Never Been Loved

by Kars, C. M.

  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.

  Maybe, one day, if I play my cards right, she’ll let me run my fingers through that hair and pull her close enough to taste her mouth, taste her tongue, figure out what kind of sounds she makes when I do something she more than likes.

  Perverted bastard. Don’t push her to do anything she doesn’t want to. A girl like that, she’s worth waiting decades for.

  Christ, I hope it doesn’t take that long.

  “Were you staring at my ass?” she asks around her finger, sucking on it and grimacing. Hitting a nerve on the tips of your fingers hurts like a mother; my dick shouldn’t be twitching at that, but the image is too much for me to handle.

  And she doesn’t even know what she’s doing to me.

  Busted. Might as well just spit out the truth. “Unabashedly.”

  Her eyebrows drop down low on her face. My lips twitch as she drops her finger from her mouth.“What? Why?”

  I don’t know what to say. Is this a game? Has she been talking to Aly? People have always wanted things from me, always. There’s only so much you can give before you run dry and there isn’t enough left in yourself to face the day. I’ve been neglected, left alone to deal with my illness instead of being supported. I entered a toxic ass relationship because, on some sick level in the cracks of my soul, I thought it’s what I deserved.

  I lean forward to grab the doorframe of the car, almost caging her in, like a prick-bastard but I can’t seem to stop myself. I catch her eyes pinball to my bicep, to my chest, then back to my face only to rinse and repeat.

  She doesn’t get why I would be looking at her, which mean she isn’t in the frame of mind I want her to be in, to think of me as hers. Because fucking right, I want to be. I want to be the one sitting next to her on the leather of my beat-up couch.

  I want to be the one watching her face as she experiences the movies with the characters. Hell, when she’s reading a book and something exciting or scary as fuck happens, I want her to toss the brick of a novel down and run into my arms. I want to be her anchor to reality, because I’ve never been that to anybody. I’ve never really been anybody’s anything, not in that way.

  And it would be an honour and a privilege to be hers.

  “I think about your ass a lot.” And there goes my fucking mouth again. God, if you’re hearing this, stop laughing. Fix my brain-mouth connection, would ya? I’m trying to get the girl of my dreams to start liking me, thanks.

  “HUNTER MACLAINE WHERE IS MY GRANDSON?”

  Saved by Mom. And the reminder that I have to walk up those bastard stairs and see Eddie again. Endure the begging to visit written all over his face.

  I turn to see Matty practically on all fours, climbing each and every step with hands and feet in the mix. I’m irritated and annoyed that he couldn’t just wait so I could pick him up, or that my mother could calm the fuck down long enough so I can actually have a conversation with –

  Nails dig into my bicep, and my whole body erupts in shivers, down my back to my heels and toes, and up my neck, tingling along my scalp. Like I’ve been kissed by lightning.

  “Your last name is MacLaine?” Sera asks, eyes wide, face split into the most excited of smiles, it coaxes my heart into running sprints with Usain Bolt. Her nails are digging into my skin, both hands wrapped around my arm. I’m electrified with that single point of contact.

  All I can do is lift my eyebrows at her in a silent question.

  “Is your dad’s name John?” she asks, and with every word, her grip gets tighter. If I wince, I might break the spell. Christ, she starts nibbling her lower lip, breaths coming out fast through her nose as she waits for my answer.

  I don’t even want to tell her the truth now, anything to keep her attention on me like I matter.

  “No.” I grin, because I don’t know what’s got her so riled up, staring down at where she’s marking a place on my body with her little she-claws. “But I really want it to be if it puts that fire in your eyes.”

  “You’re joking me right? You’re last name’s McClane! I’m going to start hyperventilating.” Sera looks like she’s going to start doing back flips, she’s so excited about my last name. I’m not even sure why. But whatever it is, I want her to smile like that every day for the rest of her life.

  “Can you wait until after we eat? I’m starving.” Smooth, bro. Real smooth. With that I pull back, while my hand traces the inside of her elbow, up her forearm quick enough to snag her hand in mine.

  Climbing up these stairs feels less like I’m carrying a jumbo jet on my shoulders, and more like an elephant that’s gone full on glutton. The uneasiness and guilt still does that hollowing out feeling in my gut and queasy things to my stomach, but it’s more bearable this time around.

  I hate that Sera notices, too. She can probably feel me tensing up between our joined hands. We make it to the threshold, and I stomp through, ignoring the goosebumps making a home on my skin, or the way the cavernous entryway makes me feel like I’ve been left all alone in a mausoleum.

  Mom comes sweeping in, probably after instructing Matty to take off his sneakers so she didn’t have to do it. I used to think my mom was beautiful, and she is – on th
e outside. But if I look closely, her eyes are icy blue even though they’re the same shade as mine. Her hair is tight and hair-sprayed perfectly flat to her head, not a trace of frizz. The clothes were always immaculately ironed and cleaned, and the material is soft and expensive.

  She’s beautiful, yeah, but unreachable, and when you’re eighteen years old—fuck no matter how old you are—and you’ve just found out your life is never going to be the same again, you want your mom to tell you it’s going to be okay, not to look at you like it’s your very own fault.

  Like I fucking asked for it.

  “Hunter, what is she doing here? What happened to Alysha? Is she on her way? Do tell her to come inside as soon as she arrives, Edouard, won’t you?”

  I hate how rude she is, but I can’t seem to use my mouth now to say something rude and sarcastic. I’m ashamed of her, of this big house that has nothing but bad memories. Her perfume sits like a dense cloud around us, and I don’t want to follow her inside, I really, really don’t.

  I’m a shit. I shouldn’t’ve brought Sera here. I shouldn’t even have attempted to bring her here, to pretend like my past is nothing, like I could be good enough for her.

  I drop her hand like it’s on fire. I’m an idiot for doing it, ‘cause Mom takes the time to make everyone uncomfortable by tracing the distance between my hand and hers over and over again with her eyes, making my skin itch.

  Plus, she had to go and mention fucking Aly. To Sera. I have no business dating a girl like her, none.

  “She’s not coming, Mom. We’ll be back around midnight. See you then.” I go for straight to the point. Trust Hilary MacLaine to make you pay for every second of lost explanation.

  Mom puts Matty down and faces the two of us, looking between Sera and I. Yeah, Sera’s too good for this, I don’t need to complicate her life with my goddamned stupidity, or the kid.

  “Midnight, you say?” Mom asks, and the words drip ice, I can practically feel the mucus in my nose going arctic. Her face is smooth and composed and it’s so fucking scary my heart trips over itself. The whole thing just screams obey and I’m so tired of listening.