“
Fuck you,” I say softly, but he knows I don't mean it. “Your thick skull just isn't used to down pillows. It's making you testy.”
“
Riiight,” Ty says, snapping his teeth together and rolling over to dig through his discarded jeans in search of a lighter. When he returns, the glow of the cigarette illuminates his face in the darkness. He takes a breath, like he's about to say something and then just stops. Silence descends. I fill it first because I know that now is the time to get some of the serious crap out and on the table. We won't be able to do it all at once; Ty and I are not built like that. It will have to come in stages, like Ty's past. Yet another thing we need to discuss.
“
I'm sorry that I lied to you,” I tell him and tears come, hot and fresh. I'm glad he can't see them in the dim light. Today is not about me. This is about Ty, and I've already taken up too much of the spotlight. His mother died yesterday and left him with an inheritance of guilt and pain and a hoarded house that used to belong to his beloved grandmother. He has a right to be feeling it, yet now, he's acting like it's no big deal. Do I think he's hiding some of his emotions? Hell yes. Is he ready to go off the deep end? Maybe not. Ty is stronger than me. Where it took me weeks to recover, I can only guess that he will be okay in a few days.
“
It was an omission of truth,” he says, trying to make me feel better. “And besides, I was the fuckwad that stopped you in your moment of courage.” He pauses. “And I'm sorry, too.” Ty turns over and finally sees the tears on my face. With a deep, throaty chuckle he reaches out and brushes his fingertips along my wet cheeks. “Are you okay, baby?” he asks me, voice too soft to be real. It's at odds with his dark hair and eyes, his tattoos, his piercings. He should be thanking me and getting up, grabbing his clothes and leaving. That's what they've always done to me. Men. But not Ty. Somehow, in that bar way back when, I found one of a handful of real people, the ones from legend who care about others and put their needs before their own. How lucky am I?
I decide to tell Ty the truth, even if it hurts him because I cannot lie again. Or omit the truth. Whatever.
“
I don't want to be pregnant,” I say and my stomach flip-flops as if in protest. “I'm afraid. I don't know how to be a mom, Ty. You don't know how to be a dad. We have no money. We – ” Ty shushes me with a kiss, putting his hands on either side of my face. Cigarette ash hits the perfect pillows beneath us.
“
Never, being a mom means putting someone else's needs before your own. You can do that, I know you can. You've done it for me.” Already, I'm shaking my head.
“
When?” I ask as I delve into the depths of Ty's dark eyes and look for truth in his statement. I feel like I've been a selfish bitch from day one.
“
By coming here with me for one,” Ty tells me. “For leaving your sisters and coming halfway across the country to a big, steaming pile of shit.”
“
But … ” I try to say something, but I'm not sure what words need to cross my lips. I had to be here with Ty. I just had to. There was no real debate, no animosity, just this simple need to stand by his side. Is that what it's like to be a mother? Is it much the same as being a sister? Love is love, after all. The results of it may have different manifestations and different outcomes, but isn't it all the same?
“
To be a good parent,” Ty says, and I wonder where he's getting this from because he seems pretty damn sure of himself. “You have to believe in your kids. You have to trust them and they have to trust you, and the rest of the world be damned, you have to stand up for them no matter. If they fuck up, you have to hold their hand and show them that it's okay, show them how to do it right. And the last bit, the most important one is real easy. Nev, when I said you had the greatest capacity to love of any human being I have ever met, I meant that shit. You and your sisters are a site for sore friggin' eyes, a dot of color in a world of black and gray. You already have the perfect ingredients inside of you to be a good mother. I see it in your face when you hold Darla, when you laugh with Jade, when you kiss me. You have to fucking love them, Nev. That's all there really is to it.”
Ty rolls back over and flicks his cigarette onto the nightstand. There are no ashtrays in a room as fine as this.
“
How do you know?” I ask him because what he says sounds easy and yet, my mother couldn't do it. His mother couldn't do it. There has to be something else, something that makes it hard. Besides, how can Ty possibly know? How, how, how?
“
Because when you've been with someone as selfish and ignorant as my mother, it's easy to find her complete opposite in a crowd.” My own words flash through my mind, a silent reminder of one of the simple truths I've always known.
If you live your whole life in the darkness, then you don't have any trouble recognizing the light.
I scoot forward a bit, so that I can lay my head on Ty's chest and revel in the idea that I have the other half of my soul lying right next to me, telling me that things are going to be okay, loving me back with every fiber of his being. “What else?” he asks, and his muscles contract as he leans over the bed and gets another cigarette. My mouth waters, but I'm craving the secondhand smoke, so I let him have it. “I can feel your stress,” he tells me. “Let it all out.”
“
This is about you,” I say, determined to get him to talk about his feelings. He's having them, even if he won't admit it.
“
Fuck that,” Ty says as his bracelets clink and he blows out a puff of smoke that hangs in the stagnant air like a cloud. “I'm your right hand right now, your support beam. Nev, you have my baby on board.” Ty turns on his side again, dislodging my head but putting his nose so close to mine that I can't complain because I can see his face clear as day, and he looks pretty happy about what he's just said. Proud maybe, too.
“
Think you're some kind of stud or something?” I ask and forget all about practical shit until I really just want to flick him in the balls and see how high pitched he can scream. Ty raises both eyebrows at me and props his head up on a hand. His look is all male arrogance and sex – half sexy and half annoying as fuck.
“
You said you fucked more than forty guys?”
“
Don't want to talk about this right now.”
“
And didn't use protection, right?”
“
I was on the pill.”
“
And on our what, our second fuck, you got pregnant?”
“
You're an ass.” Ty laughs and the sound is joyous enough that I have to fight back a smile.
“
I got you pregnant,” he says, like he just can't say it enough.
“
Stop.”
“
I marked you. You're mine. I like that. I like knowing that my baby is growing inside of you, that a piece of me will always be tied with a piece of you.”
“
If that's true then you owe me,” I say getting brief but terrifying glimpses of me, legs spread, on a table surrounded by doctors with a freaking
person
screaming from between my thighs. I feel sick. “God,” I groan as I push away from Ty and stumble to the bathroom. As usual, he's right behind me, right there by my side, strong and immovable, a force to be fucking reckoned with.
“
I agree,” he says as he brushes hair from my forehead. “And I concede. Whatever it is that you want, I'll give it to you.”
“
I want you,” I gasp, sucking in mouthful after mouthful of breath as I fight back nausea. I have the weirdest urge, bent over that toilet like an invalid. Either I just have odd taste buds or the cravings have already started. “To get me a fucking strawberry shake.”
22
The next morning when I wake up, I am no longer sweetly sore but painfully sore, and I have to slap Ty hard on the arm to feel better about it. At least, to his credit, the man has breakfast waiting for me on the table that overlooks the city, perched high on a balcony I would never venture onto if it weren't for Ty. That's not to say that I'm afraid of heights but rather that before all of this happened, all of this stuff with Tyson McCabe, I craved them. I had always wanted to see what it would feel like to throw myself off, to be weightless for just a single moment in time. That's not to say that I was suicidal – or maybe I was and just didn't know it – but really, I wanted to see what it would be like to take the weight off my shoulders for awhile. With Ty here, I feel like he's sharing the burden with me and that, while the load of life's problems and insecurities will never be fully lifted, now it's not such a big deal because he's standing beside me.
“
Thanks for the shake,” I say, grabbing my second dose of strawberry. The first I didn't even get to finish because Ty shoved me up against a wall, pressed my cheek to the gold and brown wallpaper and fucked the shit out of me. It was the second best fuck of my life, topped only by the first time we made love. I don't think that one will ever lose it's number one spot, though I sure would like to see Ty try.
“
Thanks for the bake,” he says and when I stare at him with a raised eyebrow, he rushes to explain. “You know, shake and bake?” I keep staring. “Okay, not fucking funny,” he says as he blows air out from between his teeth. He's dressed to kill today, so it really doesn't matter how lame his jokes are. He's got on this long sleeved shirt which shouldn't be sexy because it covers the muscles in his arms but somehow is anyway because he wears bracelets over the top of it, and the butterflies peek out at me from the end of the sleeve, tantalizingly reclusive. Besides, the fabric is tight and clings to him, outlining his pecs and his belly muscles. He's paired it with baggy jeans that are holier-than-thou, tucked into his big, black combat boots.
I sit in his lap because frankly, there is nowhere else I'd rather be, and lean my head against his. He doesn't know it, but last night, I heard him get up and stand on this balcony. He didn't cry, but he mourned. I could feel his melancholy energy like a storm, so I cried for him. Maybe I'm just hormonal, but to me, it seemed as if his pain was my pain. My poor Ty.
I sip the shake and notice that there's a map on the table, marked up with red lines and little dots.
“
S'that?” I mumbled around my red straw. Ty cringes which is weird enough and stuffs a miniature muffin into his mouth. Continental breakfast anyone? They have the weirdest shit.
“
It's our tour for the day,” Ty tells me and his voice is falsely cheerful like he wants to be happy but can't. I wonder what happened between now and last night.
“
Tour?”
“
The time line of my past,” he says and then pauses. “Or part of it anyway. There's some baggage back in California, but I figure if we start with this then you'll know and then I can just forget it all and move on.”
“
I don't understand.”
“
Never, I was a whore. A fucking whore. A prostitute. I fucked people for money. I did it because I didn't know what else to do. I let weakness and pain overwhelm me. I need you to see where I'm from.”
“
Just tell me about it,” I say. I don't want to visit the places that Ty frequented, run into people he might have slept with. The thought makes me sick to my stomach. Or maybe that's just Ty or Never Junior down there. “I don't want to see.”
“
Maybe not,” he tells me. “But I need you to.” I try to change the subject.
“
What about your mother's house?” I ask. Ty pretty much flat-out said we could live there, go to school, raise our kid. It sounds good in theory, but in practice, the place is a festering shit hole of crap. Worse than the actual garbage are the memories that Ty is going to have dredged up by the whole process. What if we find things in there? Things that he doesn't want to see? That he isn't ready to see?
“
We'll clean it out, together,” he tells me, voice strong and confident, like he's made up his mind and there is no going back. It's a false sense of security that could crumble at any moment. I need to be the mortar that holds it all together. “And if it's liveable,” he says and then chokes on the word. That house has a lot of bad memories in it. I wonder if that's such a wise idea. “We move in. If not, we sell the property as is, retreat back to Cali and make a go of it.”
“
Can you live there?” I ask him. “Can you honestly tell me that the ghosts of your past won't haunt you?”
“
They might,” he says, but I can tell he's already thought about it. “But I'm willing to bet my sanity on the fact that you and me, we could handle it. It's a
house,
Never. If my mom hasn't fully fucked it, then it's a historical freaking landmark, an heirloom that my grandmother left us, so that we'd have a fighting chance in this world. It'll be ours, just ours, free and fucking clear. We can go to school and raise our kid without having rent as a fucking overhead.” He pauses here for dramatic effect. “And I can even buy you
Baby Einstein
episodes or some shit.” I laugh, but he isn't done. Ty stands up, taking me with him and leans me up against the railing, not on it per se because I can feel that he isn't willing to risk me thirty stories up. He lets me feel the wind in my hair and his warm breath on my neck. “Or maybe some sexy lingerie to wear when you're big and pregnant?” I slap him lightly. “No? How about some classical music to make sure the brat's smart?”