Never Been Loved (16 page)

He shakes his head against my chest, and I pull in a deep breath. “So, what’s the matter?”

Shit, now I’m going to get his whole life story.

“Nothing.”

Matty breathes in ten breaths and I know I’m not going to sleep. The little conman knows how to keep me awake with curiosity, and the parent-kid obligation.

“Why are you sleeping in my bed, kid?”

“’Cause I like it.” He yawns and snuggles closer to me. Huh. This isn’t so bad.

“Why all of a sudden?”

I shouldn’t’ve asked. I knew his answer even as the question was coming out of my mouth.

“Sera let me sleep on the couch with her last time. She read to me, too, and let me pick whatever movie I wanted.”

Anger burns the inside of my rib cage, but I swallow it down. Matty has no malice. He’s not Aly, or his grandmother. He’s a con-artist in the making sure, and he knows what to say or do to get things he wants, but he doesn’t hurt anybody with intention.

“Sera read to you, huh? What book?” I keep my eyes closed, and move my arms around his body in a hug. The kid snuggles in even closer, like he wants to be part of my skin, even when he has to twist his neck to get his little body even closer to mine. I don’t hug the kid enough. All the asshole points go to me.

“Peter Pan,” he mutters into my chest. “It’s my favourite book in the whole world.” The corners of my lips skip up.

“Have you read every single book in the whole world?”

“I can’t read yet, Daddy. They’re just scribbles on the paper.”

“Wait ’til you go to kindergarten. You’ll learn your alphabet and you’ll learn to read real soon.”

He’s quiet for a time. “You mean I could read Peter Pan by myself?” He sounds… off.

“Wouldn’t that be good?” I ask. My nephew is going to be a bookworm. I don’t think I mind so much. If it’s going to turn him to be a person like Sera, then hell yeah, I don’t mind at all.

“Sure. But… I liked it when Sera read to me.”

“She reads well?”

He nods against my chest. “She reads like magic.”

Those words when strung together shouldn’t make much sense. Hell, my heart’s sped up and I’m holding my breath.

Christ, Sera
is
magic. I just have to show her she is, no matter what it takes. And I’m going to start tonight.

I’ve never been on a date. What was the point when what I needed was always readily available?

I don’t know how to make a female like me. While I can tell Sera’s attracted to my face or body, I don’t know if the way I chew or my table manners might send her screaming into the night. Hell, she’d probably just yell ‘Frak this!’, flip me off, and take off running. With my luck, it’s a serious possibility.

I settle on casual clothes, smirking at my phone conversation with Sera this afternoon. She’s so fucking cute it hurts to think about it for too long. Especially since I really
really
want to kiss her and she’s not ready for that yet. I’m also not above being a little masochistic and taking the pain to wait for her.

Matty’s bouncing at my feet, the little shit got a hold of the emergency chocolate chip cookies I keep when my sugar drops bad, and now he’s high and I need to give him his insulin. Except I don’t want to be late for my big date that I practically begged her to go on with me. It’s a pity-date, and once I get that in my head, everything will be fine.

Yeah, this is a thank-you-for-saving-my-life-twice dinner.

I unlock the door, watch Matty settle on the floor to get his shoes on. Perfect, a two minute window while he painstakingly tries to get his shoes tied to jab him with his insulin. I lunge toward the fridge, turn around just to find him dashing for the door and struggling to get the doorknob turned.

“Matty! What are you doing?” I try to keep my voice down, well below the thunder-level that scares the shit out of the kid. “Wait! Wait a second!”

He squirms in my grip, and I nearly lose my hold on the bottle. The damn thing is a serious hit to my paycheck, especially since it’s times two. Liquid gold.

“I want to see Sera! You said we were going to see Sera!”

I haul him back to center, and crouch down, not even bothering to swab his arm. Injecting him is second nature now, but I still don’t like the way he holds very, very still. Like I’m going to hurt him, like I’m doing this on purpose when all it does is save his life.

You’re fucked up in the head, asshole. Stop thinking stupid shit, and try to come up with some good conversation for tonight. We both know you’re lying when you say it’s a thank you dinner. You want that girl underneath you, dickwad. Admit it.

I shake my head. I don’t think it’s normal to have such an in depth conversation with yourself.

So what, I want her, okay? Is that so wrong?

You think if you tell her the truth about Matty, about Jules, that she could ever want you? Love you? What are you smoking?

“You’re going to grandma’s kid. I told you this this morning, remember?”

His face falls, and I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t imagine being in that house after three years. I won’t step foot in the castle for long, and while it’s big and has tons of expensive things, it’s not kid-friendly. Never was. And there’s only so much TV and movies a kid can watch before he gets antsy.

I tug down his shirt to get the wrinkles out, so hard that he nearly headbutts me. “Sorry, Matty.”

The kid shrugs and turns towards the door. Sera has got Matty wrapped around her little finger. Shit, with a smile like that on his face, I’d gladly sign up to have it done to me, too.

I lock up and Matty’s already knocked on her door, which makes me sprint over just to hear the lock turning.
Whoah, out of breath much?

The door opens slowly enough that I just want to shove it open to get a look at what she’s wearing, or if she’s going to greet me with a smile.

Goddamn it, this girl and not looking where she’s going! She just face-planted into my pec and now her nose is red and her eyes are welling up with actual tears! Why can’t she ever look where she’s going?

Well, I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have been standing so close. What am I, a dog, begging to get in?
Don’t answer that.

“Fuck. Sorry, Sera.” I grab her shoulders, and realize I’m actually making skin to skin contact. Feels like I’ve been plugged in, and electricity has replaced the blood in my veins.

“Bad word, bad word!” Matty bounces at my feet, pirouetting like some crazy figure skater on too much Red Bull. “I get a quarter!”

The little guy remembers where he is and moves forward to hug Sera’s leg, chin on her quadricep. I’ve known this girl for weeks and she knows things about Matty and me that only less than a handful of people do. She doesn’t complain about it, or pester me with questions.

It eases me, her acceptance of the both of us. She places a hand on his head, then runs her fingers through his hair, frowning at me when she’s done. And I get it, I know what she’s asking me. Everything can be so easy with her.

It feels like a long time since my life has been easy for me. A long time.

I shrug. “He’s been all over the map today. Up, down, up and down again. His body’s strung out. I’m hoping Mom can get some decent food in him, and he can sleep it off. She’ll take care of him tonight.”

I notice the tiniest little straightening of her shoulders. Does she want Matty to come with us? Well, too bad.

“Ready to go, little buddy?” Sera asks Matty, and the kid looks up at her like she hung the stars in the sky only for him. Christ, if this ends badly, the kid is going to be scarred for life. I’m going to need to pay for a shit-ton of therapy.

“Where are you and Daddy going?”

I try and make myself keep quiet. But Sera’s panicked look has me wading in. “We’re going to eat with grown-ups tonight, Matty. Kids gotta stay home.”

“Awww, man. Really, Daddy? What if I dress up, and no one can recognize me?”

Where does he get these ideas? He’s a little genius and I don’t know where he got it from. I shake my head, and move, like a total moron, to wrap an arm around Sera’s waist.

When she prances away into the elevator car, I ream myself out for being so stupid.
Who the hell does that? Who just assumes that it’s okay to invade someone’s personal space? You’re not dating yet, asshole, you need to ask for permission to even think before doing something like that!

I watch her watching Matty, jumping from foot to foot, bobbing his head around, moving too fast. I know the insulin I gave him is enough. But Sera doesn’t. The skin between her eyebrows is pinched, and she’s twisting her mouth so hard, there’s white all around it.

When her hands curl into fists at her sides, I grab her right fist in my hand and just leave it there, holding my breath. When she looks up at me, those green eyes magnified by her glasses, filled with questions and not a little bit of anger, something roars in my chest, something like justice or vengeance. The animal in my chest is proud of what I see in her eyes. ’Cause I feel it, too.

As much as life has tried to skull-fuck me, no kid deserves getting diabetes, especially without the chance of tasting all of what life has to offer first. And for that, there’s too many walls I want to hit, too many plates I want to break, too many sparring partners I want to watch bleed and break beneath my hands.

I give her a slight shake of my head, and smooth out her fingers, almost sighing when her fingers interlock with mine. She turns away from me and stares at the back of Matty’s head just before the doors open to the basement.

“Don’t worry, Sera,” I say, voice rough like gravel. “He’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“How do you know that?” she practically whispers, and I struggle to hear it.

Squeezing her hand, I tell her, “Because this isn’t new for him. This happens a lot. And he gets through it. Every single time.”

She dips her head and nods at me, and we make our way to my car. I open the passenger side for Sera, and head to the back to strap Matty into his car seat. Once inside, I prepare myself for another trip to Mom’s house.

I pull up to the curb, and ignore the way Sera’s body has tightened up.

You should tell her what’s here, what this place means to you.

When it’s the right time.

No time is ever right to lay that on someone. There’s never a right time.

I know, I just want this, whatever this is, for now. I deserve that.

You think Sera deserves someone like you?

Chapter 12

Sera rushes out of the car and goes in the back seat to get Matty out. I walk slowly around to her side of the car, spending some time admiring the curve of her ass as she leans over to get my nephew out of his impossible car seat.

I hear them talking and it’s doing funny things to the muscle in my chest. Christ, this girl. She hasn’t even touched me yet; she hasn’t even been straight and out with me. This night is an epic bad idea, but I don’t care. It won’t be the first bad date in the history of mankind.

I’ll probably be a laughing stock with her boys, and I’m okay with that. Just as long as I get a little bit of the happiness she gives off, just a little bit of the smiles she sometime sends my way.

I’ve finally cracked. It was going to happen sooner or later.

Then my body gets involved and I’m seriously reacting to the perfect curvature of her body as she’s leaning over my nephew. And while I can still think with the little blood left in my brain, I realize that Sera’s not doing it ’cause she knows what she’s got. It doesn’t look like there’s an endgame when it comes to her, and I can’t begin to start thinking about how much I fucking love that.

“It’s water, little buddy. No big deal. C’mon, help me with these things or you’ll stay in this car forever!”

I hear her tell the kid, and he lets out a giggle. She’s somehow become his best friend, while I feel like it’s a total struggle to try and relate to the kid. It’s practically agony trying to keep track of all the tangents he goes off on, all his ridiculous observations that make zero difference in my life.

“I love you, Sera.”

Fire burns in my chest cavity and that ice pick is back again, an invisible asshole in my chest just hacking away.
What the fuck just happened? How does she do that?!

“I love you, too, little man. Now, we gonna get you out of here, or you really wanna stay here forever and ever?”

“No! I’m coming, I’m coming out!” Matty yells and I see him scrambling through the door while Sera backs up with a finger in her mouth.

Christ!

She’s not trying to be sexy, asshole. She’s hurt.

Her bun is disheveled, sitting lopsided on her head and I feel a painful squeeze in my chest. Fuck, she’s so adorable. I want to tug it gently, and watch her hair spill around her shoulders. Sera has long hair, and I don’t know why she keeps it up all the time. Jesus, when we had breakfast the other day and it was down, I had some serious problems with Kong and the Twins.