Tasting, Finding, Keeping: The Story of Never Read Online Free PDF Page A

audacity to show up with Rick in the front seat of her car. Lacey's face shows this sort of desperate sorrow that I don't understand at all because I've never been in love with anyone before. She pushes it away as quick as it came and throws herself into the girl's arms with a sob. I don't judge her for any of it. I'm in no place to judge anyone.
    I don't much feel like going home, so I sit down on the cement steps and put my head in my hands. I'm tired and sore and pissed off, but I'm grateful to be alive, and I don't know why. I had thought I didn't care. Guess that's easy to say when your life isn't hanging tenuously in the air, ready to snap as easily as a thread. Now that I've actually been threatened with losing it, I kind of want to keep it. I wish it was in better shape.
    “Hi,” someone says, and I look up to see Ty standing next to me with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. He's got dimples again and despite the simple fact that I hate him, my stomach flutters in response. “My name is Ty McCabe.” He holds out his hand, and I see butterflies all over the back of it, tattooed in a swarm of color from his fingertips up his arm where they disappear under the sleeve of his black T-shirt. “It's nice to meet you,” he says, and I can see that he wants to start over with me. I figure we got off to a rocky start, so I give him another chance. You're not worth it. I swallow hard and try to remember that I was the one that called him a whore. All he really did was ask me to go dancing.
    “Nice to meet you,” I say, reaching up and taking his hand in mine. “My name is Never Ross. Printed just like it sounds right across the top of my birth certificate.” The silver bangles on my arm clink against the gold ones on his.
    “I like it,” Ty says, retracting his hand and fetching a cigarette from the front pocket of his jeans. He hands it to me, and I take it, pleased to see that it's a Marlboro Red, the same kind that I smoke. “Sounds exotic,” he tells me as he puts the cigarette between his pretty lips and lights it with a black lighter that he retrieves from a different pocket. His brown eyes are watching me with unmasked curiosity. “You were pretty fucking awesome back there,” he tells me as he hands over the lighter. I light my cigarette and unconsciously pocket it. Ty notices but doesn't say anything.
    “Right back at you,” I say as I notice a sign prohibiting smoking within twenty feet of the entrance. I nod my chin at it and Ty and I move down the steps together. We pause on the sidewalk and stand in silence for several moments, watching one another smoke. The two cherries are the only source of light in this quiet spot, just two, little orange glows in the dark of night. No cars drive by and the only sounds we hear are from inside the police station. But at least I'm not alone. If I have to go home and be alone again, I might just break. “I don't much feel like being by myself,” I admit to Ty as I study the hard lines of his face. He's beautiful to look at, but he's also broken, bruised, and betrayed. No wonder I was so attracted to him. He's exactly the kind of guy I always go for. I wonder what he thinks of me. Obviously he was attracted to me, too, or he wouldn't have come across the bar to talk to me. I think about having sex with him and dismiss the idea. If he even wants to, then I'll feel twice as alone when he's gone. I admit this, too, not caring what he thinks of me for saying it. I kind of just want to be honest right now. My past has enough lies in it to drown me three times over. “And I don't want to have sex, I just want to be with someone.”
    “Same here,” Ty says as he crushes his cigarette into the ashtray on top of a nearby garbage can. “Want to go to the beach?” I nod and copy his motion, putting out my cigarette before following him down the sidewalk. “I don't have a car, so we'll have to walk. Unless you have one?” he asks. I shake my head and