time.

Instead, we're living in a rambling old shack with four rooms still filled to the gills with kitsch. Water leaks into our son's bedroom like Niagara fucking Falls, and we don't even own a freezer. Plus, we have a stupid tabby cat that pisses on everything.

“Goddamn it, Chuck,” I growl as I push the cat away from a pile of clothes with my foot. “Jesus Christ, can't you do that outside?” The cat yawns and pretends it didn't just urinate in the cup of my favorite bra before wondering off. I look down at the laundry, up at the ceiling and then sigh.

Before heading down the stairs, I sneak back into the bedroom and steal a Djarum Black from our dwindled package, shoving it between my lips and pausing in the living room to grab my laptop, shipped here courtesy of Lacey Setter. I take it outside and light up, pausing to glance down at the world's laziest dog. Bitch-Angelica raises her head to look at me and snorts, dropping her muzzle back to the grass and pretending like I don't even exist. She doesn't even bother to wag her tail.

“Spoiled snot,” I murmur around my cig, raising the lighter up and taking a massive drag, dropping my head back so that my hair hangs down and kisses my shoulder blades. I dyed it black again, had to. I couldn't stand waiting for the copper to grow back in, and frankly, the black sort of just suits me. Today, I have an orange streak in the front. Could be blue next week, could be purple. I haven't been able to decide on a color lately. Like the changing leaves, my mood has been up and down and all over the fucking place. I wonder if there's something wrong with me, postpartum depression or whatever.

I exhale and scoot over to one of the plastic chairs that Ty's mother bequeathed to him along with the house. I sit in it with a huff and flip open the top to my computer. I have got to figure out how to get back in school, and take Ty with me. He keeps saying he's going to get a job, but I don't know how good of an idea that actually is. Ty might be a bad boy on the outside, but on the inside, he's a hard working man with a fierce heart. If he had to slave away at a dead end job to support Noah and me, he'd do it. I can't let that happen. Ty needs to be a therapist. He wants to help people, and I want to help him. His dream is a relatively new one, but it's a dream nonetheless. I can't let him give up the hope for something better.

I grab my cigarette in my left hand and use my right to navigate the Internet, checking my email and discovering messages from pretty much everybody I know. I scan them quickly, make sure there's no new drama that I should be aware of, and move on. I'll answer them later, if I have time. Right now, my goal is taking that next step, figuring out what Ty and I are going to do now. We have the house, the kid, the cat, the dog, now we just need the money to keep it all afloat.

I'm not out there long when I hear soft footsteps padding across the floor in the kitchen.

“Thought you could sneak a kretek without me knowing, you sneaky bitch?”

I glance over at Ty as he comes down the steps in nothing but a pair of baggy sweats. My eyes catch on his abs, the smooth slide of muscles beneath skin. I have to squeeze them shut to find my next words.

“I thought I could smoke it before you got up,” I tell him as he comes over and leans down, a black cigarette dangling from his full lips. They're curved up in a deliciously infuriating smirk that makes me want to slap him and fuck him both. I light his cigarette instead, and say, “You didn't leave the baby on the bed did you?” Ty looks surprised, but not as surprised as me. Guess I have a few motherly instincts buried in there after all?

“Nah, baby, would I do something like that?” Ty smiles and winks, holding up a monitor in his ringed hand that I didn't notice before. “He's in his crib now.” Ty leans down and pulls his smoke away, so he can give me a kiss. It's meant to be chaste, I think, but the hot, smoldering press of Ty's mouth against my cheek makes us both groan longingly. My hands come up automatically and trace the smooth flesh on his belly.

“It wasn't wet?” I ask him, my voice breathy and light. Ty grins and grabs the laptop, shutting the lid and tossing it onto the chair next to me. He climbs up between my legs and kneels there, leaning over me, cigarette hanging down by my ear when he puts it back in his mouth.

“No,” he says as he turns the volume up on the monitor and sets it on the shelf behind my head, between an empty flower pot and a glass bottle filled with white pebbles. “But I know something that is.”

Ty's hand slides up my bare thigh and under the thin, white cotton of my shirt, brushing across the fabric of my panties. Immediately, my body is no longer under my control, flaring with raging heat. My cig drops from my mouth and bounces off the arm of the chair and into the dew covered grass. My hands slide up and around Ty's neck as he pushes aside my underwear and teases my opening. I hate to fucking admit it, but I am wet. Soaked. Desperate for it. Besides, our neighbors should be used to this by now.

Ty sticks his cig into the dirt of the empty pot and drops his mouth to mine, eating me up with the taste of clover and tobacco swirling between our tongues. Ty fucks me with his fingers with one hand and pushes down his sweats with the other. Thank God, the man has enough sense not to wear any underwear. With a infant baby in the house now, it's all about speed.

McCabe teases me until I'm slick and ready, proving that he really isn't as big of a bad ass as he pretends to be. He wants to make sure I'm okay, that I can take him, that it won't hurt. And I don't think I'll ever forget that this is the same guy who kept repeating the doctor's orders:
no sex for four to six weeks.
We barely outlasted the first three and a half. Now, we're at the ten week mark and we can't keep our hands off of each other.

When he removes his hand and thrusts into me, I see stars sprinkled across the spotty sky, winking from the backs of clouds, from the bits of blue. Ty pushes up my shirt and wraps his arms around me, trailing his wet fingers across my skin. He kisses my neck, teasing my throat with the piecing in his lip as he trails molten lava over me and scalds me straight to the soul.

Wrapped up and tangled in my mussy hair, the chip earring sparkles in the sunshine like it's smiling. Neither Ty nor I pay any attention to it anymore. It's just there, has been there since I put it on and vowed never to take it off. The sex addiction seems like old news, but maybe that's only because Ty and I fuck each other so much. I don't miss the fact that that's where I go when I'm upset, the activity that I rely on when I'm stressed, but I think that's okay. When we fuck, Ty and I spin the universe into a million different shades of stark ass beauty and bloody brilliant blinding light. When our bodies meld, we conjure up the one thing this starving world needs most: true fucking love.

“You're an ass, but I love you anyway,” I tell him, and I have to push back tears. I don't know why. I've been a little off lately. I thought I'd stop being so hormonal after I had the baby, but then again, I don't really know shit about kids. Guess I'm getting a firsthand education.

“I love you, too, Mrs. McCabe,” he says, just to get my goat.

But it doesn't matter; Ty has my everything anyway, and I wouldn't change that for the world.

3

I put on a red dress for the party, something that matches my hair and brings out the green flecks in my hazel eyes. I don't wear tights or underwear, just a nice set of heels and a coat that has a hidden pocket on the inside, somewhere I can put my wallet.When Ty and I finish, we lay tangled and sweaty together on the lawn chair until bitch-Angelica comes over and starts to lick our bare feet. Ty snaps to suddenly and rises to his feet, brushing a kiss across my forehead before he heads inside and up the stairs. When he enters the room to check on Noah, I can hear him over the monitor.

“Hey there, Mini McCabe,” he says, and I can't hold back a smile, even with my panties soaked and my thighs moist, my shirt pushed up over my breasts. I just lay there in the sun with a hand on my belly and forget to care about everything else. That's my problem, I think. Ty makes my head fuzzy and unclear, like I'm stumbling through a dream when I'm with him. It's hard to focus on things like bills and jobs when he's walking around with his stupid nose ring and his butterfly tattoos. I sigh and reach up to steal Ty's unfinished cig, lighting it up and exhaling as I wait for him to come back. Because he always does. I don't ever mention this, and Ty doesn't either, but I know he still loves me more than anything in the world, and he always will. “I heart the fuck out of you,” he tells our infant, and my smile turns into a grin. Our baby's first word is going to be fuck. I just know it is.

“When he wakes up, you want to go to the store?” Ty asks when he comes back outside, and I nod, watching as his shadow falls over me and makes me shiver.
God, Never, haven't you had enough?
I exhale and hold my hand up, so Ty can take his cigarette back.

“Sounds good,” I say, wanting to move onto more serious matters, but having lost all of my earlier willpower. See, this is why I tried to get up early. Once Ty comes around, everything else just falls away. “I want a smoothie or something,” I tell him as he sits down on the chair and pulls my feet into his lap. “Anything with strawberries in it, really.” He passes the cig back and watches as I inhale.

“We should quit smoking,” he tells me with serious eyes. I focus on the piercing in his left brow. It's silver today and matches the bangles on his arm and the rings on his fingers; it matches the one on my hand, the one with the blue stone. My wedding ring. I smile. Frown.

“We really should.” Neither of us moves to stub out the crackling cherry.

“I talked to Beth this morning,” he says nonchalantly. Ty talks to my sister more than I do. I don't know why; he just likes her I guess. “She was thinking the whole clan could come up here for Christmas.”

I snort and Ty raises his eyebrow, his unpierced one.

“You don't want to see them?” he asks, but I'm already shaking my head, waving my cigarette around as I exhale.

“I do,” I tell him, and I try not to sound upset that it's been so long. They've had shit going on; we've had shit going on. Things have been complicated. I don't tell Ty that I'm sad Beth wasn't here when I had my baby, and I don't tell him that I'm sad that I wasn't there when she had hers. We meant to be, but life just fucked everything all up. I wonder briefly what Noah thinks about our naming our kid after him. I talked to him just before Mini McCabe was born, but not after. I don't say anything to Ty, but I do miss him a little. As a friend, of course. Zella's still had no luck with him, but I don't think she's given up either. “But they won't make it. They'll try, but getting everybody out here would be next to impossible. We should probably just go down there. We're long overdue for another visit anyway.” Ty watches me and smiles but doesn't say anything else about it.

“Are you happy, Never?” he asks me instead, and the question surprises me because it comes from seemingly out of nowhere. As if the weather can sense the shift in the mood, the clouds roll over the sun and tiny droplets of water begin to fall from the sky. The dog lifts her head up and barks once before retreating up the stairs and into the back door. The cat, on the other hand, comes darting out. Ty looks at me with those eyes and pierces me with that gaze, and I want to just blurt out that I am, but I don't know if that's entirely true. Some days it is, and others it's not. I'm always happy with Ty, and we don't often fight, but …