Never Can Tell (12 page)

Ty grabs me under the ass and lifts me up. My legs go around him and my mouth drops to his, singeing and scorching, devouring. His cock teases me, kisses my opening, and forces its way in, claiming, marking, taking me. I snag his hair in my fingers, squeeze it tight, owning him right back.

“You're mine,” I whisper, breathless, full, smoldering with heat.

“Right back at ya, baby,” he snarls, fucking me so hard and fast that I can feel friction burning between our pelvises, rocking me right over the precipice of pleasure and onto that dangerous line where pain sits crouched, watching from the other side.

I try to come up with a smart-ass retort, something to sting his ego and get a rise out of him, but I just can't seem to think in English anymore. My words are gone. I exist in sound and touch and kiss and fuck. I become that moment, wrapped up in Ty, full with him, squeezing him as tight as I can, worshipping him while he worships me.

A dark goddess meets her dark god, and the storm she thought was brewing over her head transforms into the dancing shadows cast by the light, not bad but different. Different, belonging solely to her, only to her.

Ty comes inside of me; I come all over him. It's disgusting, messy and perfect. Just too goddamn perfect. As I pant in his arms and feel his body pressing into mine, I worry about one thing and one thing only:
perfection is a passing quality, so how, how, how can this possibly last?

16

Beth invites me to this 'mommy and me' picnic thing for women with children under the age of two. She says it's mostly there, so we can sit around and gossip, fill up in good southern barbeque.

The very idea of it scares the shit out of me.

I don't tell anyone this, but being alone with Noah frightens me. What if something happens? What if he starts choking? What if wails in public and I can't get him to stop? There are so many things that could go wrong that when I imagine being with the baby without Ty's help, I get jittery and my hands start to shake.

I don't know how to explain this to Beth though, and end up getting enrolled in it anyway. When Ty hears about it, he's pretty fucking ecstatic which makes me feel so guilty, I want to crawl under a rock and die.

“That'll be so great, babe,” he says, holding me, snuggling me. It feels so
damn
good. I can't even believe I spent the majority of my life avoiding this part of intimacy. Sex is great, but this … This completes the act. Yeah, I'm a complete girl, so what? Cuddling is underappreciated. “You and Mini never get to spend any time alone together. How is he supposed to grow up to be a mama's boy if you guys don't hang out together?”

And how am I supposed to say no to that?

So, the next fucking morning starts off with Beth trying to help me pick out an outfit (I refused), India trying to get me to take one of Beth's six floral patterned baby carriers (I choose my own, Sharpie bullets and all), and Ty trying to dress our kid in a Sasquatch outfit (not fucking happening).

“What the fuck is this?” I ask, pointing at the furry lump in the crib. The poor baby looks like he's been dipped in a vat of dirty dog hair. I push the hood off his head and stare at the costume. It's … well, there aren't really any words for it in the English language. I try though, goddamn it, I try real, real hard. “This is sixty shades of what the fucked up. Take it off.”

“What are you talking about?” Ty asks, snapping photos with his phone. He holds up his ringed hand and waves at the baby. Noah coos and kicks his legs in response. When I try to smile at him, he just drools. “He looks fucking precious as shit. You'll be the envy of all the other moms.” Ty grins. “Especially when your hunky husband shows up midway through and takes you in the bathroom for some alone time.” I let out a harsh bark of a laugh and clamp my hand over my mouth. Noah gurgles excitedly.

“You do realize that after this one is birthed, you're never getting laid again. I'm becoming celibate. Enjoy your last few months of sex.”

“Hey, Never,” Ty says, getting serious all of a sudden. It scares me a little when he gets like this, demons dancing behind his eyes, howling for escape. “Sex means nothing if it's not with you.” I look at him, and I have no clue what to say. Fortunately, Beth comes into her room and sees us staring into the crib Noah shares with Autumn.

“What did you do to that poor baby?” she asks, leaning down and squinting. “Jesus, Never.” I roll my eyes and watch as she moves away, shaking her head. “I have plenty of gender neutral one pieces … ”

“It's fine, Beth,” I say as I touch my finger to the sole of my son's foot. My son.
Son.
I'm going to have to go in the bathroom at some point and lock the door, stare into the mirror and say that a hundred times fast. Son. Son. Son. Son. Son.

“Yeah, don't worry, Beth,” Ty says smiling softly at me. “I won't pick anymore outfits out for the kid. Never's going to start taking care of that.” He raises a brow at me, challenging my earlier words. I swallow hard.

“Yeah, I got this,” I say as Ty moves away, leaving me alone with the baby and a dirty diaper. Now, listen up and listen good: I have only changed about a dozen diapers since Noah came home from the hospital. All of them were filled with piss. This one, on the other hand … All I know is that Ty is too good to me. I'm becoming spoiled, like some sort of rotten piece of fruit, filled with maggots, surrounded by fruit flies. I'm despicable. I take a deep breath and almost call out to my sister when she leaves, footsteps disappearing down the hallway.

I look down at Noah and wrap my arms across my chest.

“Hey,” I say. The baby gurgles. “Um, I want you to know something.” He drools on his chin and stares at me like I'm the most interesting thing he's ever seen. His lips twitch in a smile. My eyes can't hold his. They're like mirrors to my own, grey with blue and green flecks. He might have McCabe's dark hair, but there's still some Regali in there somewhere. “I love you,” I say and the words catch in my throat, strange and foreign, choking me with tears and making it hard for me to breathe. “But I don't know how to be a mom. I'm trying, but I'm scared. Do you know what I mean?” Noah moves his arms around, looking ridiculous in that stupid Sasquatch suit. I take a step forward and wipe my hand across my nose, trying not to sniffle. I'm being ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. I've been through way tougher shit than this. This is nothing. This is love. It's that simple.

I reach down and pull his furry pants off, tossing them into the hamper. Our conversation comes to a bit of a halt as I gag and do my best to clean up my son. When I'm finished, and he's dressed only in a clean diaper, I continue. He can't understand me, but maybe he'll absorb some of the feelings I'm trying to portray.

“Mommy,” I say and then wrinkle my nose. Okay, fuck that. I am not a mommy. I can be a mom and a mother and a mama, but not a
mommy.
“Mom doesn't … she's had kind of a shitty life, and it's not your fault, it's just that I … I want to do right by you and I don't know how.” I start wrangling Noah into a black tee with a ghostly silhouette on the front. “Little goth baby,” I say which strikes me as funny. I start to life and end up crying again. Noah takes this all in stride, listening to his mother's sob story with a smile. “She lost her dad at a really young age and uh, it was fucking horrible.” I get the shirt on and move onto the pants. Little jeans slip over his chubby legs as I get into the groove of this. “And then she hurt her friend so bad, he's having trouble moving on to other women.” I pause. Frown. “Just because you're Ty's son doesn't mean you can be a player, okay? You have to treat women with respect.” Noah drools a little. I wipe it away with my university sweater, the one that says
We don't give a dam about your team!
“This next part gets kind of X-rated, so I'm going to simplify it a little. I … looked for love in all the wrong places, forgot who I really was inside and almost lost my soul.” This is the worst part of the story, but I'm smiling the widest now because this is where everything changed. This is where two tortured souls found each other in a bar and clashed, came together in a random twist of fate, united as one and did amazing fucking things together. “But I've got it back now, I think, or at least I'm on the right path.” I slip socks and shoes on my son's feet and pick him up, breathe him in, hold him tight. “I'm going to go back to school and learn something random like … Japanese. And then I'm going to take my degree and write a book about broken girls with desperate souls, and then … who the fuck knows, kid. With your dad and me, anything is possible.”

The floorboards in the hallway creek, and my head snaps up. I move over to the door and kick it open only to find McCabe standing there with his hands over his face. He spreads his ringed fingers and looks out at me. My mouth drops open, and I think seriously about hitting him.

“I didn't meant to eavesdrop,” he whispers, dropping his hands altogether. His face is so solid right now, dead serious and full of a tender love that makes my lip tremble and my eyes seek everything but him. “I thought you might need help with the baby. I was going to leave when you started talking, but, fuck, Never. You're so damn incredible.”

“That was a private conversation, Ty,” I whisper. I want to start a fight, but I can't. Not with all of these feelings floating around between us.

“I know, and I'm sorry, baby.” He tries to smile, but ends up laughing instead. He runs his hands down his face again. The butterflies on his arms wink at me.

“Thanks,” I tell him randomly, and he glances at me with a raised brow.

“For?”

“For giving me your jacket that day, for taking me to that clinic, for following me to the bus station. Basically, thanks for not giving up on me.” I step forward and kiss him on the cheek. “I have a stupid housewife gala to attend. See you later.”

As I start to walk away, Ty reaches out and grabs me, surrounding Noah and me with a swarm of colorful butterflies, breathing into my hair and sighing deep.

“Thanks for not letting go of me when I fucked up, for forgiving me when I was an ass, for being the most, beautiful goddamn woman I have ever seen.”

“Ty, stop,” I say, as the darkness teases me and the little monster commands me to tell him off.
You are not good enough, will Never be good enough. You are a useless, washed up whore with no future. Fuck you, Never. Fuck you forever.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight and then snap them open, pushing back, fighting against the dark cloud, telling the little monster to go suck dick.

And it works. For the moment, it works and I feel better. The blackness recedes, like the tide pulling out from the shore. It doesn't go very far, but I watch it's descent, and I wonder. If I keep fighting, if I stay strong, will it leave me forever? Will it pull so far back that it's nothing but a glimmer in the distance? It's definitely worth a fucking try.

“Never?” Ty asks, sensing something in me. I lean my head into him and smile, feeling just a little better, a little freer.

Until the drama starts downstairs. And then I think about nothing because I can hear Beth screaming from the living room. I glance back at Ty, and he explodes into action, taking the stairs two at a time. I follow after him, keeping the baby's head tucked safely against my chest. When I hit the bottom floor, the voices become clear and my lip curls.

Danny.

Shit.

“My fucktard-dar is going crazy right now,” Ty tells me as he watches the explosion unfolding before him. I think we both thought, with the commotion and all, that Danny had hit Beth. Not yet. But things are going from bad to worse, so who knows. I love Ty even more for the fact that he's willing to defend my sister.

“We have plans, Daniel,” she screeches, voice pitched to a level I've only ever heard a sprinkling of times. One of which was right before I left, before she betrayed me in the worst way possible, chose a murderer over her own sister.
No. No. I can't think like that. It's over and done and we are past that shit.

“The court doesn't care if you have plans, Beth. I get the kids half the time. Check the papers.”

“You can burn in hell,” she snarls, tucking some hair behind her. The short bits promptly escape and get stuck to her sweaty forehead. “You only come over here for two things: to fuck me or to piss me off. Well, I'm done with fucking you, so the only real reason you're here is to ruin my damn day. Come back tomorrow, Danny.” I watch the exchange, taking in
Daniel's
pale, lifeless eyes and his big, square teeth. He's like a Ken doll gone wrong, like if Ken had been dipped in a vat of dickwad-psycho-sack. I glare at him, but I don't interfere. Not yet. Watching this man in his expensive suit and his greased up hair, I have a hard time understanding how Beth has not one but
two
children by this man. It's just … unfathomable. I guess I can't judge her. Like me, Beth has had some problems with men (thanks, Mom!), she just made the mistake of getting pregnant with one of her screwups. Twice. It kind of makes my head hurt.

“I guarantee if you send me away without my daughters, you'll regret it.” Danny picks up Autumn's car seat without waiting for answer from my sister. She clenches her fists, but doesn't move, just stands there with Maple on the floor behind her, scooting blocks around the carpet. She's so wrapped up in that douche bag that she's forgotten her no cussing rule. I look at my sister standing there, face pale and sweaty, eyes wide and brimming with tears. I look at Danny taking Autumn's blanket off and tossing it to the floor like he can't even bear the sight of such a filthy thing.

I turn to Ty and hand him Noah. He takes the baby without thinking about it because, well, that's just what Ty fucking does.

“You're the world's hottest motherfucking daddy,” I tell him, biting his ear and spinning on my heel, moving into the living room and taking the car seat by the handle. Danny is so surprised to see me there that he doesn't protest.

“Don't make a scene,” I say quietly, dangerously. I have a lot of rage inside, a big ol' pot of it that I used to take out on the people around me. Considering those people have been pretty damn good to me lately, the pot is now full. Hannah is damn lucky that Ty stepped in. “Just go and come back tomorrow. It really isn't that difficult to comprehend.”