Never Touched

by Laney Wylde

  “Dr. Pewter said I’m normal and healthy and allowed to drink whenever I want.”

  “That sounds like most psychologists I know.”

  I sighed. “It wasn’t the most pleasant two hours of my life.”

  “I’m sorry.” He forced a sad smile and tucked some hair behind my ear. “Did you get a diagnosis?”

  “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” I didn’t add that he said it was as if the initial trauma happened ten days ago, not ten years. Not that any of this was real. It was just to get me out of going to prison. Colburn said the diagnosis was excellent for my case. Hooray.

  “I’m sorry, Sawyer.”

  “For pouring out my booze? I’ll try to forgive you.”

  He moved his hand from my hair to my back. “Break’s coming up. What are you doing for Christmas?”

  “Let’s see…” I squinted and clicked my lips. “I’ll probably go for a run, then pick up some Starbucks for breakfast, and watch Miracle on 34th Street while I drink the rest of the day.”

  “Yeah, you’re not doing that.” He reached into his sweatshirt pocket and pulled out a folded printer paper. “Here’s your plane ticket. We’re going to Atlanta in a week.”

  “What? That’s a terrible idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Didn’t you describe me as quote ‘a loose cannon capable of destroying an entire fleet?’”

  “Did I say that? Wow, I’m pretty clever.”

  “Please don’t bring me around your perfect family.”

  “Too late.” Cash patted my thigh through the comforter. “Get some rest.” He stood up and left.

  “Cash, this is a bad idea. I can feel it.” I took his hand while we waited for our suitcases at baggage claim in Atlanta International Airport. It was decorated for Christmas, which just made me more anxious. My heart was racing, my empty stomach stirring up the nothingness inside it.

  He pressed his lips into my forehead. “Relax. You’ve been driving me crazy for the last five hours. I was this close,” he held his thumb and index finger an inch from each other, “to switching seats on the plane.”

  “It’s not too late to get me a ticket back to LAX.”

  Cash gestured toward the conveyor belt where our bags were. He reached for both suitcases. “They’re going to love you. I don’t know why.” After an exaggerated eye roll, he headed for the door. “But people do.”

  “Cash,” I pushed out through clenched teeth as I strode to keep up with him. I spotted the sparkling red Mustang at the curb with Jolene climbing out of it. My lungs deflated with relief. Just Jo.

  “Cash, are you kidding me?” she yelled as she punched his arm, pretty hard actually. Jake would have been impressed. “What’s this?” She pointed at me before giving me a hug.

  Cash! I could just kill him. “You didn’t tell them I was coming?”

  “Relax. I just didn’t tell Jo because she’s been nagging me to ask you out since November.”

  “Really?” I tilted my head in confusion to stare at the innocent teenager as she opened the trunk of her car. She remembered I was a stripper, right?

  “Yeah, he was so obviously in love with you. I mean, I get why he chickened out so many times. You are way out of his league.” Sure…the sweet, rich, hot guy wasn’t good enough for the ex-hooker, soon-to-be-inmate. That made sense.

  I squashed my smile and side-eyed Cash. “She knows you can hear her, yeah?”

  He lifted the second bag into the back and shrugged.

  Jo’s constant talking and Taylor Swift blasting lulled me into a false calm on the twenty-minute drive to the Colburn’s. But then she turned into a wealthy neighborhood, before turning another corner into an even richer one. The houses grew grander as we drove until we pulled into the semi-circle driveway of a towering brick mansion. The size alone was ridiculous: three times my childhood home, if not larger, and infinitely more gorgeous. I would taint the air inside just by breathing. “Uh, what do your parents do?”

  Cash answered, “They own fourteen Chick-fil-A franchises. Why?”

  “Fifteen,” Jo corrected.

  “Oh, right, the new one opens in January.”

  I buried my face in my hands. His parents couldn’t be grown, spoiled, trust-fund kids? They were decent and rich? Though I hadn’t yet ruled out money laundering. Maybe there was still hope to find a flaw.

  “Sawyer, calm down.”

  Calm down: two words a man should never say to a woman. That sounded sexist. Two words no one should say to anyone.

  “What’s wrong?” Jo asked.

  “She thinks they’re not going to like her.”

  Jo cackled and opened her door. “Sweetie, that should be the least of your worries.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She shut the door.

  “Jo!” I called. I turned back to Cash, but he was already out of the car.

  We didn’t go through the front doors, instead entering the kitchen through the garage. Everything about the kitchen was light except the dark wood floors, the air inside stuffy with the scent of sugar cookies. A few kids were at the bar glopping icing and sprinkles onto baked cutouts of stars and Christmas trees, and a couple of women were talking at the dining table behind them. The kid with chunky blond highlights shouted, “Cash!” before she hopped down from her bar stool to run toward us. Cash scooped her up in his arms and kissed her cheek. “I made you a snowflake!”

  “You did? Thank you!” Cash feigned excitement the way people did with kids. “Sue, this is Sawyer.”

  She blinked twice as she stared at me with her giant blue eyes. Something about her face made me sick to my stomach, and not because she was scrutinizing me for several long, uncomfortable seconds. She finally asked, “Are you Pocahontas?”

  My eyebrows scrunched together as I shot a questioning look at Cash. I didn’t have a chance to answer—not that I knew how to—before her little hands were in my long, dark hair.

  I tried to understand her mix up. My hair wasn’t quite as long as the cartoon character’s, but it was almost as dark. I wore it mostly straight today, the humidity here bringing out some of the waves. My skin was tan, but not that tan. I was busty like the girl in the Disney movie—

  “Sue!” Jo pushed Sue’s tiny wrists down, out of my hair. “You need to ask before you start playing with people’s hair.” Jo turned to me to say, “Sorry. We’re super into nineties Disney around here. She idolizes Pocahontas.”

  I nodded as if this cleared everything up. For the record, it did not.

  Sue continued to stare at me, apparently waiting for an answer. From the corner of my mouth, I whispered to Cash, “Has she never seen brown people before?”

  Cash suppressed a laugh before pointing at my face. “Sawyer’s got green eyes, see, Sue? What color are Pocahontas’s?”

  “Brown.” Sue’s little head bounced with her decisive nod.

  “Right.” He kissed her cheek again. Cash neglected to tell her that Pocahontas had been rotting in the ground for four hundred years, but I imagined those were the kinds of things kids were kept in the dark about, along with the truth about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and probably sex. Though once kids learned the truth about that last one, all hope in anything greater than the norm was crushed. It was hard to believe some red-suited stranger was going to give out presents without demanding something in return.

  “Now, go get me my cookie,” Cash said as he set her feet on the ground. “And one for Sawyer.”

  Sue skipped away, the dining table behind her now empty. The next thing I knew, I was being pulled into the embrace of a petite blonde who introduced herself simply as Cash’s mama. “We’re so glad you’re here, Sawyer!” Her accent was thicker than Cash’s, more like warm, sticky caramel than brown sugar.

  “Thanks for letting me invade your space. Cash bought me a ticket before I could even—”

  She clicked her tongue, almost aghast. “Honey, don’t even think about it. You’re always welcome.”

 
Wow, Cash must have told some fat lies about me, including omitting the fact I was on trial for assaulting a congressman in a strip club. Those were the kinds of things kids kept parents in the dark about, apparently.

  June, the other person from the dining table, shook my hand and hugged Cash. “Y’all better go upstairs before Mama starts her inquisition,” June suggested.

  Great idea. The fewer questions asked, the better.

  Cash and Jo led me through the breakfast nook, which I had mistakenly thought was the dining room. Apparently, there was also a formal dining room. We entered a living room that had the same dark floors and light walls but with an added fireplace. It was also not the living room, but the family room. We passed it into the front room, what they called the living room, which housed another light couch, comfy chairs, and a baby grand piano. A staircase climbed opposite of the front door. We lugged our suitcases to the top onto the balcony lined with open doors to bedrooms and bathrooms. The hallway ended into a loft with slanted ceilings, the walls of which were lined with easily a thousand books. The loft had another fireplace. “Are there any more living rooms?”

  “Just the basement.” Cash pointed to the closed door at the opposite side of the loft. “That’s my room, and that’s a bathroom,” he added as he pointed to the door cater-corner to his. “But there are two others in the hall if you’d rather share with the twins or Sue.”

  “And two downstairs besides our parents’,” Jo chimed in. Six freaking bathrooms! I didn’t know houses existed with more than two and a half. “You’re bunking with me,” she said, opening the door just to the right of the loft.

  Right. I couldn’t share a bed with Cash here, even though he was obstinately chaste. I’d given up trying to get him to give it up.

  I’d known I liked Jo. After seeing her room, I loved her. First, it was spotless, uncluttered, and didn’t smell, nothing like Nicole’s side of our dorm. The walls were such a pale blue they were almost white, all except one that was painted with chalkboard paint and covered in movie quotes. White floating shelves boasted three antique cameras that once shot films, but were benign and unusable now. A bunk bed was pushed against one wall: a twin bed above and full-sized one below. Both were covered in down comforters and black-and-white decorative pillows.

  I folded my suitcase open and rifled through the quarter of it that was full of books, my spoils from my pre-vacation library raid. Reading was a great way to hide in plain sight, to eavesdrop. Yes, it sounds creepy. But, hey, I didn’t know these people, and it was now a medically documented fact that I was paranoid.

  Book in hand, I wandered into the loft. Wandered was the word for what I wanted to look like I was doing. I was sucked in there like it was a black hole and I was space dust. There were just so many books. What was I supposed to do? My fingers traced over the book spines and then the thin covers of the vinyl record collection. I wanted to flip through them, but I had just gotten here. I should probably wait to play with the antiques.

  Some thumping sounded from inside the door Cash said was his. It was closed. I knocked.

  He cracked it open so I could see his face. “Hey.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Um…” He glanced back in his room and shook his head. “Nah.”

  “What? Why not?” It wasn’t like he was naked or something. I could see his whole body blocking the entrance to his room.

  “I’ll be out in a second.”

  I tipped my chin toward him. “You got a girl in there?” I snickered.

  He winced.

  I glowered at him and shoved the door open. My eyes bounced around the room and into the open closet, which was full of plaid shirts and flannels. Then scanned the walls.

  There were vinyl records in here, too, but displayed in places of honor up on shelves. Each case was signed. His wall had three framed posters with ticket stubs inside. The posters were also autographed. All by the same artist. And, most damning, on the shelf next to a record was a framed photograph of Cash with his arm around the waist of the leggy blonde musician.

  I raised an eyebrow at Cash, who was studiously avoiding me with his arms crossed. “Cash, this is embarrassing.”

  He lifted his right hand as if he were going to defend himself before letting it clap against his flannel-clad bicep. “Yeah,” he sighed. He finally looked at me, and we both laughed.

  “Oh…this is why you won’t let me see you naked.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not chaste! You have a tattoo of her face somewhere.”

  He chuckled and covered his mouth.

  “Where is it? On your thigh? Your ass?”

  “No!”

  “Which cheek? Left or right?”

  He kept laughing. “Sawyer, no.”

  “I won’t believe you until I have proof.” I shook my head. “And you teased me so much about crushing on Hemingway.”

  “Yeah, but he’s dead. And I don’t have elaborate fantasies about having a one-night stand with Taylor and then deserting her like you do with Hemingway.”

  “Oh, ‘Taylor?’ You’re on a first-name basis with Taylor Swift?”

  “I’ve been to her Nashville house,” he said with a little too much pride.

  “Sure, but is that proof you’re friends or that she should get a restraining order? I mean, Cash,” I pointed at the shelves, “this is a freaking shrine.”

  “She invited me as part of her Reputation private preview she did for five hundred fans at her houses.”

  Suppressing another smile, I nodded. I picked up the framed picture of him and Taylor. “I’m really not your type, am I?”

  He shrugged. “What’re you going to do?”

  “Play your favorite.” I tipped my chin toward the records.

  “Really?”

  “Sure,” I said. I sat on the floor with my ankles crossed in front of me, my weight reclined on my hands. “I’ve never heard her on vinyl.”

  Cash drummed his fingers over his lips and scanned the albums before picking Red.

  I heard someone in the loft. Cash must have, too, because he yelled, “Jo! What’s more embarrassing? Having a crush on Hemingway or Taylor Swift?”

  I thought that question would give anyone pause, but not Jo. She shot back, “Taylor Swift. Clean-cut military Hemingway was downright sexy.”

  “Told ya.” I laced my fingers behind my neck and laid back on the carpet.

  He stretched out, too, his head on my abdomen. “Jo’s a writer. She’s partial.”

  I rested my palm on his chest, drawing invisible shapes on his shirt with my fingers. “You asked her.”

  He yawned. “I don’t know why flying makes me so tired.”

  “I blame finals,” I breathed as I closed my eyes. I also blamed the fact we woke up at five-freaking-AM to catch our flight. “Cash?” I asked. I looped a couple of his curls through two of my fingers before letting the silk strands slip between them.

  “Mmhmm.” He nuzzled against me.

  “Are you going to name all your kids Taylor-themed names? Taylor? Abigail? Stephen? John?”

  “Not John. Really, Sawyer?” He let out a soft laugh.

  I giggled. “I think you have a problem.”

  “Just the one?”

  “That’s the only one I’ve found so far.”

  He took in a deep breath and let out, “Then you’re not looking very hard.”

  I wasn’t sure what time it was when we fell asleep, but it was dark out when we woke up to Jo yelling through the loft that it was time for dinner. Both of us were groggy and adjusting to the time change when we plodded down the stairs.

  Cash and I sat at the kitchen table. Carter and Jackson burst through the French doors from the backyard. The twins were pink-cheeked and musty, their short espresso hair damp with sweat. One of them dropped a basketball on the floor by the bar stools. They brushed past us into the kitchen. When the refrigerator door opened, Mama Colburn shouted, “Get out of there! Dinner will be here any minut
e.”

  The refrigerator door slammed, and Jack or Carter returned with a mouthful of cookies. He swallowed before reaching his clammy hand out to mine. “I’m Jack. You are?”

  Cash punched his arm before admonishing, “She just got here. Quit it!”

  “That’s the best time to do it!”

  “That’s Carter,” Cash said with endearing exasperation.

  “And you are?” Carter repeated.

  “Sawyer,” I said as I shook his hand.

  “That’s a beautiful name.” His lips curved into a crooked smile, his hand still holding mine. “It’d sound even better with my last name after it.”

  Damn, this kid had game. I pulled in my breath slowly to buy time to respond. “Yeah, you know, it might sound nice. You’ll be the first to know if your brother ever proposes.”

  He dropped my hand, letting it thump against my leg.

  “Him?” He raised an eyebrow and jutted his thumb toward Cash. “He’s kind of nerdy, don’t you think? I mean, he does a math competition every year. And he likes programming.”

  I raised my shoulder toward my ear. “I’m just in it for his money.” I winked. “Oh, and the fact that he can legally drive me.”

  Carter pointed at me as he made his way to the stairs. “I’ll call you in five months.”

  I pointed back. “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  Before I could even see Cash’s reaction, Carter’s twin emerged from the kitchen, also having absconded with a few cookies. He stopped when I caught his eye. He shook my hand, voice barely audible when he introduced himself. “I’m Jack.”

  “Sawyer.” I smirked, waiting for his pickup line.

  But he just blushed and broke eye contact as he said, “Nice to meet you,” before turning in the direction his brother had.

  Cash’s hands slapped the table as he stood. “And those are the twins. I’m going to help bring in dinner.”

  * * *

  Sue insisted on sitting next to me at dinner that night. In fact, she insisted every time we had to sit for a meal or game or project for June’s wedding, which was the weekend after Christmas. Sue was this shadow I couldn’t dodge, haunting me wherever I went. And I knew it shouldn’t have, but it made me uneasy, nauseous even. It was ridiculous. She was just a kid. I should have been annoyed, not nervous.