Finding Never (3 page)

“
Yep,”
Ty says and then he closes up, just shuts down and pulls his hands
away. He doesn't want to talk about it, and I can't force him. If I
try, I'll drive a wedge between us that can never be removed. He
sits back, slumps a little. He looks good like that, Ty does. He's
got a perfect body, hard and solid, built for strength. I don't know
how he got it or how he keeps it, but I like it. I swallow and look
away.

“
I
don't know where we're going to stay,” I admit, finally
realizing that in my haste for emotional closure that I've forgotten
all about practical concerns. I don't have any money; Ty doesn't
have any money. But the thought of staying in my mother's house
makes me shiver. If that … that
thing
is there then I
won't even consider it. I wonder if Beth ever got a place of her own
and decide there's no way. She probably still lives in our family
home, the one my mother inherited from my grandmother, the big
rambling, Colonial that used to be the prettiest house on the block.
If I hadn't run away, would I still be living there, too? Or would I
have run off with Noah Scott? Would he have swept me off my feet
like a knight in shining armor?

“
We'll
figure it out,” he tells me, like it's that easy. Ty smiles
and brushes a bit of hair from my face. “Never,” he says
quietly and I look up at him, wishing the fluorescent lights in the
bus were off so that I could see the way his face looks in the
moonlight. “Tell me about Noah Scott.” I try not to
sigh. Ty isn't going to let this go. He can't stop thinking about
it. I should be asking myself why. He's worried about Noah Scott,
but how come? I'm too fucking dense to see it for myself. Ty is
scared he's going to lose
me.

“
What
about him?” I say as I reach for a cigarette and then catch the
eyes of the old lady across from us. She's glaring at me like I'm
Satan himself. I put the cigarette between my lips and glare back at
her. We're almost to our station, so I can wait, but I'm going to
make her sweat along with me.

“
I
know you're going to see him,” Ty tells me matter-of-factly,
like he's accepted this but doesn't like it. “I know you need
to see him, and I understand that. I just … I want to know
what you know. Tell me, Never, do you still love him?” Ty
looks me in the face, pulls my eyes off the bitchy old lady and locks
them in place. I try to focus on his eyebrow ring instead, but he
won't let me. His gaze follows mine and sticks there like glue. I
sigh, but keep my cig where it is. It's like a damn pacifier or
something.

“
I
don't know,” I answer honestly. I want to say
no,
but I
can't. I loved Noah when I left and nothing but time has been there
to put any damper on my feelings. I'm not the same girl I was when I
left, and I can only assume he's not the same boy – man, I
guess. I won't know until I see him, until our eyes meet, until he
smiles that good ol' boy smile at me. Ty closes his eyes for a
moment, but he doesn't look pissed, just afraid, oh so fucking
afraid.

“
What's
he like? What's he do?” I shrug, but Ty isn't letting this
go. He pokes me in the shoulder and his bracelets jingle. The old
lady glares at his back, and I flip her off. She puffs out her chest
indignantly and turns away.

“
I
haven't seen or heard from him in five years, Ty,” I say, but
he's already shaking his head.

“
Maybe
not,” he tells me with a sad smile. “But you were
stalking him online. I know you know. Tell me.” I look down
at my lap and think about the pretty pictures that Noah posts,
pictures of dreamy, Midwest sunsets and crystal clear lakes, artful
representations of dilapidated barns and rusted cars. But not of
girls. He never posts pictures of girls.

“
He's
a student at the local college, a wannabe photographer and poet, and
a blonde haired, blue eyed piece of Americana.” My words do
not give Noah Scott credit, but I know that they'll make Ty feel
better, if only a little bit. “He's single, and his family is
independently wealthy.”

“
Ah,”
Ty says softly. “My basic nightmare.” I laugh and the
cigarette falls from my mouth. Ty catches it just before it hits the
ground.

The
symbolism isn't lost on me.

5

Ty
and I switch buses at the station, grabbing a quickie smoke next to
the newspaper stands while the old lady files a formal complaint
against me at the ticket counter. The representative gives her a
five dollar credit, and she shuts up.

Our
new bus is as dingy and dirty and unpleasant as the last, but at
least Ty and I manage to grab one of the seats in the back. This
limits the number of assholes I have to put up with and gives me
windows to my left and behind me. Ty sits in the aisle again with
his knees poking out. He's too tall to fit comfortably back here,
but he never complains and he doesn't say a thing about me taking the
window seat. I have a feeling that Ty is the kind of guy who would
quietly give me the window seat on a plane ride, even if he'd never
been. He's just like that.

I've
got my phone in my hand now, and I am seriously considering calling
Beth and telling her that I'm on my way, but I can't force myself to
dial the number, to hear her voice desperate and frantic. If I tell
her I'm coming then she'll be waiting, and the rest of this drive
will be spent with my stomach in a knot and my lunch in my throat.
Ty watches me quietly for awhile and finally reaches over, takes my
phone from my hand and slips it in his backpack.

“
Stop
worrying,” he tells me as we rattle along down the interstate,
rocketing away from the ocean and school and my newfound friendship
with Lacey. I was finally starting to get used to all of that, to
enjoy it, and now here I am getting ready to throw a wrench in the
works on a whim. “Everything will be alright.” Ty
scoots close to me and hugs me against his side, curling his fingers
around my waist possessively as he eyes some rowdy guys in the front
row with a look that says if he had the chance, he'd kick their smart
mouthed little asses.

“
Thanks
for coming,” I tell Ty because I can't imagine taking this trip
without him. Honestly, if he hadn't caught up with me at the bus
station, I might've turned around and gone right back, found him and
thrown myself into his arms. I don't know what I was thinking, how I
ever thought I could pull myself away from Ty McCabe. I glance out
the window and notice the orange, rippling glow of the sun as it
starts to burn away the night.
Two more days, and I'll be home.
Two more days and I'll be standing on the precipice of disaster,
ready to topple over and fall to my death. Please don't let this end
me. I haven't even begun yet.
“But I can promise you this
is going to be awkward.” Ty shrugs, loose and easy. He
doesn't care about that kind of stuff, not really. This is the same
guy that walked into a full lecture hall and didn't notice the
stares, that wears bracelets made for girls and still looks like the
world's most masculine fucking badass.

“
I
wish I had something deep and inspirational to say to make you feel
better, but … ” Ty winks at me and his eyebrow ring
shimmers. “You're right. This is going to be awkward, and
it's going to hurt like hell, and I'm sure you're going to wish a
million times over that you never came, but Never,” Ty turns to
face me fully and tucks some of my hair behind my ear. “If
you don't do this, you will always fucking wonder what might've been
or what could be. That's no way to live. Even if this trip rips
your heart from your chest and shakes you, even if it's the biggest
mistake you've ever made, at least you won't be left wondering, and
then we can move on. Together.” Ty leans forward and kisses
me. I part my lips and sigh at the heat of his mouth, the feel of
his hand as it slides up my thigh, but all I can think about is that
he said
we. We. We. We.
Ty McCabe and I are a 'we'? I
wonder if maybe he's just being metaphorical and try not to read too
deeply into it.

When
he pulls away, he's got a dirty smile on his face.

“
What?”
I ask as he unzips his bag and pulls out a black sweatshirt. Ty
shakes his head and his dark hair falls over his brow. I reach over
and brush it away, trying my best not to get caught in his searing
gaze. He licks his lips and my heart skips a beat.

“
Your
lips are like morphine,” he tells me as I stare at him.

“
What?”

“
Haven't
you ever heard that song by Kill Hannah?” he asks as he lays
the sweatshirt across my lap. I wonder what he's doing because I'm
sure as hell not cold. If possible, this bus is even hotter and more
uncomfortable than the last. I try to push the fabric away but Ty
doesn't let me. “
Lips Like Morphine?
” I haven't,
but I get the gist of what he's trying to say and smile. “You
could seriously kill somebody with those things.” I chuckle.
After all, it's impossible to have a tortured hottie like Ty say my
lips are intoxicating and not grin like an idiot back at him.

“
Thanks,”
I tell him as he puts his hand under the sweater and glides his
fingers up my thigh. I don't catch on to what he's doing until his
fingers brush my sweet spot through the jeans. I gasp and try to
pass off the noise as a hiccup when the couple in front of us turns
to stare. “What are you doing?” I whisper thinking that
this feels too damn good to be real. After all those weeks of
celibacy, Ty's fingers are like the greatest thing in the world,
kissing and teasing the place he wooed with his body just a day
earlier, just a day before when the world's simplest act became the
most complicated, when I truly, honestly, and utterly fell in love
with Ty. I clamp down on my thoughts and push them away. It's hard
for me to have any logical brain activity with his fingers dancing a
dirty jig across the clit.

“
I'm
entertaining you,” he tells me as he leans closer and kisses my
ear, my neck, my collarbone. The old lady from before is staring at
us again, but I ignore her, convinced that she's jealous. How could
she not be when she sees me with a guy as perfect as Mr. McCabe.
Wow. Wow. And double fucking wow. McCabe knows how to kiss.
Okay. I can handle this.
“Did you know, in the olden
days, that women who were having emotional problems could go to their
doctors and have hysterical paroxysms. It was a cure all for their
ills. That's what I'm going to give to you.”

“
A
what?” I whisper, but my voice is barely a croak. Ty chuckles
softly and scoots closer, one hand manipulating the core of me while
the heat of his body draws me to him like a magnetic force. Ty has
completely oozed into every crack of my psyche and sealed himself
there. He's like a limb I can't live without, and I have no idea how
I let him get that way. I'm supposed to keep people at arm's
length, but with Ty, that isn't possible. It was never possible. As
soon as I saw him in that bar, I was lost, gone, twisted up with his
pain. Oh my fucking God, Ty McCabe is insane.

“
A
hysterical paroxysm,” he repeats and the words, although
unfamiliar, sound dirty coming from those wicked lips. “An
orgasm.”

I
have to close my eyes to keep the noises back and pretend that
nothing at all perverted is going on back here in the tail end of
this bus. Old Lady is still glaring, and I hope she's not getting
off to this or I'm going to kick her ass at the next station, gray
hair or no.

“
Ty,”
I say as calmly as I can which isn't all that calm because there's
this tingle that's traveling from my clit up my spine and resting
around my head like a halo. He ignores me and keeps nipping at the
soft flesh between my neck and shoulder. I decide that he's not
going to listen to words and push a bit of the sweater over his lap,
so I can reach over and rub the bulge that's already appeared in his
pants. This is a dangerous game that Ty and I are playing, but I
have to say that at this moment, I'm thrilled to be one of the
players.

He
stops nibbling, presumably because he's as paralyzed by pleasure as I
am, and leans his head against mine. We both close our eyes and
pretend to be asleep, all the while flying closer and closer to that
precipice that will take us over the edge.

When
it's finally time to fall, I shudder in Ty's arms and he catches me,
clutching my wrist and holding it still while I climax in the back of
a bus full of strangers, drawn forward only by the gentle touch of
his fingers through my jeans. When I stop shaking, Ty pulls my
fingers to his lips and kisses them a hundred times over. He doesn't
let me finish him which I find incredibly ballsy. When I try to ask
why, he says one thing and one thing only.

“
I'm
saving it all for you, baby.”

6

The
next two days are like some kind of fucked up fairytale consisting of
dirty rest stops and stolen kisses, groping hands and moments of hand
holding that remind me of the days I spent by the lake at home with
Noah fucking Scott. I don't like to compare Ty to him, but I have
to. For both their sakes. It's like this strange dream that I don't
understand and don't want to wake up from. I mean, I went from
fucking frat boys and guys whose only concerns were strippers,
motorcycles and chicks, to making love to a dude with a blue nose
ring and a heart that's black but only because it's been burnt and
purified to ash. I don't know what to do with him or how to process
what's going on between us, so I just live. For two days, I just am.
I exist, and there's nothing else to it.
I think, therefore I
am.
Descartes' most overused phrase is the one that fits me
perfectly right now. I can't tell you what's real or what's actually
happening, only that I'm me. That's it. It might not make sense,
but it's true. And it's great. It's great until the bus drops Ty
and I off at a dirty, weather worn bench in a town that closes down
at six P.M. It's great until Ty picks up our bags (refusing to let
me carry my own for some strange, male sense of courtesy that's
somehow been bred into him) and we walk the mile or so down the road
towards the house I grew up in.