Never Been Loved (14 page)

Her cheeks are pink, and her breath is definitely coming faster. Sera’s turned on, just by looking at me.
I can use this. I can make her mine.

I drop to my knees in front of her, caging her in with my arms, hands on either side of her hips hitting the beat-up leather of my couch.

“You all right?”

“I think so. You’re extremely close.” She nods slowly, and stares on either side of her, where my arms cage her in.

“I know that, baby.”
Shit. Too soon, asshole!

“I’m...I’m fine. I’m good. You good for me to go?” She’s pulled back from me, body plastered to the back of the couch. Shit. I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t mean for it to play out like this.

“What do you feel like watching?” I ask, palming her cold foot. I should get her some socks. Yeah, my extra warm ones I need for the winter. Matty collides into my side and steals my thunder, as always.

“Yeah, Sera! We can watch Transformers 3!” The kid’s voice is too high pitched to be excited, like he’s forcing it.

Sera grabs both his hands, after tossing the remote on the couch. She stares into his eyes, a tiny smile on her mouth that I want to kiss into a full one. But she’s not looking at me, just Jules’ kid. That smile’s for him.

“Matty, you did so good coming to get me. You remembered your dad’s sugar level and everything.

And you listened super well when I asked you to get me that honey, little man.” I watch her ruffle his hair. His little body is shaking when he turns around and strangles me with his arms around my neck, holding me as tight as his little four-year-old body will allow.

No one’s ever told him anything for being good, all he does is get shit all day – mostly from me. I hold him tighter as he sobs, his heart beating hard against my chest.
I’m going to fix this. I fucking will.
“You were so brave, Matty. Thank you for taking care of me.” I tell him. He kisses me on the side of my throat, but won’t let go.

Even when it’s time to watch the movie and Sera’s settled herself on the couch, Matty next to her, then me, the kid wraps around my arm like ivy, head on my bicep.

He doesn’t know it, but I’m not letting go, either.

Chapter 10

I can’t stop looking at her. She’s probably going to catch me staring and wonder what’s wrong with me. I don’t think I’ve ever had my mental health questioned so much. Sort of makes me believe there actually is something wrong with the circuits in my skull.

I’ve just never seen anyone so animated before... about anything.

Even Jules wasn’t this into things. I don’t like thinking about my sister, or tarnishing her memory, but fuck, Sera, she just makes the day a little brighter.

Ball sac still intact? Good.

Sera’s barely keeping her ass glued to the beat-up leather of my couch. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, and her face is glued to whatever the fuck movie we’re watching.

Every time something blows up or Optimus Prime speaks at all, she rocks her weight forward on her feet and we have lift off. If I were still a pervy fifteen-year-old, I’d stick my hand right under, so when she’d fall back down, yeah... I’m not a pervy fifteen-year-old, I’m not a pervy fifteen-year-old.

Fuck, but I want to touch her. Maybe I should start with a cheek first. The one on her face.
Stop thinking about her ass.

I swear to Christ, Sera just squealed. Does she think that fuck Shia Beef is good-looking? I’m screwed if she does. We look nothing alike, and I can’t tell a joke to save my life. Shit.

“Daddy! Optimus just
crushed
the Decepticons!” Matty hollers, still wrapped around my left arm. I don’t know what a Decepticon is, but it sounds hilarious coming out of the kid’s mouth. I might just bribe him with quarters to say it whenever I want.

Sera’s still glued to the screen. I don’t exist for her, or if me and Matty do, we’re part of another dimension that she can’t see or hear. I find I don’t like being ignored by her, even if all her attention is being taken up something else. I want her to notice me always, just like she’s become a fixed point on my own radar.

I hear the sound of British coming out of the screen, and I turn to look at two robot-looking things almost cussing. Twisting quick to see Sera’s reaction, it’s like she’s wrapped one of her hands around my dick. Her smile is quick and dirty, and her eyes are wide and looking away from me.

Fuck, to be looked at with that kind of intensity, with that kind of need, Jesus, I’d trade ten years off my life for that. Scratch that, ten years of the best years of my life to be looked at like that.

So she has a thing for British accents. I could do that. Maybe. In my dreams. Or hallucinations.

“Do you even know whose voice that is?” she whispers to the screen. Matty looks over at her, then back at me, something like confusion written on his face. The little guy then leans up and uses a cupped hand around my ear to whisper me a secret.

“Is Sera tired?” he asks. That one word the only way he knows how to describe odd behaviour, the like that would may be due to a sugar high or low. I’m going to have to change that, too.

I don’t think I could handle a needle going anywhere near her perfect skin, even if it were to save her life.

I lean close to Jules’ kid, smell his baby shampoo hair, and mumble back, “No, kid. She’s just happy to see the movie.”

“Sera talked to me during a movie yesterday. How come not now?”

“Uh, maybe ’cause she’s really into it?” I look back up, and yeah, she’s mouthing the words right along with the main character who thinks he’s hilarious. I really don’t think a guy like that can land the girl with the pillowy lips.

Matty’s gone back to tracing my scarred fingertips with his own. That weight in my chest appears again, the familiar invisible eighteen-wheeler. The little guy keeps touching my fingertips, maybe even counting the tiny holes left behind from I don’t know how many tests ago for checking my sugar.

What’s worse is, I know that in his lifetime, he’s going to get maybe a million more than me. And it’s not fucking fair.

Something happens on screen and Sera laughs. A full-on laugh with her hugging her ribs, perched on her feet, ass away from my leather couch. The main guy’s screaming at his car while being talked to by a couple of military guys. It’s a piece of shit car, too. I can understand the frustration.

I wonder if Sera would be embarrassed to get in my car. That ass should only be touched by the finest leather seats so as not to disturb the flesh. Aly always made me feel like shit whenever she got in my car, rubbing her fingers along the dash at the dust or whatever.

Christ, I’m thinking about what Sera thinks about my car. Like it matters. We’re just watching a movie. And tomorrow I’m taking her to breakfast and that’s
all
.
Yeah, okay, buddy. Try and hold in the fist pump or the gorilla beating of your chest ’cause she said yes.

“I’m sorry, I’m fading over here,” Sera says, smiling while she yawns. “I forgot how funny this movie is.” She stretches her arms over her head, finally fully settling in my couch, her breasts thrust out as she arches her back.
Oh, man.
I have an urge to memorialize the leather and never let anyone sit there ever again.

That’s it. The sugars have made you lose your damn mind.

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry because you’re tired,” I say, while Matty yawns too. Now I’m yawning.
Cover your mouth! Were you raised in the wild?

“I do tend to say sorry a lot. It’s a bad habit.” Another yawn. She dips her chin into the neck of her shirt and covers her mouth that way. My heart thumps real fast.

“I don’t think so.”
Here’s my chance. Say something good, say something sweet to her.
“I think it’s kinda cute.”

Matty swings his head to look at Sera’s reaction. If she’d been thunderstruck, she’d look less surprised.
Don’t laugh, don’t laugh
. It’s a hell of a fight to keep a straight face.

Sera’s looking at me like I’ve told her I have a radioactive spider for safekeeping, just in case. I’ve been doing my homework; I hope she likes Spider-man. The look’s part revulsion, ’cause hey, it’s a spider, and she’s seriously wondering if she’d let herself be bitten.

I lose the fight with my face and smile. She’s been making me do that a lot lately and I’ve only known her for a short time.

“Okaaaayyy,” she says, and stands up, twisting from side to side until even I hear the crack in her ribs, spine, whatever. “I’d like to say it’s been fun, but you nearly gave me me a heart attack.” She gives me a small smile that’s almost a grin.

“You do get points though for letting me watch
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
when you clearly couldn’t give a flying frak. So, thanks. I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bet on it.”
Now you sound like a serial killer. ‘Bet on it’, who talks like that?

Sera dips her chin in a solemn nod. Her face breaks out into a smile that’s especially reserved for Matty. Now the kid’s making me see green. Shit.

“Bye, little man. Have a good night.” Sera holds her arms out for a hug, and the little guy scrambles off the couch so fast I don’t know how he doesn’t trip himself. He’s a mass of small limbs running headlong into Sera’s thighs, looking up at her so his dark hair falls back in a black wave.

“Good night, Sera! See you later, alligator.” He squeezes his little arms around her legs, and she bends down to land a kiss on his forehead. My heart’s thumping so hard, I wonder how long until I go into cardiac arrest. Sera makes me want things I have no right to have.

“In a while, crocodile. Sleep tight, Matty.” When the kid lets go of her, she looks up at me, the force of her gaze drilling me to the spot and I can’t get up. Manners dictate I should. I know I should, I’m just paralyzed by the look on her face.

“Good night, Hunter. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Sera’s cheeks are pink, and she’s chewing on her lip.

Can she want me?

“Good night, Sera.”

And she walks out of my apartment, leaving me and Matty behind. I get Matty to bed without much fuss, maybe ’cause I actually spent time with him instead of passing out or being spaced out.

We wrestle him into his Iron Man pajamas, and I get a sloppy kiss on my cheek goodnight. I ruffle his hair and kiss the top of his head.

I clean up my place, do a quick run through of the apartment, picking up toys and bills and putting them into some weak semblance of organization. Hey, I tried. I close the TV, the lights and head into my room, guts twisting, heart thumping because I’m taking Sera to breakfast tomorrow, and I need to get my head in the game. I need to be nice. I need to be courteous. I need to be respectful.

She’s already seen the ugliest part of me, and now I get to show her some of the good.

My fingers twitch, and I look for my sketching pad by the side of my bed. I ignore the wall where I’ve put artwork from the last ten years. It started as some sort of therapy to get my mind off my body.

Diabetes has a way of making you so aware of every little nuance, every heartbeat, every pulse of blood in your veins that I found myself missing out on life. I missed out on so many conversations with Jules; she probably thought she was talking to a brick wall, that I wasn’t listening to her, when I had to listen to my body.

It’s exhausting. So drawing helps. It takes me out of my body and into the picture I see in my head and how I can get it onto paper like I see it. I settle with my back to the headboard, pad over one knee.

I had an image of Sera’s eyes in my brain, the colour of them, the way the light hits them, the play of her eyebrows, the sweep of her eyelashes. But I find myself drawing something else, something I don’t want to see.

My hand follows the motions, the perfect curve of a tombstone. I add shading to make the glaze on the stone, but my hands shake when I trace in the letters of her name. I can’t finish the year that she died while a flash of pain streaks through my chest and my throat’s tight. I shade the headstone like the sun’s to my right. I draw in some stupid flowers – I never knew what kind she liked when she was alive – and spend some time detailing that.

X marks the spot. That’s where my sister is, whatever’s left of her. Matty doesn’t remember her, and all I can do is remember and mourn. Julia MacLaine was happy once, until I fucked up her life. Until she followed me down into the depths of hell to pull me back out, only to get entangled in drugs herself.

It’s my fault she’s dead. It’s my fault Matty doesn’t have a mom.

What the fuck are you doing with a girl like Sera, anyway? No one can take on that much pain, least of all her. You can’t do that to her, asshole. You can’t make her take on your guilt.

Fucking hell, what am I doing with her? She can have any guy she wants.
But she said yes to breakfast.
She probably feels sorry for you.

Yeah, probably. It’s just that she makes me smile, and I want more of that. Even if it’s the world worst idea, I’m taking Sera to breakfast. But I’ll drive Matty to Mom’s first.