Tasting Never (13 page)

“
Lay
it all on me,” I tell her.

Either
she takes this literally or Ty signed me up in advance for this
torture because their next course of action is to hand me a water
bottle and a cup, assign me to a bathroom and force me to pee.

I
sit on the toilet with my pants around my ankles and just stare at
the back of the door. I've left the lights off, but I can still see
the poster. There's a girl who looks a lot like me with almond
shaped eyes, curved brows, and a crooked smile. She even has a nose
like mine. It's small and pointy, a feature of mine that I've always
hated but that guys often tell me is cute. She's holding a sign that
says,
I Am Worth It.

“
I'll
bet you are,” I say to her as I sigh and try to force myself to
go into the stupid cup. If I ever get horny again after this, it'll
be a miracle. I should've stuck with Rick's road to redemption
because Ty's is rocky and filled with thorns. Ty. Ty McCabe. The
mysterious man with the sexy smirk and the perfect abs and the
bleeding heart. What a fucking nightmare. What am I going to do
with him anyway? Why did I even go back to his apartment? To be
friends again? Is that what I want to be? Do I have to define our
relationship?

You
get each other, isn't that enough?

I
shake my head, down the water bottle, and do what I need to do. When
I'm finished, I wash my hands and put the lid on the cup, taping it
down just so as I've been instructed. When I come out of the
bathroom, blinking my eyes at the bright light, the nurse takes it
with a smile and a gleeful
Thank you!
that
I just don't buy because really, all I gave her was piss. I put my
hands on my hips.

“
Am
I done now?” I ask as I look around for my coat.

“
If
you're looking for your jacket, I gave it back to Mr. McCabe,”
she says with a smile. “And no, darling, you're not quite done
yet, there is one more test. We need to get a swab. Come with me
and I'll show you to your room.” I sigh and follow her out,
watch as she hands my piss to another lab tech, removes her gloves,
and washes her hands with foamy soap. She then escorts me to another
room, a much scarier room.

There
are pregnant women and women with babies plastered on all the walls,
and in the center of this white washed hell hole is a chair with
metal stirrups and straps that look so medieval that I nearly bolt in
fear. The nurse puts a hand on my arm as if to comfort me.

“
There's
a hospital gown there for you. If you wouldn't mind putting it on,
we can get started. You can leave your top on, but please remove
your pants and underwear. The doctor will be with you shortly.”

“
What
if I do mind?” I ask as I give the nurse a look over my left
shoulder. “What the fuck is this?” Miss Smiley does
what she does best, putting on this big, goofy grin that's supposed
to make me feel better but doesn't.

“
We
need to get a vaginal swab to make sure we can thoroughly rule out
the possibility of infection, Miss Ross. With your sexual history,
it's – ”

“
Fine,”
I say as I hold up my hands. I don't need to hear anymore about it.
I just need to get this over with before I lose my nerve. “That's
fine.” The nurse squeezes my shoulder and leaves me alone with
smiling stock photos. I don't bother to use the bathroom and instead
just strip right there in the office, feeling horribly vulnerable and
more uncomfortable than ever.

What's
the difference? Removing your panties for the doctor or for some guy
you don't even know? Since when do you care so much, Never?

And
then I'm holding my lacy boyshorts in my hand and crying again. I
press them to my face which sounds weird but isn't because I think
I'm starting to realize exactly what it is that's wrong with me.

Never
Ross wants to be loved.

It's
that simple, but it's not that easy.

20

“
I
oughta fucking kill you for making me go through that shit,” I
tell Ty as I light up just steps from the clinic's front door. My
hands are shaking so bad that it takes me four tries to get a flame
out of the friggin' lighter. I blame it on the trauma of the
experience combined with the horrible two week wait that I am now
being forced to endure. I can't get the results soon enough. Until
then, I'll be lucky if I can sleep, eat, or manage to pass my
midterms. “They spread me open like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
Ty laughs and tries to take the cigarette from my outstretched hand,
but I pull it away and give him a
look.

“
At
least you didn't have an intern grab your dick and shove a Q-tip into
it,” he says, and it's my turn to laugh. It's a nervous laugh,
but at least it's there. I feel lighter somehow, like I left all my
baggage at the clinic with no return address.
Please do
not return to sender,
I think as
Ty grabs me by the waist with one hand, pulls me against his chest,
and steals the cigarette from me with the other. He releases me as
he puts it to his lips and smiles. “That swab thing is now on
my 'Weirdest Shit I've Ever Done' list.”

“
At
least you didn't have to put your legs in metal stirrups and have
some uptight bitch put a spotlight on your crotch. It was like some
kind of science fiction book gone wrong. Ugh.”

“
Mine
was worse,” Ty promises as we meander through the campus
without any specific sense of direction. “When they made me
take my pants off, I was hard.”

“
Why?”
I ask which is a fucking stupid question.

“
Because
I was thinking of you,” Ty says, and I roll my eyes.

“
I'm
immune to one-liners, McCabe. I think you should know that by now.
I resisted the one you fed me when we first met, didn't I?” Ty
stops walking, and I have to turn around to look at him. He's gazing
up at the clock tower that looms over this part of the campus. It's
all brick, a nice, tall, imposing phallic symbol put there by men
with high ideals and small minds, but I like it anyway. There's a
bit of character in the molding, the splash of rust orange paint the
original builders used around the clock face.

“
That
wasn't a line,” Ty says as the wind grabs his dark hair with
gentle fingers and brushes it over his forehead. He pulls the
cigarette from his mouth and shifts his gaze to my face.

“
Liar,”
I say as he moves forward and pauses next to me.

“
Maybe,”
he tells me as bends over, hovers his lips above mine, close enough
that I can feel his breath, but far enough away that he doesn't come
close to touching the burning cherry of my cigarette.

“
What
do you want with me?” I ask him when he moves away and
stretches his arms above his head. When he does that, the muscles in
his arms slide beneath his skin just enough that it looks like the
butterflies are moving their wings.

“
Do
I have to have an answer to that?” he asks me as he drops his
arms to his sides. The courtyard has been quiet all this time, empty
of everyone but Ty, myself, and a small flock of gulls that have
drifted in from the bay, but now that classes are letting out, people
are starting to brave the cold, crisscrossing the yard to get to the
dorms and the other classrooms. They move between us while Ty waits
for me to respond. “What do you want with me?” he asks
finally when he realizes that I'm not going to say a damn thing.
“You came to get me, so you must've had a plan in mind.”

“
I
didn't,” I tell him honestly. “I just wanted to see you.
I missed you. I don't know why, but I did. You, on the other hand,
are the one with the fucking plan. You took me to that stupid clinic
for a reason and I'm guessing it's not because you wanted to get in
my pants again. I don't know if I'll ever be able to have sex again
after that nightmare.” Ty smiles, but his dimples don't show,
and shakes his head.

“
What
if I told you I had a plan, but that I didn't want to talk about it?
Would that be okay?” I stare at him and try to figure out what
to say. This relationship between Ty and me is taking more energy
and effort than anything I have ever done before. Normally, this is
something I would walk away from, give up entirely and forget, but I
can't. Somehow, it's a little different this time.

“
Fine.”

“
Now
can I have your secret?” he asks with a sexy smirk that guys
like him always use to get what they want. This time, at least, it
isn't sex that he's after.

“
Do
we have time?” I ask sarcastically. “What about our sex
addicts meeting?” People stare at me as they walk by, but I
don't give a shit. Ty steps a bit closer, enough that students stop
moving between us and have to go around, parting like the sea around
a cluster of rocks.

“
If
I tell you something, you have to promise to forgive me.”

“
Maybe.
What is it?” I blow smoke into Ty's face and he doesn't even
blink.

“
When
you told me you had something to tell me, I panicked.”

“
Uh
huh.”

“
I
went out to a bar and I picked up a girl.”

“
That's
fucking amazing, Ty,” I tell him, feeling some of my stress
leaking back. I toss my cigarette into a nearby garbage can and
search for gum. I don't have any on me, so I go for another
cigarette. Ty takes it between his fingers and puts it behind his
ear.

“
I
had sex with her because I was afraid of you.”

“
How
romantic. Why are you telling me this?” Ty takes me by the
shoulders and looks into my eyes with his dark ones. When I get
caught in them, I can't see much else. They're mesmerizing.

“
I
thought you were going to tell me that you loved me, and I was afraid
of that.”

“
I
don't even know you,” I tell him as I push his hands away.
“Why would you think that?”

“
Never,”
he says as I try to walk away. Ty grabs my hand and pulls me back.
“I want you to scream with me.”

“
Scream?”
I ask as I struggle to extract my grip from his, but he's strong and
I end up giving in and letting him hold it.

“
Yeah,
scream with me. Yell, shout, let all your worries out.”

“
Here?”
I ask, but I notice that the courtyard is getting quiet, leaving Ty
and I alone with the clock tower once again.

“
Why
not?”

“
What's
the point, Ty? Are you trying to prove something to me? Why are you
doing this?”

“
Because
I don't want to be afraid anymore.”

How
the hell do you say no to that?

“
Fine,
but we have to do it together. If you bail on me, I will ring your
fucking neck.” Ty grins and lets go of my hand. His silver
bracelets bump against the rings on his fingers like a wind chime,
filling the air with a merry tinkling.

“
Ready?”
he asks, but I'm not sure that I am. I nod anyway and take a big
breath, pulling in the scent of winter and Marlboros and
change.
It's sitting heavy around me
and although I didn't expect it, I'll roll with it because that's
what I do. After all, I have nothing to lose anyway. Someone who
struggles to find something to live for each morning and who despairs
at night shouldn't be adverse to change. Otherwise they might end up
like me.

“
One,”
Ty begins as he tosses his cigarette into the trash. “Two.”
He smiles at me, nice and big. “Three.”

Ty
and I both take big, fat breaths, tilt our heads to the sky and
scream. It's such a stupid thing to do that we both end up in fits
of laughter, grabbing onto one another to stay standing as the
students around us peek out windows and scratch their heads and
wonder what the hell the two crazy people in the courtyard are doing.

Strangely
enough, I'm proud to be one of them.

21

“
My
father was murdered.”

These
are the only words I get out before Ty realizes how big the scope of
my secret is. He reaches out, wraps his arms around me and pulls me
to his chest. I can barely breathe with my face crushed to the hard
muscles of Ty's body, but it feels so damn good that I don't even
bother to struggle.

“
Are
you up for getting something to eat?” he asks me randomly.
“Because I have a feeling this is something that shouldn't be
rushed.” Ty relaxes his grip on me just enough that he can
pull his phone out of his pocket. “We have a few hours until
the meeting, but … ” He releases me and just stares,
dark eyes searching my face for an answer. There's so much guilt in
his, so much pain. He feels bad for sleeping with that girl, I can
tell.