by C.M. Kars
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“I just pictured you in leather pants and a black tank. Jesus Christ your ass would look amazing in leather pants. Then I wouldn’t be able to let you out of the house, since every guy with a half a dick would want a piece of you.”
I admit the truth. “I think only you see me that way.”
“Baby, it’s not my fault you haven’t noticed.”
“Right.” I half-fake another yawn until I almost pop my jaw with the force of it. “I’m tired, I want to go to sleep now. Would you shut up?” I yawn again, snuggle closer. “Wait a sec, Hunt. Who’s Jules?”
As close as I am, I feel it, his body tightening up, the chill between our bodies as he imperceptibly moves away from me.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s Matty’s mom and she died a long time ago. Sweet dreams, baby.” I get a kiss on my mouth (how does he see?) and even though Hunt pulls me closer to him, if feels like we’re miles apart.
I wake up thinking that I must be on the surface of the sun. I’m hot and sweaty. Cracking an eyelid open, I can see why. Hunter MacLaine has wrapped himself around me like the kraken pulverizes a pirate ship. On my back as I am, a heavy arm is wrapped around my rib cage, and his hot breath is on my neck as he’s nuzzled there sometime during the night. A leg is trapping both of mine underneath his. I’m trapped.
Did I mention I’m hot? Like, boiling?
Hunt makes a sleepy snort in my neck, which makes me grin, even as I try and wiggle out from under him. The bastard just winds up closer to me, and really, I’m having a hot flash at twenty-five years old.
“Hunter?” I whisper, rocking my body into his, trying to nudge him awake. “Can you get up now?” I wiggle some more, and an affirmative sound comes out of him, but the kind of affirmative sound that a little kid would do when his Mom tells him to wake up for school. A sound for me to shut up so he can sleep.
“Hunter, I’m dying here. Please, for the love of the Winchesters, can you please get up?” I’m still whispering, but I inject more bite to the words and another body wiggle.
“I think my sugar’s high.” Oh, God. His morning voice. Why can’t nothing he do be gross? It’s not fair to us normal folk, really. His voice is deep and raspy from not being used all night, and as close as we are, he’s pressed up against me, and I can feel the words vibrate in his chest. Wow.
It takes a few seconds for the words to get through my waking-up-with-Hunt haze, since last time we actually slept together, I bolted nice and early to avoid this awkward situation. So not awkward now, except I’m burning alive!
“If you let go of me, I can go get your insulin. But you have to let go, first.”
His arms tighten around me in answer, all yeah, right. “I just want to sleep it off. You don’t have to do anything yet.”
“Fine. But Hunter, I swear to Castiel, I’m going to melt unless you let go of me. Please, have a heart.” A bead of sweat slides down between my boobs. I can feel the hair near my ears and the top of my forehead getting damp. Am I sleeping next to the Human Torch or what?
That affirmative sound again.
“C’mon, let me check on Matty, and I can make us breakfast.”
“I hate eating breakfast,” his voice is still sleepy, but he’s loosened his hold on me a little. Just a little mind you, not enough for freedom. Gah!
“You’re breathing on my neck, and it feels like you’re breathing fire on me!” My voice is rising with every single word, still in a whisper. I have no idea what time it is, as his curtains are drawn, but telling by the light and the lack of total opaqueness of his curtains, it has to be somewhere around eight or nine. Maybe. Whatever.
Did he just bite me? My spine is made of adamantium, and my whole body is doing a great impression of a field-post. What just happened?
“Stay with me.”
I wiggle again, feeling like I’m doing an awful dance to LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem trying to get free. “Could you let go? I’m dying over here.”
“Fucking shit. Why don’t you want to stay in bed with me?”
Thank you baby Jesus - he finally rolls over.
“I’m not used to sleeping with someone,” oh, shit! “the whole night, okay? I mean, you’re throwing enough body heat to melt the ice shelves in the Arctic.” I get up to a sitting position. After all this talk, it finally hits me what I did last night, or what should be nagging me this morning. Too many unanswered questions between us, and whatever we have, frail and weak trying to keep it all at bay.
I don’t like it, but what am I going to do? Strap him to a chair, pour artificial light in his face and do torture Ace Ventura style with a fork, a knife, and a plate? I shudder, just thinking about that sound.
My back is to him. I don’t usually care what I look like in the morning. I usually get pillow battle scars on my face from pressing into it too hard during the night, and my hair does whatever the hell it wants. Hunter’s shirt is twisted around my torso, showing Hunter a strip of my lower back. Shit. My sweats are tangled along my legs, one up to the knee, the other twisted around completely.
All in all, I make a striking attractive figure, and I really don’t know how Tom Hiddleston hasn’t found me and married me yet. Right.
I stumble into Hunter’s bathroom and do the whole routine, eyeing his toothbrush if I should be stealing it. I use my finger to brush my teeth instead, half-smiling in the mirror when I see Matty’s Iron Man one, and Spider-man toothpaste.
And now my cheeks are burning. I look away from the spot where Hunter and I, well, we, uh, for the love, I rode him like I was a professional bloody jockey without meaning to. Mortification makes my eyes slide closed, even as I rinse my mouth. Right, whatever. It was a totally normal reaction.
And now I’m thinking of what I did to Hunter last night on his couch. Of how I touched him and how he felt, and the sexy sounds he made, and now I need a cold shower.
I might have to tell him I’m a virgin. I’m probably going to have to tell him. Walking to Matty’s room, I ponder this eventual situation.
Hi, Hunt, well, before we go any further, I just wanted to tell you I still have my v-card. Yes, you heard right, my v-card. I’m a virgin. A vir-gin. As in untouched, pure as the driven snow. As in I’ve never had a man before, you get it? Stop looking so shocked. Did you swallow your tongue?
Yeah, that would go over super well.
I knock on Matty’s open door, watching as he quickly ducks his head under the sheets and plays dead. Shaking my head, I go over to the bed and commence one of many tickle-fests I hope I’m going to have the chance to give in the near future.
“What’s up, little man? What’s with the glum face?”
Matty’s eyebrows are low on his face, and he’s sucking on his lower lip, thinking. I blow a raspberry on his cheek and he explodes into laughter. Score for me.
“Where did you come from?”
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “Well, uh, from next door, of course!”
God, he knows, he knows! Just look at that face, his baby blues are lasers of truth cutting through all my white-lies and exposing me for the liar I am. Gah! Matty nods slowly, and he knows, he has to know that I slept over last night.
I would cut off my big toe with a light-saber if he heard us last night. How did we think whatever we were up to, Hunter and I, that it wouldn’t affect him? I’m pretty sure I have a one-way ticket to the bowels of Hell.
“I don’t like Sundays,” he says. I’m surprised he knows the days of the week. I sure as hell didn’t at four. Well, maybe I did, but I’m sure I never got the day right when asked. Matty MacLaine is a little genius! My boy is a genius!
Uh, whut?!
Rewind, stop, and play again. Did I just say that? When did that happen? Why am I thinking of him as mine! He’s not mine!
I clear my throat, wishing I could Etch-n-Sketch whatever thoughts are tumbling in my brain.
“Nobody likes Sundays, kid. It’s a fact of life.”
> “Tomorrow is Mondaaaaaay,” he wails, covering his face with the sheet again. “I have to go to school tomorrow, and I don’t wanna!” And then he dissolves into tears, like actual real violent sobs.
“Matty!? What the bloody hell is going on?!” My attention is divvied up into three parts: yep, still wondering why I called Matty my boy, like he’s my kid; why is he crying; and oh-my-God, Hunter is going to think I made Matty cry!
“Kids at school make fun of meeeeeeee,” he whines, still under the covers. I move closer to him, lie myself down, prop myself up on an elbow and gently coax him to bring down the covers (no matter how cool they are), so I can see his face.
My heart twists, knocking against my ribs, and my throat gets tight thinking about little asshole children making fun of (yeah, I’m gonna say it in my head) my kid, my Matty.I’m enraged, I want to go and beat up on little kids because they fraking dared make fun of the sweetest, cutest little kid in the world who gets my jokes, and called me beautiful.
He won’t look at me, instead he faces the wall, and his whole body is shuddering as he pours his heart out. “They say I can’t play with them because I can’t keep up. They won’t even let me try, Sera! Daddy says everyone gets a chance, sometimes even two! And they won’t give me one, ever! It’s not fair!”
I curl my body around his little one, and push his hair back off his forehead, leaning down to kiss the shell of his ear. I start to remember old hurts as well, what is was like for me, being made fun of everyday, only to come home to it as well. How many times had I been stepped on, how many times had others’ words cut me down to the bone? How many times did those same words take root deep inside me and made me believe what everyone else said? I’m twenty-five, and I’ve believed those two false truths my entire life.
I don’t want that to happen to Matty. So everything that comes out of my mouth, I make sure he gets it, that he understands that no matter what happens, there’s always someone in his corner handing him the water bottle and wiping the invisible blood at the end of the day. Me.
“You know, kids used to make fun of me, too.” My voice is soft and weak, like I’m back there, in the playground, in the high school cafeteria, at home in my room, nursing my pain, licking my wounds.
Matty’s body stiffens, and in a nanosecond, he’s turned over, bouncing the bed with the slight body weight he has, flopping down on his pillow and staring up at me with eyes so much like his father’s.
“Is that true?” He breathes out the last word like he can’t really believe it, like I just told him that unicorns exist and we’re going to go see one today.
“Yeah. Everyone in my grade used to make fun of me. But I had some friends who made me forget about all that stuff for the day. They helped make me feel better. Do you have any friends at school who can help you like that?” Say yes, Matty, please, for my sanity. Say yes.
“You’re not sick.” He says the last word like he’s kicking a turd away from him or something. Seeing his disgust in regards to himself makes me want to punch something.
I shrug, and lean down so that we share the same pillow now. “It didn’t matter. People, anybody, they make fun of you because you’re different. It’s the way it is, little man, and I’m sorry about that.” What can I say? What can I do?
“How are you different?”
My throat tightens up again, and my nose starts stinging. I don’t want to cry, I don’t want to show him that it still hurts, that you never really forget when others cut you down.
“I’m not... I’m not like everybody else.” There. Good enough explanation. Drop it, kid. But his blue eyes are wide and his face is just staring at me like whatever I’m saying is exactly what he needs to hear. “I’m not...” God, just say it. “I’m not beautiful like other girls,” I say, the words tiny and small, just big enough to fit in his ears and nobody else’s. “A lot of people made fun of me because of that.”
Matty throws back the covers with such energy, with such force, I half expect him to call down the power of Grayskull without the aid of a sword and fight whatever evil I can’t see.
“Who said that to you? I’m gonna – I’m gonna kick ‘em in the shin!”
Yeah, he’s my kid. I want him to be mine, I can’t lie to myself anymore.
“Matty, I’m telling you this because I want you to know you’re not alone.” Maybe I’ve gone and ruined everything. What’s the standard answer here? Do I tell him to ignore it? To pretend they don’t exist? And what happens if he starts crying, or gets into a fight? Or worse, starts believing what they tell him?
“Find a friend at school who makes you laugh, or who you can play hide and seek with and doesn’t mind if you get tired too fast.”
“I don’t know anybody like that.” He looks so crestfallen, shoulders slumping.
“I bet you do, you’re just not thinking properly. I think you have a bad memory, kid. Any other boys or girls?”
His eyes light up with a memory. “Candace likes Harry Potter, too! She told me one time, when we were sitting next to each other at lunch.”
“How do you know she likes Harry Potter?”
He looks at me like I’m not very bright. “She said his name, Sera.”
“Right,” I nod. Crisis averted, I think.
“Good morning, kid,” Hunter’s morning-voice floats to me from the Matty’s doorway. Frak, how long has he been standing there? I’m kind of scared to look – is he wearing a shirt? Sweats? I can’t handle Hunter-in-boxers this morning, not after what happened last night.
Parenting is hard.
“Hi, Daddy! I’m hungry.” Whatever tension had passed between us moments ago is gone at the sight of his Dad. Maybe he doesn’t want his Dad to know what he’s going through.
“Eggs and bacon?”
“Uhhhhhh,” Matty says, “are there sausages? I like sausages better.”
Hunter smirks, and looks at me now that I’m sitting up and facing him. “Yeah, I got that, Matty. Brush your teeth and come help. We’re going to make Sera breakfast today.”
I see Matty in my peripheral vision tilt his head to the side.
“How come?”
I feel like Hunter wants to rub his skull-trim, a sure sign that he’s uncomfortable. Instead, the smirk on his face explodes out into a full-blown smile. Wow. They could bottle that and enslave the whole female population.
“Sometimes when someone makes you feel happy, you do things for them without saying thank you,” Hunt tells him, keeping his eyes locked on me. Well, if that doesn’t just warm me right up. I will not swoon. Who am I kidding - I can’t feel my knees.
“Why can’t you just say thank you?”
“How many times are you going to say thank you to Sera for reading to you every single night, huh?”
Turning to him, Matty looks at Hunter with a puzzled look. Kind of like Hunter is asking him a trick question. I try not to grin.
“I say it every night.” He looks at me. “I tell you every night, don’t I? I love reading Harry Potter with you! Thank you, Sera!” Little arms wind around my neck and I get a sloppy kiss on my cheek.
“You’ll understand when you’re older, kid. Just remember what I said for now.” Hunter looks at me again, smiling. He looks really good, despite his sugar being high. “C’mon, buddy. Go brush your teeth, and put some socks on. I’m starting with or without you in five minutes.”
Matty scrambles out of bed, taking a flying leap off the far side, closest to the door and Hunter, colliding with his Dad’s sweatpant-covered legs. The little guy just pushes off his Dad and heads for the bathroom.
I have a hard time swallowing what little saliva I have left when Hunter steps up close to me and crouches down so we’re eye-level. Gulp.
His hand winds at the back of my neck, warm and steady and comforting.
“How are you?”
I frown. “I’m hungry, actually.” I don’t ask the question I need to know. How long were you standing there, anyway? Like for a second, or d
id you hear my whole pathetic little speech?
“S’not what I meant, but I’ll give it to you this one time.” He kisses me on the cheek, then at the corner of my mouth, then smack on my lips. When he pulls back, his eyes are warm pools of blue, and he has this tiny smile on his face that I feel is just for me.
“We have to talk, you and I.”
“Alright,” I say, swallowing hard. My hands have fisted in my sweats, and I lick my lips, watch his eyelids get heavy, and his gaze zeroes in on my mouth.
“Another time. When you can have the space you need to do what you need to do.”
I scowl. “Cryptic much? You’re worse than The Riddler, you are.”
His smile turns sad. The corners are still turned up, sure, but the rest of his face falls, and whatever bit of happiness was glowing out of his face before is no longer there for me to see.
“I have to be. You’ll understand soon.”
I hold up a hand between us. “As of this moment, are you a drug dealer?”
“No.” Good answer.
“Do you have a criminal record?” Hunter shakes his head. “Do you think you should have a criminal record?”
“Depends who you talk to.”
I frown again, feeling that heat that burned my body plummet to subzero.
“Uh, not inspiring confidence over here.”
“I wasn’t the best of people when I was younger, alright? I promise you that my life has changed since then. I just need to tell you so you know whose mouth you’re kissing.”
I nod reluctantly. “Have you killed anyone?”
“Not me.”
There’s something there in that answer, I know it, I can feel it in my gut. I rationalize it away. I knew Hunter was a badass, but I guess he was involved in some shit before he met me, before he had Matty.
He wouldn’t want to ruin a potential future with Matty, now would he? I mean, suspicious activity, nefarious activity would bring the cops here and Matty would go to foster care!
Over my dead body.
“You swear to God you’re not involved in any more illegal activity? Like you’re a hundred percent squeaky clean?”
