Never Been Loved(67)

“Yeah. We’ll talk. But not before I score a hat-trick!”





Chapter 17



She has skills, I’ll give her that, but Christ, she doesn’t play fair. She just had to roll her skirt up, just fucking had to.

Her long hair is flowing in the wind, distracting me with its vanilla frosting scent, and she keeps laughing and pulling these moves that got me having to physically use my brawn to keep her from shredding my ego. Not that I’d mind.

Matty gets into it, too, practically trying to break her leg when he fans the ball and tries to get it away from her. I call a penalty kick ’cause in whatever game you’re playing there have to be consequences, and the kid needs to learn that, sooner rather than later.

Still makes me feel like a shit, though, especially when he gives me that wounded look that reminds me so much of my sister.

But the kid notches his chin up and gets in net, and stares down at Sera like he’s willing her to miss. Sorry kid, that’s not going to happen. Consequences and all that shit.

I don’t know what I’m doing half the time – I don’t know how to be a parent. The way I was brought didn’t help me none. I have no pointers from my mom and my dad’s been long gone for a while. So yeah, I have no idea what I’m doing.

But I don’t think it’s impossible to figure out.

Kids nowadays, well, ninety percent of them are little shits, lack respect and don’t know their asses from their elbows. Matty’s not going to be like that – he’s going to grow up to be the man I could never be.

It’s not a hardship to step close to Sera, to watch the wind play with her hair, the sun turn it bright. And Christ, that skirt, rolled higher up on her waist so I can see her bare knees – she has scars on both of them, maybe battle wounds from an overactive childhood. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for.

I’ve known Sera for only a short while, but it sure as hell didn’t take long to tell that she’s extremely kind, maybe too kind. She’s going to want to miss. Staring at her profile, I catch her eyeing the far post, and not the angle where the ball should get in the net, either. Nah, she’s going to miss on purpose, because that’s who she is.

I’m not going to let her.

I step in close, her ass almost flush with my dick, the thing pulses, practically waving ‘hello, nice to meet you’ in my jeans, and I get my mouth on a sweet spot on the side of her throat, feel the pulsing of her vein and her sharp intake of breath.

Now I’m thinking of a bed, and her and me in it.

It is not cool to be sporting a stiffie in the middle of a kid’s park. Get that shit under control, man. Now!

My scheming plan worked; Sera actually scores a goal, and Matty starts going mental. The kid keeps kicking the ball in the net, screaming incomprehensibly. The hole in my chest blows open wide to swallow me whole, and I move over to him, speaking to him softly.

“Matty, Matty you have to stop what you’re doing, before you hurt yourself. Come here.” Jules’ kid lets himself get corralled by my long arms, and closer to my body.

The kid’s face is crumpled until his features have twisted in agony. At four years old, Matty knows there’s something wrong with him, and sometimes, he crashes into the wall that are our limitations of what we can do. Until the careful dieting and watchful doses of insulin aren’t enough anymore.

Until every little thing, just like a goal that was scored on you in a game of pick-up soccer is enough to destroy the very foundations on which you stand. Because that’s all it is in the end, a game of pretend, our lives – pretending that we’re normal, that we’re healthy – when we are not. And that the kid has to learn that at such a young age has enraged me since we found out he was diabetic.

This shouldn’t be happening, not to him, not to me. Why can’t the scum of the earth get sick? Why do they get to keep breathing the same air as I do and continue to hurt people?

Gritting my teeth, I pull the kid in for a hug, and while I’m not used to giving hugs, I know he needs it.

What I wouldn’t have given for my dad to have hugged me when I was a kid. Shit, if the old man showed up now, and really looked at me and hugged me while thumping me on the back, I might disgrace myself and bawl my eyes out.

Matty sobs harder in my shoulder, and I’m all too aware of Sera looking down at the pair of us, probably disgusted by our mutual weakness. I keep rubbing his back, keep lying to him, telling him it’s okay, when it sure as shit is never going to be. I hug him tighter until he settles down, sniffing a wad of snot, and angrily wiping away his tears.

He lets me carry him back home, with Sera following behind us. The kid’s a mass of arms and legs, like a live blanket thrown over half my body, but I don’t mind. Not when it’s this important. I don’t want him to ever feel alone when he confronts his sickness, not like Mom left me alone, not like Jules did – until it was too late.