Never Been Loved(54)

She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

I've got my hands running along her back, until she's leaning back and  getting off of me with flaming cheeks, and not looking at me.

Fuck, no.

"I'll see you in bed," she mutters, and I'm ready to start fucking  yelling. Yeah, that was fucking great, but I was used. Used, like Aly  used me.

Hold it, asshole, and keep that trap closed.

Sera walks out of the bathroom, shuffling more like it without looking away from her feet. Is she …  ashamed of what we did here?

Does she hate me that much?

Read the signs, dickhead. Get your head out of your ass and pay attention to the details.

I look across the hall and Sera pulls the sheets away from my bed and lies down. She's not going anywhere  –  I hope.

I decide to take a quick shower, and give her the benefit of the doubt.  Maybe I pushed her too hard. She said she wanted to sleep in the first  place.

Fuck, I'm such an asshole.

I get out of the shower, towel myself off and head to the living room to  shut off the TV. When I get to my room, she's still got her back to me,  so I drop the towel and scavenger hunt in my dresser for clean boxers.

I need to do laundry. I fucking hate doing laundry.

Getting into my bed on my side, I slide in close to her, wondering if  her closed eyes actually means she's fallen asleep. Somehow, I don't  think so.

"Sera? You awake?"

She mumbles something, and I think her eyes are open now.

"Can I give you this shirt to wear and you throw your nerdy one on the floor?"

"Why?"

This is going to sound stupid, but maybe she'll go for it.

"For one, I love seeing you in my clothes. For second, baby, I've been  waiting a long time for those nerdy shirts of yours to be on my bedroom  floor. Please?"

She sighs, but moves to her back and fiddles around until she gets my  shirt on her head. Okay, I feel better. It's dumb as hell, but I feel  better. Maybe I didn't do anything wrong. Maybe this is all new for her.

Hell, it's all new for me, too.

When she's done, I get an arm hooked around her and haul her close,  getting a leg between hers, rolling her into my side and practically  crushing her with my body. I start nuzzling into her neck. The only way  to do that is to give it to someone to help you share the load.

"You're going to learn some bad things about me, Sera. Real shitty  things about the asshole I used to be. I don't want it to touch you, but  it will. I want you to remember us, like this, before you run off on  me."

"Okay," she whispers. I have a feeling she's not taking this seriously.

"I'm being serious, baby. Judge me on the man I am now, and not the kid I  was back then. S'all I'm asking of you. God, I can't believe you're in  bed with me. And you're letting me hold you like this."

"Why wouldn't I let you hold me like this, Hunter?" Shit.

"You're so good to me. You're so good to Matty, even after all the shit that's gone down, you're still here. With me."

"I gave you a hand job. That does not constitute me ‘being good to you'. You're freaking me out. What does the past matter?"         

     



 

Sera's so unbelievably sweet. I lean in to kiss her but only get the  corner of her mouth. "It matters, baby. It just does. I'll tell you when  I'm ready, all right?"

"Fine, whatever. Good night."

"And the hand job was spectacular. I saw the sun at a close-range distance."

She snorts, trying to hide behind the covers.

"You think Aly ever had a juice or candy for me in her purse? Sera, when  you kiss me, you kiss me. I'm not a mouth to you; I'm not just a cock."

She turns to me now, and it's amazing. Everything about her is amazing. "You have those things, you are not just those things."

"Exactly."

"I'm not following."

I move some hair behind her ear, trace the skin of her cheek with my  fingers, down over her nose, her lips. I don't want to be telling her  this, but she needs to know  –  for all our sakes.

"I'm a way to get off, baby. I'm also a paycheck, a guarantee of a cozy future."

"Where does Matty factor into all this?"

"He doesn't. She'd ship him off as soon as the marriage license was signed. Not gonna happen."

"Yeah, over my fraking dead body. Who the hell does she think she is?  Lilith?" She gets a hand on the side of my neck and I like that a hell  of a lot. Also, I have no fucking clue what she just said? Who the hell  is Lilith?

"Are you talking about one of your shows again?"

"You bet."

I chuckle. I love how her shows get mixed up in the words she says. There's always going to be something to talk about. Always.

"Which one is this?"

I learn about this show called Supernatural, which sounds stupid, but I  keep my mouth shut. Sera tells me there's these two brothers that travel  in this solid1967 Chevy Impala across America fighting monsters and  whatever baddies go bump in the night. But then she gets into it, what  the story means to her, and she sounds like she's almost in love with  the two of them  –  and they aren't even real.

Here I am, jealous again of fictional characters.

She gets into the story, talking about the apocalypse and about some  angels and demons, and hell, even Lucifer, and some monsters I didn't  quite catch the names of.

"Aren't you terrified of going to go to sleep every night? What if we  lived in a world where all that shit existed?" I'm man enough to say I'm  shit-scared of horror movies. My life's enough of a roller-coaster  ride, thanks.

"I already have packets of salt in my purse for such an occasion. Salt  stops, like, eighty percent of things that go bump in the night. And,  and, and the whole show is about killing these things. It's basically  like a manual. I know how to kill everything already," she tells me.

"Fuck."

"What?" Sera asks.

"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 think only you see me that way."

Don't get pissed. She's admitting something to you; this isn't a game. "Baby, it's not my fault you haven't noticed."

"Right." She yawns. "I'm tired, I want to go to sleep now. Would you shut up? Wait a sec, Hunt. Who's Jules?"

I know she feels it, my hesitation, the way I'm strung tight. I was doing so well …  and I can't get into this now.

Not when Sera's not mine yet.

"It doesn't matter. She's Matty's mom and she died a long time ago.  Sweet dreams, baby." I kiss her, feel the distance between us even  though I've practically molded my body around her. I've fucked shit up.

Again.



There's a tug of war in the morning that I let Sera win. She gets out of  bed, and even though I let her, I think we both know I'm in no shape to  be getting up right now. My sugar's high enough to make me feel like I  should do nothing for the next forty-eight hours. It's something like  right after stuffing my face Thanksgiving dinner and feeling like a ton  of bricks are in my stomach and sleep is the only thing that sounds  good.

I'm foggy this morning, and when I open my eyes and blink a few times,  my vision's still blurry. Just another reminder of how diabetes is  kicking my ass. And I was good yesterday, I really was.

I didn't eat shit, and fuck, what Sera and I did, it's pretty much like a  workout at the gym. So I should've been cool. Maybe I'm going to have  to adjust my insulin, keep tabs on how I feel with the new change.         

     



 

Fuck.

Couldn't I just be thinking about coffee like a normal person?

I hear Sera waking the kid up, tickling him awake. I haven't heard him  laugh like that in a long time. Shit, what am I doing here?

"What's up, little man? What's with the glum face?" I hear Sera ask him.

"Where did you come from?"

Oh, shit. Yeah, didn't think of that when you were dreaming about Sera's pussy, now were you?

"Well, uh, from next door, of course!"

"I don't like Sundays," he says.

"Nobody likes Sundays, kid. It's a fact of life."

"Tomorrow is Mondaaaaaay," Matty whines. "I have to go to school tomorrow, and I don't wanna!"

The kid's legit crying. I need to get up, I need to get up.

My legs are solidified with cement, and my abs just won't listen and contract to shove my ass up. I need my insulin, bad.

C'mon, MacLaine. Deal with one emergency first. Sera's got this.

"Matty!? What the bloody hell is going on?!"

I shuffle out of my room, holding onto the wall 'cause my head is  swimming. I get to the kitchen and listen with half on ear on the pair  of them.

"Kids at school make fun of meeeeeeee. 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!"

"You know, kids used to make fun of me, too." There it is. There it fucking is.