Tasting Never (14 page)

“
But
you're right,” I tell him as I turn away and force him to
follow me across a small bridge. We're deep in the campus' gardens
now. It's getting close to winter so most of the bushes are bare and
there are hardly any flowers, but it's still beautiful. There are
evergreens towering above us, dipping into the cloudy sky and tasting
the first drops of rain that are beginning to fall. Interspersed
throughout are the bare skeletons of deciduous trees, naked of leaves
but captivating nonetheless. They remind me of Ty in a strange way.
“That's not it, not all of it.” I pause and glance over
at him. “It gets worse.”

“
Worse?”
Ty asks with raised brows. “How much worse?”

“
Tell
me,” I begin as the rain sprinkles Ty's dark hair and makes it
glow beneath the lamps that are spaced out along the pathway. “Do
you have a past?”

“
We
all have a past,” Ty says as he reaches down and takes my hand
in his. “But I can't talk about mine. Maybe someday but not
now.” I nod because I understand completely. “Come over
to my place tonight,” he blurts suddenly and I almost stumble.
We were picking up our pace, heading for the covered walkways to get
out of the rain, but now we're back to a crawl.

“
Ty
… ” He holds up his hand and crosses his fingers
together.

“
No
sex, no pressure, I promise. I want you to tell me your story. All
of it.” I look at him skeptically, but he seems genuine, like
he's telling me the truth. I want to believe him because as far as I
know, he's only lied once. He said he didn't seek someone out to
have sex with, but then he told me he picked a girl up in a bar.
What am I supposed to do? “We'll have some beer and watch
The
Walking Dead.
”

“
I
hate zombies,” I tell him, and he smiles.

“
Me,
too,” he says with a wink that makes his eyebrow ring sparkle.
“Are we on then?” he asks as the rain turns from
sprinkles to showers. I start walking backwards, expecting Ty to
follow. He doesn't. I hold out a hand and his smile turns into a
grin. “I'm not moving from this spot until you say yes.”
Ty's dark hair falls into his face and drips down his nose, taking
him from handsome to godly. I never could resist a bad boy,
especially not one whose shirt is plastered to perfect pecs, molded
against a set of abs that would convince anyone to try whatever it
was that he was selling. I can't stand seeing him in the cold rain
with no coat and that sexy smirk on his face, so I sigh.

“
Okay,”
I say as I shake my hand for emphasis. “As long as you get out
of the fucking storm. Come on.” Ty takes my hand and we
finish our jog to safety. “I'm not religious, you know,”
I tell Ty as we slip into the one of the science buildings and head
back the way we came.

“
Neither
am I,” he says as we drip water across the red-orange floors.
“What does that have to do with anything?”

“
Sex
Addicts Anonymous, they're a religious group.” Ty stops
walking for a moment.

“
How
do you know that?” he asks me with a cheeky smile. “You
look 'em up before?” I shrug.

“
We
talked a little about them in one of my classes.” Ty nods and
we start to walk again.

“
This
group isn't actually a Sex Addicts Anonymous faction, just a
copycat.” Ty points at my coat. “Second pocket down on
your right.” I snap open the button and pull out another
brochure. The coat's kept I dry luckily, so even though it's
wrinkled, I can still read it.

“
The
Sexual Obsession Group,” I say and look up at Ty. “SOG?”
Ty laughs and the sound echoes beautifully through the hallways.
The brochure shows a girl and a boy painting a mural together with
vibrant colors, laughing and smiling like they don't have a care in
the world. Pure fantasy. I unfold the paper and scan the
Commitments
section.

While
our group is not about abandoning the idea of sex, we do ask that
members commit to a six month celibacy in order to get their
thoughts, urges, and desires under control. Oftentimes, sexual
addiction is just a cover-up for a deeper issue and if we can't
reveal it, we may never find out what is really wrong.

I
fold the brochure back up and stick it in the pocket. When I look
up, Ty is watching me. I wonder about his past, but I won't ask
again, not unless he gives me some indication that I should. He and
I are so much the same that it makes me want to cry. I don't know
why; it just does. Maybe it's because my past is rising to the
surface like lava, getting ready to erupt and destroy everything
around me? And if that's happening to me, then it's happening to Ty,
too.

“
I'm
sorry about your dad,” Ty says as he reaches down and wraps his
big hand around mine. It fits nicely there, too nicely. It scares
me just a bit, just enough that I let go and pretend that I need to
fidget with my wet jacket.

“
That's
okay, I barely remember the prick,” I say as I think about all
the times he left home, left me and Beth and Jade and Zella alone
with that woman, that
monster.
As
I got older, I began to understand more and more about the man I have
few memories about. My guess, and this is just a guess, is that it
was hard for him when he found out that Jade wasn't his biological
daughter. He'd known that my mother was a cheating whore, but I
don't think he realized how far her treachery. How deep she'd
already dug his grave. I hate that woman. “My therapist,”
I begin and realize that I haven't gone in weeks. Not since …
I flick my eyes back up to Ty's. “My therapist thinks I have
'daddy' issues and that's why I sleep around, that I'm looking for a
strong, masculine figure.” Ty laughs.

“
What
a load of bullshit,” he says. “I fucking hate
therapists.” I smile at him, but it's a weak smile, all
tangled up with shadowy memories. I agree with him, though. The
kind of boys I seek out are not at all the type of man that my father
was. At least, I don't think so. I sigh, and it comes out sounding
tired and broken. I don't like that at all. I shake my head to
clear it. I wish I had picture perfect memories of my father, images
of him smiling, the sound of his voice, the strength of his laugh,
but I don't. I barely remember him at all as a person. Facts, facts
I remember, but memories … I don't have many of those. “Why
do you hate him?” Ty asks me, and I shake my head.

“
We're
getting too deep into my story,” I tell him honestly. Once I
start down this path, I won't be able to stop, I'm going to have to
sit with the story of my life like a bad movie. I can only wonder,
how is it going to end?

22

Ty
and I are the first ones to arrive at the meeting.

The
group leader is there, of course, but none of the other participants.
My heart is in my throat, and I'm so tongue-tied that I let Ty
introduce me.

“
My
name is Ty McCabe and this is my best friend, Never Ross,” he
tells the woman with skin like cocoa powder and eyes like emeralds.
She's beautiful and powerful and so in control of herself that I'm
mesmerized, by her and by Ty's words.

Best
friend?

Have
I ever had one of those? Do I want one? Best friend is really just
a fancy word for someone that has their hand wrapped around your
heart.
Best Friends Are the Soul Mates You Don't Sleep With.
Lacey has this plaque over her
bed. I avoid looking at it because it's painted in pink on a cheery,
white china backdrop. It hangs crookedly from a bit of twine. I
always thought that in some strange way, it was put there by the
universe to mock my pain. Yet here Ty is telling this woman with the
steady hands, the confident smile, that I'm his. His best friend.

I
look away from them both, unsure how to handle this situation. It's
been a long time since I was so vested in something that I was
actually afraid about how it would turn out.

The
building around us is old and crumbly but pretty. Or it was once.
Like many things, time has shredded it of its original beauty,
covered up old details with layers of poorly applied paint, took what
was once something grand, a mansion maybe or a boutique, and now here
it is serving as a community center for this half of the city. I
hear a basketball echoing from somewhere in the back of the building
and smile.

And
the downtrodden found refuge in dilapidation; and they were happy
there because it was theirs and no one else's; bare of pretense and
expectations, this place became a haven of solace and a sanctum for
peace.

The
poem that pops into my head is called
For Them The Wheel
Turned
and it's by my favorite
poet of all time, a one, Noah Scott. It suits this place so
perfectly that I get this intense urge to chisel it into the wall of
stone across from me. I don't think anyone would mind; there are
already murals galore there, layered on top of one another,
overlapping from the cement floor to the soaring heights of the
ceiling. It's a massive wash of color that humbles at the same time
it inspires. Impressive.

“
My
name is Vanessa Pickett,” says the woman with the emerald eyes.
She takes Ty's hand and shakes it firmly. When she sees me scoping
out the wall of murals, she turns and looks at it, too, like she's
seeing it for the first time, eyes darting along the stories pictured
there. “It's pretty, isn't it?” she asks as I drop my
gaze to her face. As if she can feel my eyes on her, she turns and
looks straight at me. “What do you think of it, Miss Ross?”
I shrug my shoulders and go for a cigarette. It's that or gum,
anything that gives me an excuse not to talk, and I think I could use
the nicotine right about now. Vanessa doesn't stop me. This room
already smells like smoke anyway, and most of the windows are either
broken or look rusted and seem to be stuck open.

“
Would
you like to help me set up the rug?” she asks, and I raise my
brows.

“
Rug?”
Ty asks as he looks over at Vanessa. She laughs and gestures for us
to follow her. There's a massive, metal box against the wall, wet on
the top from the rain that's splattering in through the empty
windows. Vanessa unlocks the padlock with a key and tosses Ty and I
a pair of towels to dry off with. In the box is an assortment of
things, once of which is a massive rug, rolled neatly and tied with a
bit of rope. Ty wraps his towel around his shoulders and helps
Vanessa lift it out and drag it across the floor to a dry spot in the
center of the room. She unties the knot and kicks it out flat.

“
I
find that this works better than those horrible plastic chairs,”
she says, and I shiver. I couldn't agree more, so I help her pin
down the curling edges with stacks of old books that she retrieves
from her metal box. When we're done with that, she pulls out a
plastic bag filled with yellow T-shirts.
Get SOGgy, they
say. Sexual obsession
is
a
disease. Find your cure today.
She
gives one of these to Ty and one to me. “You don't have to
wear them,” she says with a white-toothed smile. “They're
just for fun, but some people find it helpful to have a uniform of
sorts. It makes them feel like they belong and we all need a little
of that now and again, don't we?” Neither Ty nor I say a
thing. He's as nervous as me, I can tell by the way he's pacing
around. I, on the other hand, stand stone still, but my hands shake
so badly that I tuck them in the pockets of the coat. “Have a
seat if you'd like,” Vanessa says as she sets a backpack down
on the edge of the rug. From it, she removes a tablet along with a
bag of colorful coins.

“
Come
on, Nev,” Ty says, using the same nickname that Lacey gave me.
I like it. A lot. I smile at him. “Put on the tee?” I
raise my brows, watch as he lifts his shirt above his head and tosses
it in a soggy heap on the floor. My pulse starts to race and my
blood runs hot. Ty's midsection is a work of art, a collection of
grooves and hard muscles that make up a wide chest and a thin waist
that tapers down to perfect hips. His pants are hanging
tantalizingly low, dragged down by the rainwater, and I catch a hint
of deep grooves on either side of his body, that 'V' shape that a lot
of women, including myself, go nuts for.

Shit.

I
take my jacket off, suddenly hot, and put my cigarette into the glass
ashtray that Vanessa sets out. I wonder what kind of woman I am that
I'm horny just hours after a fairly humiliating STD test.
A
crazy one,
is the only answer to
that question, so I busy myself with slipping on the yellow tee over
my tank top. Mine, at least, is dry thanks to Ty's coat. And the
fact that he gave it to me doesn't escape my attention. I have heard
Lacey say before that she only gives her jacket to girls she really
likes because there's a chance she'll never get it back and she wants
to be okay with that. Ty is okay with that? Or does he think that
we'll be hanging out enough that he could easily retrieve it if
needed? Either way, the thought is sort of terrifying. And nice.
Both and neither.
God, how did I get into this mess?