As always, Ms. Stein has written a very interesting book. Her characters have a way of being a little quirky and they always manage to get under my skin and I think that is why I enjoyed this book so much. I guess really and truly, this is a story of “opposites attracting” in some ways and a “what you see is not always what you get” story.
Serge and Beatrix couldn’t be more opposite of each other as far as appearances. Bea is conservative and doesn’t really want to be noticed (due to a terrible childhood) and Serge is a Mohawkish wearing badass. But under those appearances are two people that are very much alike and the title- “Never Loved” is spot on. Neither one has really experienced unconditional love and acceptance until they meet.
I really love the development of their connection with each other, it’s kind of instantaneous and neither one can deny that they just kind of “work”. What Bea and Serge find in each other is that perfect soft place to land. Bea has existed in college as who she thinks everyone thinks she should be- how she “should” act. Serge gives her the freedom to completely be herself with him and without him.
I really enjoyed this one and I cannot wait until the next book, Never Sweeter, I’m quite intrigued by it and I’m really looking forward to reading it.
“I tell you what, girl. How about you hop on, and I’ll take you to where he is.”
Some of the guys around him laugh. Hell, he seems to be laughing a little, too. He even slaps the back of his bike like the punch line to this whole crazy joke—he knows I’m never going to climb up on that thing. Everyone knows I’m not going to climb up on that thing. I’m a soft little kid, in corduroy.
Though for once in my life, I don’t want to be. I want to say yes, just to show him. Just to make up for all the times when I went back to my room and changed and changed and changed until my clothes were suitable, or stayed silent because silence was golden and talking back got you the basement. I don’t have to stay silent here, if I really don’t want to.
But that only makes it more disappointing when my sad little mouth leaks out, “I can’t do that.”
In fact, it’s so disappointing that he seems to catch some of it. He snorts, of course, as though he expected that answer all along. Yet beneath that snort I think I see something else, just sort of drifting around down there. A bitterness, I think, that carries through his otherwise amused and rather withering words.
“Afraid of bikes, huh?”
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“And maybe afraid of me?”
“I’d have to be insane to be anything else.”
“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
“Think it’s pretty obvious.”
“Try me.”
“Mostly it’s the size.”
He makes a face like Yeah, that makes sense.
But the shadow of that odd disappointment is still there.
“What can I say? I’m a big guy.”
“And maybe the tattoos.”
“I sure got them.”
“And the hair.”
“You don’t like it?”
He runs a hand over that thick black stripe right down the center, like some lady at a salon showing off her new hairdo. And it’s funny; it really is funny. It’s so funny that the assembled crowd laughs again to see him do it. This is probably the kind of show he does all the time, and I’m sure none of them ever question it.
But I’m questioning it. I can still see that serious undercurrent beneath his jokey manner, and it makes me answer him in a more impassioned way than I intend. “No, no, it’s not that at all,” I say, though it’s only afterward that I realize how true that sentiment is.
Yeah, he’s scary as fuck. Yeah, the thought of riding off with him on that bike almost freezes my blood. But if I’m honest with myself about liking that hair . . . I can’t exactly say no. I do like it. I like a lot of things about him, in a way I don’t fully understand. He should ping just about every aggressive-man fear I have, but every time I try to think of him that way, something else happens instead. I see the contrast between those black stripes and his pale blue eyes, and the way he waits for my answer in this actually interested manner, and how strange all of his clothes are and that flash of bitterness or weariness in him again, and then suddenly there it is:
The word handsome.
Dear God, I think he might be handsome, though I’m not going to stick around long enough to find out for sure.
“I’ve got to go,” I blurt out, but I immediately regret it. I should have just turned and run really quickly—not given him warning. Now he’s got time to punish me as I ever so slowly start to walk away. Oh, look at the little college girl. She’s frightened, he’ll say, and then someone will throw a rock at me. All of them will throw rocks at me, until I’m a bruised and bloody pulp on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper. Idiot Student Finds Angry Biker Handsome, I imagine, though I’ve no idea why I’m doing it.
That doesn’t even make any sense. People don’t write reports about girls randomly noticing attractiveness. They write reports about girls being murdered, so really, that should be my headline. Idiot Student Has Arms and Legs Pulled Off by Handsome Biker, I try, but I can’t help noticing that the word handsome is still in there.
God, I wish it wasn’t still in there.
It’s hard enough as it is to walk to my car without glancing back. Putting the word handsome in there makes it nearly impossible. My eyes want me to double-check, and not just because I probably hallucinated how good-looking he is. They want me to check because I’m almost positive I can feel his gaze pressing into my back. I can feel it the way people in books say they can feel it, even though I usually snort and roll my eyes when I get to stuff like that. You can’t sense someone’s stare in real life. That’s just not the way it works.
So how come I’m right?
I dare to glance up once I’m inside the safety of my car, expecting to see him going about his business. Maybe he’ll be in the middle of some awful drug thing, I think. Maybe he’ll be making some kid pay for wanting to do something other than come right home after school. But he isn’t doing either of those things—not even close.
Instead I see those frostbitten eyes still steadily on me, as everyone around him returns to their rowdy and brutal ballet.
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