Never Did Say

by C. M. Stunich

  “I know.”

  He kisses the top of my head and we stay there until the song is over and there's nothing but the sound of silence and the blur of a distant sun leaking through the open window.

  32

  When we get home, Zella and Noah are still sitting the living room. They must not hear us come in at first because Ty and I can hear them arguing, even as the screen door squeaks shut behind us.

  “Why, Zella?” Noah asks, and I know him well enough to recognize that pleading sense of desperation in his voice. “Why not give me a chance to prove myself to you? Prove that you're my number one?”

  “You didn't stand up to my mother, not until she had the audacity to pick on Never.” Zella's voice is quiet and sure, like she's thought a hell of a lot about this. Fuck. My sister is being an idiot. I want to march in there and deal with this myself, but Ty grabs my arm and pulls me back.

  “We can eavesdrop, but we don't interfere,” he whispers, and since he's apparently the god of gossip, I listen to him. Or maybe it's because he's the god of everything in my eyes. At least he's the god of sex … he proved that to me in the empty house, after I balled my eyes. Fucker. He was just waiting to seduce me.

  “You defended Never, and then you drove my mother away, and then she died,” Zella says, her voice breaking down with each word she speaks. I feel my entire body stiffen. Can't she see the guilt and fear in Noah's eyes? This is the thing he fears the most, to be blamed for what happened. But it wasn't his fault, not by a long shot. And he didn't stand up for me, he stood up for the entire family. It wasn't me specifically that spurred his actions, just a lot of little things boiling up into a crescendo. Can't Zella see that? Or maybe she simply won't. She wants to suffer, to be unhappy, we all do. It's a Regali trait. “You killed my mother, Noah,” Zella says, her voice thick with tears. “On accident, maybe, but you did.”

  If she's going to start the blame game, then she should be blaming Ty for Darla's disappearance, me for running away and fucking Jade up, hell, even Autumn and Maple for tying Beth to Danny. The blame game never turns out well for anybody.

  “I'm sorry, Zella,” Noah whispers, and I hear his footsteps moving across the floor. “I didn't know that would happen. I was just … I was so fed up with the abuse that I couldn't take it anymore. If your mom had done what she did to Never to you, I would've … I would've done something a whole hell of a lot worse. Please, understand, I love you. I've loved you for a long time now. I've never lied to you before, so why would you doubt me now?”

  “You should go,” Zella says, putting a false strength into her voice that I know she doesn't feel.

  “Is it Tobias?” Noah asks quietly.

  “GET OUT!” Zella screams, and both Ty and I cringe. I can't take it anymore, so I untangle myself from my dark butterfly, and move forward, only to run straight into Noah. His face is white as a sheet, eyes haunted, a total wreck.

  “Sorry, Nev,” he whispers, taking my shoulders and gently moving me aside. He grabs his coat from the rack and disappears out the door before I can get in a single word.

  “Your baby's sleeping upstairs in Autumn's crib,” Zella murmurs, shoving the baby monitor against my chest before she, too, disappears, up the stairs this time.

  “Fuck me sideways,” Ty says, reaching for a cigarette. Only, once again, there's none there. “You got a bow and arrow we could use? Some love potion number nine? It's like Zella wants to make drama, like she doesn't have enough.”

  “It's genetic,” I mumble, dropping the baby monitor by my side. I listen as Noah's tires squeal across the gravel drive and then fade away into the distance. Hmm.

  “Do you think he needs some sex advice?” I raise a brow and toss a look over my shoulder. “Kidding,” Ty says, raising his hands, palm out, in surrender. “You know I heart the fuck out of that little bastard.” My husband's mouth twitches. “Even though he popped my wife's cherry.”

  I snort.

  “You're disgusting,” I say, pausing as a door opens upstairs and Darla, Lettie, and Lorri appear. Ah. We were at the house so long that school's out now. Holy shit. Ty can be like a time vortex sometimes. A day with him can pass as quickly as a minute, maybe because I never want it to end.

  “Will you play Rock Band with us?” Lettie asks, making a face that's almost too sexy for her age. Jesus. Fourteen is a terrible place to be, trapped between child and teen. I'm going to have to keep my eye on this one.

  “Uh, of course,” Ty says, capturing Darla as she comes down the stairs, hoisting her up and hugging her with as much love, as much care, as he does his own son. I love the fuck out of him for that.

  “My turn first!” Lettie says, pushing Lorri out of the way. “I want to sing Lucky by Britney Spears. I listened to it on YouTube today. It's my new favorite song now.” Crap. I'm going to have to keep a really close eye on that one.

  “That song isn't even on the game, stupid,” Lorri says as Ty reaches down and takes my hand. We smile at each other, and I'm sure I'm in for a beautiful, lazy, family filled afternoon.

  Only, my life isn't that easy, is it?

  “NEVER!” Zella's exploding from her bedroom and stumbling at the top of the stairs. She almost pitches forward and just barely manages to recover, waving a note around as she flies down the staircase at a speed that terrifies the shit out of me. Ty grabs her with his left arm, keeping Darla in the other, as Zella trips on the last step. Tears are streaming down her face and she looks like she's suddenly developed a really bad case of PTSD. “Jade is gone. She left, Never. Jade left. Oh my God, no. This can't happen again. This isn't happening again.”

  I snatch the note from my sister's hand, dizziness sweeping up and over me. History repeats itself. Would my sister really make such a stupid decision? Would she really imitate me on the worst level possible? No. No. No.

  My eyes scan the note again, and again, and again.

  “When's the last time you saw her?” I ask Zella as my sister sobs freely, terrifying the shit out of Lettie and Lorri. Darla, too, starts to cry, and I don't blame her. We just lost our mother, almost lost her. Fuck. Even I gave them all a scare when I collapsed on the driveway. Would Jade really inflict more pain on our family?

  “I don't know. Like an hour ago?” Zella rubs at her blonde hair like she's trying to think. “Two? Noah and I were … we argued for a long time. I have no idea. I don't know. I tried her cell, but she won't answer. I texted her, too. Nothing.”

  “Fuck.” I can feel my hands starting to shake. Somehow, I feel like this is my fault, like I should've done more to ease Jade's suffering. I drop the note, but Ty catches it in midair, pausing to set Darla down and stroke her hair back.

  “It'll be okay, button, I promise.” He looks up and waggles his brows at the other girls. “Go start the game without me and I'll be right there. Everything's fine.”

  “Last time you said that, our mother died,” Lettie says, her face filling with tears. She turns and runs down the hallway, disappearing into the den. Nobody goes after her though, because we're all too occupied with the note.

  I'm sorry to do this to you all, but I have to put myself first. Please don't judge me for it – you didn't judge Never. I ask for that same respect. Maybe when I come home, I can be happy and carefree, too. But I'm tired of being the outcast, and now that Mom is gone, I have no friends in that house. Please understand. It was this or suicide.

  “Shit,” Ty says, sucking his lower lip under his teeth. “She can't have gone far, right? Not in an hour or two.” He snatches a coat off the rack and slips it over his shoulders. “I'll go look for her.”

  “Me, too,” Zella says, swiping the tears off her face. “This is partly my fault. I didn't notice her leave. I'm coming with you.”

  I start to open my mouth, but Ty spins and takes my face between his hands.

  “I want you to stay here, baby. Call Beth, let her know. I'll text you updates on my phone.”

  I struggle internally for a moment and then realize
how stupid I'm being. Someone has to stay with the kids, and I'm pregnant, still weakened from the surgery. It's obvious that I'm the one who should stay.

  I nod, even though it kills me.

  I follow Ty and Zella outside, down the porch steps and pause on the driveway with them as an unfamiliar truck rumbles down the road. It pauses about twenty feet from where Ty is standing, and we all watch as a man climbs out the passenger side, not even bothering to shut the door behind him.

  “Can I help you?” Ty asks, his body going stiff as the man walks toward us in a pair of nondescript jeans, black T-shirt. He's not much to look at it, not particularly remarkable, not that threatening at first glance. But Ty is worried. I can see it in the set of his shoulders.

  I move down the steps and take a position by his side, even though I can see that's freaking him out. He steps in front of me, just a little.

  “You Tyson?” he asks, and Ty pushes me back with his left hand, the hand that will be forever scarred because of his love for me.

  “Who the fuck wants to know?” he says, his voice dark and dangerous.

  In an instant, the situation escalates beyond even my wildest imagination. This man in front of Ty, he pulls a knife, and I feel the entire world wash away in black and white, all color drained.

  “TY!” I scream, trying to go for him, to help him.

  The knife hits Ty straight in the stomach, even though he moves fast, faster than I even thought possible. With a grunt, the man jerks the knife back and simultaneously gets hit in the face with a fistful of rings. He drops like a fucking sack, crumpling to the driveway with a groan, and seconds later, the truck starts to pull out of the driveway, door still hanging wide.

  “Call an ambulance!” I shout at Ty, wondering why everything, fucking everything has to come full circle. I'm okay with the sex, and the babies, and the jokes, and all of the family drama, but why, when I was just left lying on a driveway bleeding out, does it have to happen to the man I love, too? What the fuck world? Why? Why? Why? “Ty,” I reach out to grab him, but he's not done. He leans down, blood pouring dark and heavy from his wound, and snatches the man by his shirt. Ty hits him again, keeping him upright, even as I try to tug on his arm, to pull him away, examine his wound.

  “Ty, listen to me,” I whisper, but his eyes are dark now, twisted up in shadows. He hits the guy again, so hard that I hear a crack and then lets him go, stumbling back and landing on his ass in front of me.

  I crawl up to him, try to press my hands to the oozing brightness of his wound. With a detached look blooming on his face, Ty reaches down and touches his ringed fingers to the red, lifting them up for inspection.

  “Fuck,” he whispers, the darkness fading from his eyes, taking them back to that perfect brown, that maple syrup, that sweet chocolate. My breath chokes in my throat. “Hannah,” he says, as if in explanation, and I know immediately what he's talking about. This is retribution for talking to the cops. But no. No. No. This stuff doesn't happen in real life, can't happen in real life.

  Now, for the first time ever, I really truly understand what Ty went through when I was in the hospital, and it is fucking terrifying. And I selfishly thought dying was bad. This is worse. So much worse.

  “Don't leave me, baby,” I whisper as Zella stumbles out the front door, shouting that the ambulance is on its way. Fast. Faster. Fastest. Please hurry. “It's going to be alright. It is. It will.” I press a kiss to Ty's forehead, his cheek, his mouth, before ripping off my hoodie and using it to press against his wound.

  “I won't leave you, Nev, I swear it.” He raises his bloody hand up and draws his fingers down my cheek. “I promise.”

  What I don't say, but that I'm thinking, is that you should Never make promises you're not sure you can keep.

  TO BE CONTINUED...

  Never Could Stop (Tasting Never #7) ~ Coming soon!

  Add it to your Goodreads to-read list: http://goo.gl/I33hpB

  Sign up for C.M. Stunich's newsletter and get all the latest updates on new releases!

  Sign up here: http://goo.gl/vfw2m2

  *your email will not be sold or shared with anyone*

  If you enjoyed this, you might like "Stepbrother Inked" by debut author Violet Blaze

  Keep going to read the sample chapters!

  Add it to your Goodreads to-read list: http://goo.gl/KZNUG1

  Grab your copy now! http://goo.gl/5m3nMG

  Three years earlier...

  I curled my own fingers around my throat and bit back a gasp. It shouldn't feel so good to be touched like this. The hand wrapped around my own was firm, but insistent. There was no way I was getting out of it this time.

  “Flor.” The word dropped from my lips like a cinder, one that I thought had gone cold but that always managed to flair back to life in a surge of heat and desire that I knew was wrong. Knew it. But couldn't stop the fire from fanning itself into a raging flame.

  My brother – sorry, my stepbrother because let's be honest here, there's a big difference – pulled me forward so forcefully that I stumbled, fingers still at my throat in a gesture of surprise. What, exactly, he was doing here, I wasn't sure, but the hard glint in his eyes and the firm set of his mouth told me what I feared most: that he still, and maybe always would, think of me as a sister. If he didn't, then why was he so angry? Why did his full lips twist down in a scowl at the corners? And why was his grip so hard and his aura so … messy. His emotions twisted down his arm, following the colorful lines of his tattoos as they wrapped his bicep, bleeding into me and choking back my breath. Messy. I couldn't tell if he was just pissed or if he was disappointed, too, if maybe he couldn't believe he'd just caught me with a boy's arms around my waist and his tongue in my mouth. I was supposed to be the good one, right? The one that didn't give my dad or my stepmom any trouble because Flor gave them more than they could handle.

  His dark hair bled into his eyes, dripping with sweat from the heat of the party and the crush of bodies, and I stared in simple fascination as he swept it back and glared at me.

  “What the fuck,” he began as I cringed, “are you doing here?” I watched in horror as my stepbrother's gaze lifted and met that of the boy's behind me. I kept one hand on my neck, sliding it down to my chest so that I could feel the rapid thump and slam of my heart, much like the chilling bass beat that was tingling up my toes and making me blissfully deaf. Maybe then I wouldn't have to hear the sound of my father's disappointment when he sighed and then later probably screamed at me for this little adventure? “And who,” Florian continued, “the fuck is that?”

  “None of your business, bro,” my mystery date said, curling his own fingers around my hip in a strange mockery of the way I'd done to my own throat, caught up in surprise when Flor had appeared out of nowhere and pulled me from my make out session and back to the harsh, gritty twang of reality. “Hey, are you alright?” the guy asked me as I glanced over my shoulder and swallowed hard. I guess he mistook my speechlessness for fear because he stepped around me and got in Flor's face. “You can't make her leave if she doesn't want to go.”

  “I can,” Flor snapped back at him, grinding his teeth and squeezing my wrist even tighter than before, “if she's my sister.” He leaned in and let my date have it with a simple whisper of words. “Oh, by the way, she's only fifteen, asshole.” My new friend tore his hand away from my hip like it was on fire – but not the good kind, not the kind I was feeling right now as Flor's sweaty fingers tugged me forward. No, this was more like he was terrified of me now, like he wouldn't touch me with a ten-foot pole. I guessed he wouldn't want to, considering he was twenty-one. Guess I shouldn't have lied about my age.

  “Hey, Flor,” a girl with long black hair and brightly colored extensions giggled as we passed by. “You in a hurry or something?” She eyed me with no small amount of contempt as Flor dragged me through the crowd and paused only when we were standing on the porch outside the little green and white house. In the middle of a neighborhood known locally as The
Whit, it was unlikely the cops would get called on this place, so it was a hotspot for parties. I knew because I'd followed Flor here more than once. Tonight, though, tonight I'd really believed him when he'd told his mom he – and I quote – felt like shit and was going upstairs to lie down. Florian never lied about going to parties. He just … went. No matter what sort of fight his mom put up.

  “Yeah, I sort of am,” he growled, ignoring the girl and pulling me down the steps in my heels. His broad back filled my view, blocking the clusters of teenagers and young adults hanging out on the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps. The fabric stretched across his muscles in a way that was criminal. I was young, sure, but I wasn't so young that I couldn't appreciate that, couldn't appreciate the way Flor's body had changed from a lanky teenage boy's to a … to a man's.

  I flushed from head to toe and rolled my eyes. I'd binged last week during spring break, reading each and every single one of the romance novels crammed onto my stepmom's shelf. It was part curiosity, I guess, that encouraged me to read them. That, and part disappointment and frustration that Flor got to go away and I didn't. Since then I'd been saying and thinking strange things, like how Flor always smelled so good. Or how I was glad he didn't shut his bedroom door when he was changing his shirt. That kind of stuff.

  I looked away from Florian's back to stare at the pavement for a moment, trying to pull myself together. If he was a mess of emotions then so was I. Nervous, anxious, frustrated … jealous. I swallowed hard and glanced back over at the girl. She was standing with her arms crossed over her flat chest, her lips pursed, looking from Flor's face to his hand, the one that was wrapped around my wrist, and then back again.

  “You brought me here,” she said accusingly, the fabric of her black dress reflecting the light from the flickering street lamp above us. I watched her eyes as they moved over my stepbrother, taking in each and every line of his body like she was lost in the desert and he, he was a nice, tall glass of water. When her eyes moved over to me, I saw a primal response, a surge of jealous anger that made me swallow twice – not because I was scared but because I was angry. Didn't she know that Flor didn't belong to anyone? He said that all the time when his mother asked why he never brought girls home. Then, of course, he'd whisper under his breath that he actually brought girls home all the time, only that she didn't notice.