Tasting Never (11 page)

“
Normal?”
I ask her and she jumps in surprise.

“
God,
Nev,” she says, giving me a nickname. It's something I haven't
had in years. Despite everything, I smile. “Don't scare me
like that,” she says, noticing my smile and relaxing a bit.
Lacey stands up and pulls my blankets off of me. “Yes, normal.
You know, I didn't even know you
had
sisters let alone their
names. Then all of a sudden, you've got these pictures and this
smile, and you're just a different person. I wasn't sure what it was
at first, but when I saw you at the game with him, I figured it out.”

“
Figured
what out?” I ask, sitting up and watching Lacey move across the
room to my dresser. She opens the top drawer, extracts a lacy, black
bra and tosses it to me. I take it and clutch it to my chest while I
wait for her to answer me.

“
That
you're good for each other,” she replies as she nibbles at her
lip and picks through my shirts with her fingernails. When she finds
one she likes, she pulls it out and throws it over the back of my
computer chair.

“
We're
not a couple,” I protest as I swing my feet out of bed. I
stand up and check my phone, but there aren't any messages. Rather
than discouraging me, it puts this fire under my ass, this itch to
get out, to get going. I don't quite understand it, but I want to
roll with it, see where it takes me. Isn't it amazing how one, nice
comment can change your outlook on something? Or maybe I'm just
tired of being depressed. Seven days is a long time to lay comatose
and feel sorry for oneself.

“
You
don't have to be a couple,” says Lacey as she hands me a pair
of dark wash jeans to go with my red tank top. “You get each
other, isn't that enough?”

I
grab the pants, dress in record time, and ask one, final question.

“
Can
you drive me?”

16

Lacey
drops me off next to the gatehouse at Ty's apartment complex.

The
guy working the morning shift is sympathetic, but tells me he can't
let me in without permission from one of the residents.

“
I
could give him a call?” the man asks as I run my hand through
my hair and try not to pace. I don't know why I'm so nervous. Ty
might not even be home. Besides, I should've called fist. I don't
even know why I'm here. Suddenly, I get this panicked feeling in my
chest; my heart's fluttering like a butterfly, battering my insides
and making me feel sick.

“
Yeah,
sure, okay, call him,” I say as I sit down on the edge of the
curb and put my face in my hands. What if he tells the guy to tell
me to fuck off? What will I do then? I look up suddenly and glance
over my shoulder. The guard has just started to dial the numbers.
It's not too late to stop him. “Wait!” I say as I stand
up. The man pauses and looks at me strangely through the
pass-through window. “Um, I bet he's not even home. Don't
worry about it. I'll call him later.” I start to turn away
when a familiar voice sends chills down my spine.

“
Liar,”
Ty says from behind me. I spin around to see him coming through a
small gate next to the security office. He smiles at the guard and
pauses just a few feet in front of me. He looks really …
good. I find myself tongue-tied as I try to figure out what to say.
Actually caring about someone I've slept with is a new thing for me.
I'm not used to having to deal with the feelings that sex can bring
out in a person because I don't stick around long enough to have
them. I swallow hard and take in Ty's ripped jeans, his brown boots,
the black T-shirt that only emphasizes the flatness of his chest and
belly.

“
Liar?”
I ask because I don't know what else to say. Ty licks his lip and
plays with his lip ring, a sign that he's thinking really hard about
what to say next. I don't like that; I don't like that at all. He
has a red jacket tossed over his shoulder and his hair is perfectly
arranged. It kind of looks like he's getting ready for a date. I
blurt out my thoughts and cringe. “Got a hot date?”

Ty
laughs, but it's a little bitter, a tad cynical.

“
You
never call,” he tells me as I cross my arms over my chest and
shiver at the icy breeze.
Tank tops in winter; I must be a true
California girl.
“That's why I called you a liar.”

“
It
goes both ways, McCabe,” I say as I shift back and forth
between my feet and pretend that I don't notice that the guard is
eavesdropping on us. “You could've called me, too.” Ty
looks down at the cement for a moment, and I get this terrible
feeling that he's going to tell me to get lost. Neither of us asked
for this relationship, whatever it might be. Maybe neither of us was
ready for this?

Then
he looks up and tosses me his coat.

“
Here,
put this on,” Ty says as he pulls a cigarette out of his pants
and lights up. “You're going to need it. We have a long walk
ahead of us.” He smiles and gives me a once over with one
eyebrow raised in amusement. “Hope you didn't walk all the way
down here in that top?” he asks this as a question as I slip my
arms into his fleece lined coat and bum a cigarette out of the front
pocket. Ty hands me the lighter as I put it between my lips.

“
Lacey
drove me,” I say as he steps forward and my heart skips a beat.
Are we even going to talk about what happened?
I wonder as Ty
reaches out and grabs the zipper on the coat. He pulls it up all the
way up to my chin and smiles. I kind of hope he just ignores what
happened between us, that he and I can just pretend that we never
slept together. Apparently, he feels the same way, but he's got a
whole different set of torture ready for me. While I've been wasting
away in bed and watching daytime television, Ty's been picking up the
pieces of his life and arranging them together just so.

“
Good.
I'd feel awfully guilty if I knew you'd frozen your ass off for
this, but I'm glad you're here because honestly, I was on my way over
to get you.” Now it's my turn to raise my eyebrows.

“
Huh?”
I ask as I pocket the lighter and fall into step beside Ty. He's
heading in the direction of the university and walking briskly enough
that I can make an educated guess about where he's going. “You
have an appointment?” I ask, and he nods. There's this little,
pesky smile on his face that I'm not sure about. “Job
interview?” But then, why would he have been on his way to get
me for a job interview? That doesn't make any sense.

“
Nope,”
Ty says as he lets the cigarette hang from his mouth while he fishes
in his back pocket for something. “Better. Keep guessing and
maybe I'll tell you.”

“
This
is stupid,” I tell him, but I watch his hand emerge with a
brochure and find that my curiosity is piqued. He holds it out to
the side with one hand and pulls his cigarette from his mouth with
the other.

“
Guess,”
he says again as he blows smoke into the wind. It catches in the air
and swirls around me, enhancing the smell of the coat which already
stinks like tobacco. Maybe it would bother some people but for
whatever reason, I find it comforting. I roll my eyes like Lacey.

“
Um,
we're going to another game?” Ty wrinkles his nose.

“
No,
do you really want to?” I can't help but laugh, but as soon as
the amusement dies down, I'm glaring at him.

“
I
fucking hate surprises,” I say and Ty hands me the brochure
with a sigh.

Student
Health Services,
it says.

“
Um,
okay?” I say as I hand it back to him. He takes it and turns
it over. In blue pen, there's a simple schedule written out.
Noon-thirty: Me. One: Never.
He shows me this, too. “You
do know that SHS is for students only.” Ty nods and tucks the
brochure into the front pocket of my coat.

“
I
know,” he says, and this time, the smile on his face is so
genuine that it highlights his dimples and his perfect cheeks and
makes his eyes look a million times brighter. His spine is straight
and he's walking with a pep in his step.

“You didn't?” I
ask because my guess can't possibly be right. “You got into
the U?” Ty's face just explodes into this massive grin and
suddenly he's hugging me, wrapping his warm arms around my waist and
swinging me in a circle. When he sets me down, this fount of
laughter just bubbles from his throat. “How? It takes weeks,
months for them to approve an application.”

“
I
know,” he says as he takes my hand and doesn't let go. We keep
walking. “I filled it out right after I met you. I filled out
the
federal application for student aid,
too,” he says
with a wink. “The FAFSA. Plus, I got a scholarship through
the housing authority program, so I'm covered for next semester,
Never. I'm in.”

“
I'm
super proud of you, Ty,” I say as we pause at a street corner
and dump both of our cigarettes into the nearby ashtray. “Really,
I am.” I look up and see that he's staring at me with a
strange expression on his face like there's more. I make an
incorrect assumption about his look and blurt out, “About what
happened … before … I … ”

“
Never,”
Ty says as he touches a finger to my chin and pulls my gaze from his
butterfly tattoos and up to his face. “Listen to me. You and
I, we both have problems.” I push his hand away and look down
at the cement. The wind is blowing my hair into my face, obscuring
my vision with ebony and crimson. Ty sweeps it away from my eyes
with his ringed fingers. He's wearing mostly pearls today which is
strange. Every other time I've seen him, he's had a myriad of
different gems in all sorts of colors.

“
Thank
you, Captain Fucking Obvious,” I say because standing here on
this street corner with Ty McCabe, I feel exposed, like I'm naked on
the top of a mountain, revealed for the world to see. I don't like
it. Not one little bit.

“
What
if I said we could help each other through those problems?” I
stare into his eyes and wait for the other shoe to drop.

“
Okay?”
I say, and I sound sarcastic and bitter and completely unpleasant. I
close my eyes and force myself to take a calming breath. Ty is
trying here, so I owe it to him to try, too. I open my eyes and
notice that he's shivering. I realize how cold my face and hands are
and immediately wrap my arms around him.
He did give me his coat
after all.
“How?”

“
You
know how alcoholics have sponsors?” he asks me, and I don't
really like the analogy.

“
Sure,
yeah.”

“
Well,
that's what we're going to be.”

“
Sponsors?”

“
Yep.”

“
But
neither of us are alcoholics,” I say as I step back. The light
has changed and we've finally got an opportunity to cross the street.
“You want to like, go to an AA meeting or something?”

“
No,”
Ty says as he grabs my hand again and pulls me through the crosswalk.
“I want to go to an SAA meeting.”

“
SAA?”
I ask as we head towards the hill and the massive white and beige
buildings of the campus. “What the hell is that?”

“
Sex
Addicts Anonymous,” Ty says simply and my heart jumps into my
throat.

Oh.
Shit.

I
dig my heels into the pavement and refuse to take another step.

“
There's
no way in hell I'm going to one of those meetings,” I protest,
and I feel hot and jittery, like there are ants marching over my skin
and making me itch. I shake my head and turn away from Ty so that
I'm facing the inside of a sub shop. There aren't any people inside
at the moment, and two of the employees are lip-locked behind the
counter. It's not a pleasant sight, so I switch my gaze to the
sidewalk.

“
Never,
we need this. Both of us. Or at least, I need it, and I need you to
help me.” I shake my head. I am not capable of helping anyone
with anything.

“
I
can't, Ty,” I say. I'm panicking right now and deep down, I
know why. It's because he's right. He's right. He is so fucking
right that I can't stand it. I should've gone out with Rick, hit the
straight and narrow, got married and had babies. That's what I
should've done, but here I am, standing with Ty McCabe on a street
corner talking about sex addiction. How perfect is that? Somehow,
even though I can't admit it to myself at the moment, I think that
I'm right where I need to be. How fucked up is that? “I can't
do this right now,” I whisper even though I know I will. I
will do it.