Never Been Kissed(34)

My nose stings, the cartilage cracking with the stress. Tears well up in my eyes, the pain radiating out to my cheekbones. Jesus, it feels like I got a soccer ball right in the kisser.

“Fuck. Sorry, Sera.” Hunter’s big hands grab my shoulders, cupping them in his warm hands. Shoulda opted for the heels and the increased height. Then again, snapping my ankle because of a mistaken step doesn’t sound like a lot of fun either.

“Bad word, bad word!” Matty bounces at Hunt’s feet, jumping in circles like he’s pretending to be the rotating Earth. Sugar high much? “I get a quarter!”

When Matty stops jumping around long enough to hug my leg, I push the hair back off his forehead, feeling the dampness of sweat along his scalp. I frown at Hunter.

He shrugs, looking sheepish. “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.”

There may be something there, some sort of unease that Hunter has about leaving his kid at his Mom’s. Whatever. Definitely not first date conversation. My first date ever!

“Ready to go, little buddy?” I ask Matty, keeping my eyes off Hunter. I haven’t even registered what he’s wearing. I don’t want to. In the rush of getting dressed, I haven’t been nervous. Now, my bladder’s being an asshole again, set to bursting. The tank’s too hot for me; I should be running around in a bikini to regulate my body temperature.

“Where are you and Daddy going?” I look up at Hunter, study his profile as we walk into the elevator. Anatomically speaking, guys have this brooding forehead thing, like the bone just above their eyebrows, center of their foreheads juts out. Good nose. Nice cheekbones, no pierced ears or neck tats. He’s a secret badass. I like that.

I don’t know what to tell Matty – joke around? Lie? I’ve known him for such a short time and I’m going to be lying to him. This whole dating Hunter thing just got a thousand times more complicated.

“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?” Recognize comes out as recon-nice. Adorable.

Hunter shakes his head no, and puts a hand around my waist.

Red alert, red alert! Houston, we are going to DEFCON 1. I prance away from him, into the infamous corner. Hunter’s eyes get lazy, go half-closed; I swallow hard, and look everywhere but at him.

Matty’s buzzing in front of me, bouncing on the balls of his feet, that tuft of hair going up and down, up and down at the back of his head, humming along to a song I don’t know. My stomach twists, fire burning up my throat – he’s high on sugar. To most kids, they’ll crash in ten minutes, be sluggish and lazy as their insulin deals with the sugar overload in their systems.

To Matty – it can be deadly.

I want to hit something. I want to punch the wall until my knuckles bleed. All of it, Hunter and Matty being diabetic... it just fraking sucks big time. My right fist gets covered with Hunter’s giant paws. When I look up at him, he gives me a slight shake of his head, a sad smile in the corner of his mouth. He smoothes out my fingers, making them curl out until we’re palm to palm, and he tugs me closer, lacing our fingers together.

I’ve never held a guy’s hand before. I like it a lot. I should just permanently attach myself to his hand. Warm and strong. He grazes my Batman ring and smirks at me. Once a nerd, always a nerd.

As I watch Matty and worry, Hunter keeps holding my hand.

“Don’t worry, Sera,” he says, voice close to my ear. “He’s going to be okay. I promise.”

“How do you know that?” I mutter, watching Matty jump around, stomach squirming with worms of worry.

Hunter squeezes my hand. “Because this isn’t new for him. This happens a lot. And he gets through it. Every single time.”

I can only nod.

Hunter straps Matty into the car seat after settling me into the passenger’s side. I turn to look back at Matty who gives me a wave like he hasn’t seen me in two days. I find myself smiling, trying to ignore the glassy-eyed look on the kid’s face, or the flushed cheeks.

I don’t pay attention to the trip over to Hunt’s mom’s house. When he pulls up in front of Montreal’s equivalent to a mansion I nearly swallow my tongue. I become acutely aware that I’m wearing Converse and not Louboutins, a badass nerdy tank that I bought for twenty bucks, and jeans from Old Navy. My entire outfit cost about enough to pay for one brick in the northeast corner of this palace that Hunter grew up in. Well fraking shit.